How To Accept The Children Of The Husband From The First Marriage? - Relationships, Society

2023 Author: Oswald Adamson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 12:13

Remarriage can be successful, but it has its own challenges. How to build relationships with children from the husband's first marriage? Will this connection prevent you from maintaining harmony in your new family? Will stepbrothers and sisters be friends? Practicing psychologist Tatyana Litvinova answers these and other important questions

People who remarried have already been "burned", and these people are worried: lest the previous experience be repeated. Sometimes such couples live in a civil marriage for a long time, without haste to register.

Imagine, as is often the case, a woman marries a divorced man who already has children. Registered or not yet, they build a life together, getting used to each other. The husband and wife now have to decide how they will communicate with the relatives of both. And among these relatives are the husband's children from a previous marriage.

In this situation, everyone faces difficulties: husband and wife, ex-wife, children from first and second marriages

Difficulties of dad and mom of children from first marriage

Imagine a woman whose ex-husband and the father of her children have married another. She fantasizes about how he now lives with the other. Maybe this “other” is already expecting a child from the man who was her husband.

Even if the woman was not against the divorce, even if she says to her friends: “How good that this“treasure”is no longer mine!” - these are difficult experiences for her

She represents a man who is caring for another woman's child and may feel jealous, resentful, angry. She remembers the past, when the father of her children was with her, when they may have loved each other.

Imagine a dad entering a new marriage. Maybe she and her new wife are already expecting a baby. The man is preparing to become a father again. He, like his ex-wife, cannot but remember his former family. He compares the old and new wife, and he too has many feelings. This is both hope and anxiety (what if the new marriage will not be successful either?). He may miss his children, feel guilty in front of them for not expecting a child from their mother. It won't be easy for him to talk to them about it.

The man's difficulty also lies in the fact that now he becomes a father in two places

Will he continue to play a fatherly role for children from his first marriage? Will she keep in touch with their mother? How will communication with a new wife be improved for a man who has children of his own, both from her and from another woman?

The relationship of children with a dad who no longer lives with them

How is the relationship between children and their father, who left the family after the divorce? Sometimes it happens that a man, after a conflict and parting with his wife, stops communicating with her and with the children. It happens that the new wife insists on this. In this case, the father can communicate with them secretly. Usually fathers and children meet more and more rarely. Keeping in touch with children after a divorce is not easy, and the relationship will never be the same. But this does not mean that they will necessarily worsen. They will inevitably develop in a new way, because a man has obligations to another family. And no matter how bitter it is for the children from the former family, the new family is now the main one.

Contacts with the former family means communication not only with children, but also with the ex-wife. Of course, you can pay alimony without talking to your “ex,” but, for example, you have to negotiate with the mother to pick up the child for the weekend

Ex-spouses have a difficult time communicating, both may have a history of resentment behind them, and often try to avoid direct contact. For example, transferring something to each other through a child (“tell your mom …”). There are times when the mother tries to isolate the children from the father who left the family and the child begins to believe that he himself does not want to communicate with such a dad. For example, when the father calls, he refuses to talk to him.

It happens that the father no longer communicates with the children from his first marriage. But most often he keeps in touch in one way or another. Relationships vary, ranging from occasional phone or Skype conversations to regular meetings, inviting children to visit, or taking them on vacation.

The relationship of these children with his new wife can also be very diverse, ranging from the complete refusal of the new wife to see them (it happens that the husband sees them secretly from her) to frequent meetings and close relationships between them.

New wife and relationships between children from first and second marriage

Will both families allow children to communicate with each other? Will they grow up communicating like brothers and sisters? In the most favorable cases for the emotional development of children (and for their future ability to build their own families), they communicate and are accepted in both families.

Even in these favorable cases, the relationship is complicated by many natural human feelings. Each wife (both former and current) is jealous of a man for another wife, and a child for another family in which he is

The child from the first marriage is jealous of the younger one, who lives with his father, and is offended by his father. Living with a father receives more not only in material terms, he gets more emotionally rich contacts with dad. All this reinforces the already existing usual rivalry between brothers and sisters.

When deciding to marry a man who has children from his first marriage, a woman may not have realized how difficult it could be for her. The “invasion” of her home by children from another home often feels like a violation of her own family boundaries. Who are these children to her? Her family too? Their very presence is reminiscent of the existence of another woman.

Comparison of children inevitably turns on in my head. An involuntary rivalry begins; I want my children to be better. So that the husband was with her and her children, so that he would never want to return to his former family.

Some women find it especially difficult to put up with the fact that the husband communicates with the children of “the one, the former”. Usually these are women whose own childhood was difficult

Often these are women who themselves grew up without fathers. They might like to think that children will be even better off if that other family is deleted from their lives and not remembered.

Of course, a child from a divorced family still needs both a mother and a father. It is important for him to know that he is not abandoned and remains loved. But, oddly enough, the child from the second marriage also gains a lot in this communication. He gets brothers or sisters. And for the future - friendship and support, not enmity between grown children.

And most importantly, the child sees in his father a reliable person who does not abandon his children

By the way, the new wife, who, being jealous, does not want to let her husband go to his “old” children, may not realize that his desire to see them and his readiness to support them is a good sign. If a man is able to love his children, then he will want to communicate with “this” and “that”. If he is a responsible person, he will take care of both "this" and "that".