Part I: Blended Families - Fact or Fiction?

So, is it truly possible to take him and his, then add her and hers and blend them all together to make a blended family?

Let's say each of the divorced parents remarried to someone who had one child from a previous marriage. Now you each have to navigate 44 relationships. Your 2 children have to obey 6 different adults with differing ideas of right and wrong. They each have to be siblings to children from 3 other families with no one in final authority to settle disputes.

Think about that for a moment...

And we dare wonder why there are problems... children acting out... HA.... I jiggle like a bowl full of jelly with laughter...

How do we handle it? The "experts" say a lot about it - on a side note, am I the only one who's noticed a lot of the experts have absolutely no personal experience in these matters? - anyway, they always talk about consistency, word power, etc. Want to know what I think? Oooh...Come on...Sure you do, that's why you're here right? hehehehe

Ok... I've been a child of divorce, and remarriage... and a couple more of both too to be honest. And now, I too am one of the divorcee statistics. So... in som small way I'd like to think that this gives me a unique (ok, not so unique) or thorough perspective.

To summarize my opinion, it SUCKS, no ifs, ands or buts about it! From my adult (ha) perspective of today, it's truly difficult. I can see where being someone without children or being with someone without would make things so much more simple. However, it's not the real world...you don't meet a whole lot of people who are single and still have no children once you've reached a certain age bracket.

But, let's think about this... can you and this new person ever truly be partners then? Will you ever be a not single parent? The fact is that it really doesn't change an enormous amount. Here's the thing, this new person in your life is still going to be 100% in their kids lives, regardless of if they life with him/her or not. This means that while you and yours may have Monday night baseball, they and theirs have Monday night golf lessons....NOW WHAT?

This is a reality that sucks... it is when you realize that you're still a single parent... that you will ALWAYS and FOREVER MORE be a single parent. WOW... now that is some nasty crud huh!?!?!

They and theirs will certainly be going in a different direction than you and yours... again with the WOW factor. Now what?

Do you date only those without kids? That's kind of unrealistic... find a great partner with kids vs. find an OK partner without, which makes better long-term sense?

Do you never settle down (so to speak) until all the kids are old enough to where they don't want anything to do with you anyway? HA... well, that could get pretty sad and pretty lonely.

Date someone extraordinarily older or younger than yourself? Hm...possibilities...

Forget it all and crawl into a hole.... Yup... that's the one.

Ok, Ok, if you have kids, the hole crawling option isn't really an option. If you're anything like me, you're happy to find someone who cares for and about children. But it still answers NO QUESTIONS AT ALL.

Forever a single parent, even if I date, live with, marry or whatever with one person for the next 50 years... WOW... talk about a sucker punch.

Therefore, In reality, a truly blended family would be FICTION (unless of course one or more of the exes is "passed on" - not likely).

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... .... Part I;

... ... ... ... Part II tomorrow...