By Captain Gene Thomas Gomulka
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Dear Gene-Thomas, I’m dating a soldier who was married before
and has two kids. My friends are telling me that marrying someone
with children from a previous relationship is asking for trouble.
I love him, but I don’t know if I’m prepared to help raise his children.
Any recommendations?
Monique
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Dear Monique,
Your friends are wise in cautioning you about the potential problems
involved in marrying someone with children from one or more previous
relationships. Nevertheless, there are also many cases where this
has not proven problematic for some couples.
A Marine with whom I served on active duty married a young divorced
woman with two small children. He loved her and the children so
much that he adopted the two girls even though it meant cutting
off child support payments from their father. In time they had two
boys of their own. The girls loved their stepfather as much as any
child could love his or her own father, and all four kids bonded
very well together.
I also know a divorced sailor with two teenaged boys who married
a young woman who, despite multiple efforts, could not find acceptance
with his sons. Their mother, with whom they visited twice a month,
did everything in her power to turn her sons against their stepmother
and destroy her husband's second marriage. Unfortunately, the new
wife found herself caught in a number of "cross-fires" that in time
led her to seek a divorce.
In my book, The Survival Guide
for Marriage in the Military, I point out that "When a couple
give birth to their own children, their love for one another is
often strengthened. When a couple marries and one or both of them
bring with them a child or children from another relationship, these
children can, in some cases, contribute to the dissolution of the
marriage. However, the chances for a marriage to survive involving
children from a previous relationship are significantly enhanced
when the children are accepting of their stepmother or stepfather."
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It is generally more difficult to raise someone else's children
than to raise one's own. While it can be difficult in some cases
to raise children of a parent who remarried after a spouse's death,
it is even more difficult if one's parents are divorced. A number
of factors can make this situation more or less difficult to handle.
For example, how does the mother of the children relate to her former
husband's new wife? Do the children look upon their father's or
mother's new spouse as someone who contributed to their parents'
divorce, or are they happy that their mother or father has found
a new mate to share life and love? Do the children sometimes try
to play a parent against a stepparent when the stepparent may attempt
to exercise a certain degree of discipline?
The younger preadolescent children are when their parent's remarry,
the easier it generally is to accept a stepparent into their lives.
Teenage children are often more traumatized than young children
by divorce. Hence, partners should be well informed of ways to help
a child or children avoid experiencing various problems that can
result when their parents divorce.
Unless a couple do not intend to have children, or may be too old
to have children of their own after one or both of them had children
earlier, new born children can not only strengthen the love of the
natural parents, but their presence at times can also help their
stepbrother(s) and/or stepsister(s) be less critical of their own
mother's or father's new spouse.
Because of the challenges that people can experience in raising
a child or children from a previous relationship, it is important
that, before accepting a proposal to marry, you thoroughly discuss
this issue with your boyfriend, as well as explore and critique
other aspects of your relationship. Children may also need to be
counseled about how they should relate to a new stepparent in a
way so as not to harm their natural parent's chances for love and
happiness. Military chaplains and counselors, along with civilian
counselors contracted with Military One Source at 800-342-9647,
can be very helpful in this regard.
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Have a question? Write Gene Gomulka at letters@plaintec.net
© 2005 Gene Thomas Gomulka. All opinions
expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily
reflect those of Military.com.
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