I’ll tell him about the children later, when he falls in love…
Do women with children from their first marriage have fears related to the fact that suddenly their beloved man, future husband, will not get along with the children? How will the children react to him? Will her marriage lead to a deterioration in her relationship with her children? What if the worst thing happens — the children are physically or sexually abused by their stepfather? The Internet and social networks are full of such stories… It’s scary to even think about it.
Children are also afraid and do not want an unfamiliar person to come to their family; due to their selfishness, children do not want to share their mother’s attention with someone else. It happens that they do everything to “expel” the stranger from their territory, because the mother, as a rule, brings the man into her house/apartment.
Dear mothers who are trying to get married, accept that starting a family and building relationships will be more difficult, however, you should not be sad or give up, if you have a need and desire, then you need to act! It happens that women make mistakes by rushing into new relationships without looking back, without analyzing their actions and without increasing their psychological literacy in these matters. Therefore, it is advisable to contact a psychologist for an individual consultation or study at a seminar, but if you do not have such an opportunity, then you can educate yourself by reading books and articles, and then test the recommendations in practice.
The most basic thing you need to know and do if you have children from a previous marriage and are trying to build a new relationship.
1. Understand yourself by answering the question of why you need a husband? I already wrote about this in the article Do you need to get married?
Do you really need a man to be happy, to give and receive love, to share joys and sorrows? Or is it a means for you to solve your problems? Answer yourself honestly! In the first case, you will not burden your chosen one with problems and endless requests for help, since you have learned to cope with this, you will not have complaints or disappointed expectations. There is another extreme, when a strong and self-sufficient woman begins to solve the problems of a man who “falls” into the position of a child; try to avoid this mistake.
2. Before you start searching for your chosen one, work on your self-esteem; as a rule, for most divorced women, it is not entirely adequate. What do I understand by the statement “not entirely adequate self-esteem”? Your self-esteem may not correspond to reality: it may be low and then you will grab the first partner you come across and hold on to relationships that do not suit you, or it may be excessively high (compensatory) and you will choose men who are completely unsuitable for you, with whom it is impossible to build a full-fledged relationship.
3. On the first date, tell the man that you have children; you don’t need to describe their advantages and disadvantages in length and detail, just say that you have a child/children from your first marriage. Some mothers try to hide this fact, believing that it is better to talk about children later, when the relationship begins to develop; such behavior is perceived by the partner as deception and destroys trust. If your partner is not ready to accept other people’s children, then it is better to find out right away and not make plans, hoping that “maybe he will love my children because he likes me.” There are, of course, exceptions, and this happens, however, as surveys show, most men (especially those who do not yet have children) are still not ready to accept other people’s children and build relationships with them.
It happens that a woman tries to immediately introduce her chosen one to her children, and often, due to many reasons, this leads to a deterioration in relations between all participants in communication. Because many important factors are not taken into account: the desire and readiness of children to meet each other, the man’s status: “lover”, “friend”, “beloved person”, etc., the man’s inability to behave with children, the woman’s fear that the children and the man will not like him to each other and so on. When can you introduce a man to your children? There is no exact and unambiguous answer, each situation is unique, however, family psychologists agree on the following questions:
- about the need to determine the status of a man, preferably that this is your future husband, with whom you plan to marry in the near future;
- the need to prepare children and men for a dating situation, as well as understanding the options for the development of this situation and your actions if something does not go as you planned.