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How will you really know when you are ready? Great question. There are many things to consider; however, as you've probably been told, "There is no good time to have a baby." Are either of you still in school? And if so, how much time will that take away from parenting? [More]

Well here we are again, the busy month of January behind us, the holiday glow has dampened and life is back! I am not sure about you, but for me the holidays give a great opportunity to practice boundaries. There are so many opportunities for being pulled here and there. As well, with family involved who cannot need to be able to communicate clearly a confident set of boundaries? Chapter 9 which deals with boundaries within a marriage is jammed full of useful tips on how one can conduct his/herself as well as what one can choose to tolerate and when to put your foot down. One part that stuck out for me most is that of taking responsibility for what I can control…ME and truthfully ONLY me. Page 164 gave a nice chart of some examples of how we can take control of our own actions versus being powerless in a situation. I will warn you for those who boundaries are not natural this will need some practice. I do believe over time with a renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2) we can begin to see ourselves as God does and thus we can demand in a loving way to be treated as the bible clearly lays out in Ephesians. Examples of how to take control of what I can: Before Boundaries After Boundaries 1. “Stop yelling at me. You must be nicer.” 1. “You can continue to yell if you choose to. But I will choose not to be in your presence when you act that way.” 2. “You’ve just got to stop drinking. It’s ruining our family. Please listen. You’re wreaking our lives.” 2. You may choose to not deal with your drinking if you want. But I will not continue to expose myself and the children to this chaos. The next time you are drunk , we will go to the Wilsons’ for the night, and we will tell them why we are there. Your drinking is a choice. What I put up with is mine.” 3. “You’re a pervert to look at pornography. That’s so degrading. What kind of sic person are you anyways?” 3. I will not choose to share you sexually with naked women in magazines. It’s up to you. I will only sleep with someone who is interested in me. Make up your mind and choose.” Cloud, H., & Townsend, J. (1992) Boundaries: When to say Yes, When to say No; to take control of your life. (Pg 164) Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan. What is interesting when we look at these examples of how to communicate boundaries is that some women may be confused about how setting consequences is submissive or is respecting her husband. What needs to be understood is that both husbands and wives are to be submissive in a marriage. We need to remember as women that boundaries are not about being mean, or denying others. Boundaries are the personal property lines which define who we are, what we are responsible for, and where we have limits and limitations. Having clear boundaries is essential for a healthy, balanced lifestyle as well as for spiritual growth and for our ability to give and receive love.(Pg 31) The Bible does speak clearly about boundaries in a marriage: 22-24 Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands. 25-28 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage. Ephesians 5:24-28 The Message (MSG)

By Tanya Glover Theravive.com Contributor Once upon a time, a man and a woman would get married and have children. Together they would raise these children and watch them leave the nest. They would then retire and spend the rest of their lives in matching rockers. While this still does happen in the year 2012, it is not the norm anymore. With divorce rates soaring as high as they have ever been, step families are also classified as the norm. Even though this is a normal situation, there are challenges that a couple should think about before they say I Do again. Any marriage that begins with children from previous relationships can cause some challenging situations. Before a person with children should remarry, they should confront three main issues in order to ensure that all is as harmonious as possible. Finances and custody/living arrangements: The majority of people who are remarrying do not purchase a new home. Instead, they move into their new partner’s home. This may be good or bad depending on the couple and their situation. Personally, I would rather have a new home that is “ours” instead of living in his home which he once shared with his ex wife. It should also be taken into consideration where the children will be living. Making them feel at home wherever they are is the most important thing when it comes to the living arrangements. Also make sure that you both understand how the finances will be. Some couples wish to share and some wish to keep things separate. Many women who have step children wish for the finances to be kept separate so that it is their husbands that are paying the child support with their own money. This is a personal choice that should be discussed before the nuptials. Resolving Feeling: Getting remarried may bring up old and painful feelings from your first marriage. We never completely stop loving people; we simply love them in a different way than we originally did. It is important for both you and your children to confront any emotions before remarriage. Their feelings are just as important, if not more so, then yours are. You also want your relationship with your ex spouse to be a healthy as possible so your children are as healthy as possible. Expect changes in parenting styles: Everyone has their one way of parenting. Talk with your future spouse about these sort of topics so you can work together as a team when it comes to the children. The Quality of Marriage Vs. The Quality of Parenting When a couple first gets married they may be so wrapped up in being in love that the children feel neglected. If they are already having difficulty managing their feelings about their mom/dad being in a new relationship, this will only add to their feelings of sadness and abandonment. Make sure that there is a certain time everyday that is just for you and your children. The new spouse can be inserted in that together time later- but in the beginning, they need to know that mom/dad is still on their side always. Step Parent/Step Child Relationships Being in a step family can be wonderful, but it can also present problems as well. How the step parent handles parental things may be quite different then how you or your ex spouse does. This is not as difficult when you remarry while the step child is at a young age because you kind of grow up along with them. However, coming into a step family that has a teenager can get messy since this is already a rebellious stage for a teen. The main thing is to help with the readjustment as best you can. Do not jump right into the “mom” or “dad” role. The best thing to do in the beginning is to form a friendly relationship. Relationships with children cannot be pushed as they are very fragile. When it comes to discipline, have a talk with the custodial parent to see how they think things should be handled. Different things work better for different families and no two are just alike. The Absent Parent The absent parent (the one which does not have the child living with them) should be included in the child’s life as much as possible. This will help keep the child emotionally balanced when a remarriage occurs. Research shows that when the absent parent visits consistently and stays active in their child’s life, the child is more likely to adjust to the remarriage better and more quickly. Otherwise, they will feel abandoned by the absent parent and the easiest person to blame for that is the step parent. Being a step parent myself, I have seen and experienced some of these things. However, after being married for 6 years I have an excellent relationship with my step children- with my step daughter in particular. For me, I know my place in their lives. When they are in my home, I am in charge…I am mom even though we all know that they have a mother. My step son is at the age where he wants to be with dad all the time. However, my step daughter is almost 16 and she is one of the few bright lights in my life. We got to this point in our relationship because I did not try to play the role of MOM. We are more like friends than parent/child but she knows that I can be MOM when she needs me to be. This is what worked for me. Find what works for you and do your best for your family.

By Debra Bacon Theravive.com Contributor When a breakup occurs, picking up the pieces of our life can be a daunting task. It may seem impossible to imagine feeling “normal” again. The pain associated with a breakup can leave us feeling overwhelmed, confused, lonely and sad. No matter the cause of the breakup, it disrupts your life in ways that are unsettling. However, there are ways to grow and learn from the experience, as you process the loss. Overcoming loss A breakup--whether a long-term dating relationship, or divorce--wreaks havoc on your emotions. The void left in your life after calling it quits is not easy to fill. It is very important to take care of yourself during this time. After a relationship fails, feelings of intense grief, stress and regret over lost dreams and shared goals set in. Things are unfamiliar, and other relationships are affected. How to handle relationships with mutual friends and extended family members of whom you have become close too can be difficult and stressful to determine. You may even question you own identity. Depending on the length of time together, more often than not, you shared everything from activities, to dining and hanging out. You may begin to stress over questions like: How will you fill your time? What will it be like to be alone? Will you ever find someone else, or even want to? Don’t go it alone. Reach out to your family and close friends for support or join a support group. Bottling up your feelings will only heighten stress levels. Don’t be afraid to seek professional counseling. Allow feelings. The idea of allowing ourselves to feel the hurt in our heart and mind is almost unbearable. However, it is a necessary step in grieving. You may experience feeling of anger, resentment, sadness, relief, fear, and confusion. Recognize these feelings and realize where and why they are present. Work through it. Keep a journal. Writing down your feelings helps hash things out in your mind. Often it provides an outlet for frustration, or a place to record our future hopes and milestones. Be honest with yourself in your journa l. Don’t allow guilt to overcome you on the days you feel fine or you feel a renewed spirit within you. Relish them, there are more to come as healing progresses. Take things slowly. Give yourself a break. It is okay to feel differently than before. Rediscover your passions in life and slowly begin to venture out and act on them. Remember to take things one step at a time, one day at a time. Healing takes time, be kind to yourself, and remember you will move past the hurt. You can make it. Lessons learned From every crisis, an open door is before us, and a closed one behind. Take this time in between the two, to grow emotionally and spiritually. There will come a time when you will reflect on things you have learned from the experience. To completely reconcile yourself from the breakup and move on, it is important to understand what happened and what role each of you played in the relationship, and ultimate breakup. As you begin to heal and apply lessons learned from your decisions, you are likely not to make the same mistakes again.

How can I tell if my marriage is in trouble? [More]

By Carlton Brown, M.Sc., M.Div., RMFT Today was a statutory holiday where I live. We have this thing called Family Day, which I thought was just a Canadian thing but according to Wikipedia is a holiday in South Africa, Alberta, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, Arizona, Vanuatu, Vietnam, and part of Australia. Not unlike the postmodern family, no one really seems to know what Family Day is about or agree on whether even to recognize it. The day, just like its namesake, has no “One size fits all.” My one daughter seemed to think that Family Day meant that you were supposed to stay with your family and that if you didn’t then at least you should feel guilty about it. “Happy Family Day, Dad,” she said as she slunk out of the car and into her friend’s house. Robert Beavers in his 1981 Successful Marriage said that guilt was good if it lasted less than five minutes and led to a change of behaviour. No joy here. Rather she reminded me of a couple I saw once. Both had had affairs - but the woman felt justified because she felt more guilty about her affair than her husband did about his. But I encouraged to her go, actually. She is at that age where she is supposed to be leaving my family, and thinking about starting a family of her own. The more time she spends with her friends, the better - and the more time I have for napping, or reading. The other daughter of mine felt that Family Day was an offense, falling, as it does, immediately after Valentine’s Day. “Valentine’s Day for love, and Family Day for what? To remind you of what can happen to you if you have too much love? Yuck!” She called today another name that I will not bother to repeat. But she too used the time to reconcile and reunite with friends. Elizabeth Carter and Monica McGoldrick wrote (1989) The Changing Family Life Cycle to remind us that families are not static. At the very least, they evolve, from couples, to couples with young children, to kids in school, to teenagers, to launching and the empty nest, to older couples and to old age and death. There is wondrous variety to this basic scheme: same-sex couples, with and without children, single parents, never-married singles, two-home families. Each goes through its own stages of expansion and contraction, birth and death. My dictionary defines a family as parents and children living in the same household. They don’t have to be related to each other! The kids could be adopted. The Family Law Act of Ontario defines a parent as someone having a “settled intention” to raise a particular child. More variety. Etymology takes us to the heart of the matter, however: “family” derives from the Latin noun “famula”, meaning “servant” or “slave”. The next time you’re vacuuming or doing a load of never-ending laundry, consider that you belong to the “family” of families. Nor is this a bad thing. I spent most of Family Day doing just that: laundry, vacuuming, cleaning floors, while the rest of my family was out doing their thing. It gave me pleasure to know that they were launching as they should be, that I perhaps had done and was doing my part to create the next generation of families. And after that I took a nap, peacefully.