114. Dating Someone With Kids Series Pt. 3: Blended Family
Meet the Host
Five years ago, after achieving my degrees and teaching as a professor, I was feeling proud that I had checked everything off my life list. But, I wasn’t satisfied in my marriage.
Today, I’m a relationship coach on a mission to resurrect the side of you that got lost in your relationship and responsibilities teaching you how to stop arguing and have more sex. Millions of people around the world soak up my content for advice on how to have a more satisfying relationship.
Welcome to our new podcast series - Dating Someone With Kids Series. In this 3 part series I walk you through the many things that I want you to think about if you are considering dating someone with kids involved.
In Part 3 I share the three things I want you to keep in mind when you are deciding to blend your families together.
You need to understand that your relationship isn’t just about you and your partner. Everything you do impacts your children and you can certainly change the entire trajectory of these babies’ lives if you don't do this right.
Click the link to listen below and email me back with your thoughts, I want to hear from you!
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Episode Transcript:
Karina: Amigos como estan? Welcome back to Relationships. You Understand? hosted by me, me, your host, Karina F. Daves, relationship expert, podcast host and speaker. And we're going to continue our series called Dating Someone with Kids. This is our final episode. And this series is mainly primarily for those that are considering dating someone with kids, are currently dating someone with kids, or you are on the other end where you have kids and you wanna figure out what are the main things that you need to keep in mind when you're looking for a partner.
So part one is primarily focused on they have kids, part two is you have kids, and part three is an episode dedicated to those that have decided to blend the families. So if that is you, as always promise these episodes are super straight and to the point, so they will be less than 15, 30 minutes. And listen, if you feel like, you have other questions about your relationship, especially when it comes to dating someone with kids or other things, I want you to subscribe to Relationship 911, the hotline dedicated, it's private, dedicated to answering immediately your relationship question simply with a private podcast episode. You can keep your name anonymous. So once you subscribe, if you comment on this live right here, 911, or you DM me or you go to my website, www.karinafdaves.com, and click on podcast, you'll see Relationship 911. You will subscribe to that podcast. It's $9.99 a month. And you'll be able to get a link to submit a form as many times as you want. And it's about maybe five questions, your name, quote unquote anonymous. And you can literally put any question you have, which is like, you know, my partner just said this to my kid, should I take it personal? I would literally, I will literally create an under five minute episode answering your question, your relationship question, okay? So make sure you subscribe to that.
Okay, dating someone with kids, blended family. These are the three things that I want you to keep in mind when you are deciding to blend your families together and you have kids or they have kids, okay?
Number one is I want you to have time and patience for this transition. Even though you both have accepted that you're on the same page about blending the family and on the same page about you being in the picture or them being in the picture with your kids or you being in the picture with their kids, there is still going to need to be a lot of patience for that transition because blending families is an entire process. There are going to be so many things that come up every single year, sometimes every single month, every single quarter, that y'all have never experienced, that they may have experienced, but you may have not, or now you both will start to experience new things together because you're deciding to blend the family. This is going to require a lot of patience from both parties during this process.
And it's not just about making the child or making the children feel included in everything. And I find that a lot of people, when they date someone with kids or you have the kids, You mainly focus on inclusivity and you focus on making sure that the children don't feel left out. I mean, that is a big part of it, but it's not all of it, right? There are going to be other things involved, right? It's not just about making sure that the child feels included because you remember them on a certain holiday or because you went out shopping and you saw something for them. Those are all very beautiful things, okay? I've been there myself and I'll just stop here and say like, I'm not just giving you this advice or this series from the perspective of somebody who's a relationship expert. I'm giving you this advice based on somebody that dated someone with kids, married someone with kids, and has been with someone that has kids for the last 12 years. So I'm giving you my entire blueprint to how we make that process successful and healthy. Okay? So time and patience during this transition is something that you're going to want to focus on.
The second thing I want you to know about, and here's the thing, a lot of people call it baby mama drama or baby daddy drama, right? It happens, especially if, and here's the thing, especially if the children's other parent is still involved in their life, no matter how amazing their communication is, no matter if they're, on the same page, there is going to be some conflict at some point. Now the conflict will either come between them and the ex partner and it will flow into you both to try to resolve or the conflict will come between that other parent and the child and it will be brought into the household for you all to solve. Okay? So the way that I want you to think about it is that any type of conflict that comes to light is an opportunity for you both to solve together or you three to solve together. Now that is the ideal way. That's the ideal situation. There are other situations in which the ex partners may not be as level headed. And I've learned not just from experience but from watching other couples go through this is that sometimes what ends up happening is that Although the ex and your partner are no longer together, they are still very much performing or being with each other based on the main things that they had issues with and why they're no longer together. So their conflict will come from a lot of resentment that they have with each other, which was the biggest reason that they left one another, right? And that will dip into you, right? That will dip into your relationship and you need to be cognizant of that, especially the person is the other parent is still very much into the picture. There is going to be continuous conflict because they're not together for a reason. They're not together because they couldn't solve something now, not to their fault, but what, because it could have been something like cheating or whatever it was. They couldn't come to terms with solving whatever they face. And so they're no longer together. And so you got to understand that conflict is still going to continue because they couldn't work it out, no matter even if they left each other amicably, okay? The other conflict that you're going to encounter is a situation where, let's say the ex-partner lives with the children half time or picks up the children half time, whatever the case is, if these kids are going from environment to environment, you're going to have to have patience for even that transition and understanding that.
You and your partner have a certain level of influence, certain level of values and priorities that you're trying to raise up these kids with and that so does the other partner in their household, right? And so you can come to terms with saying, hey, we're gonna agree on certain things or we're gonna agree on certain ways that we raise the kids. But if these kids are transitioning from two different environments, it's going to feel like the minute that they get to you, you're going to have to reteach them everything that you just spent days teaching them. It happens, it's normal. And I think for you and your partner, the best way to go with this transition is having those transparent conversations with the kids, no matter how young that they are, right? You're going to encounter that.
The third thing when it comes to, let's just call it baby mama, baby daddy drama that you're going to encounter is that there will be a time where the child or you will become disgruntled with the other parent, not the parent that you're dating, but the other parent. And it will be a window of opportunity to do something that I do not want you to do, it will be a window, an opportunity for you because you're upset at the other parent because you don't agree with something the other parent did. And even the child may not agree, right? You will think that that it's an opportunity to agree with the disgruntledness, put down the other parent and find it as an opportunity to empathize and bond with the child.
I don't want you to do that. If there are issues that you have with the other parent of the child that you are cohabiting with or deciding to raise with your partner, I do not want you to take this opportunity to at all…
How do I put this?
I do not want you to take this opportunity to bad mouth the other parents at all. You understand me? I want you to remain neutral. It will be extremely… What's the word I want to use? Like when, okay, it will be extremely tempting for you to take this opportunity to get closer to the child or children and empathize with them because now they see what you see about what their parent did wrong, right? Don't do that. This is still a child. I don't care if the child is 14 or 15. You have to remain neutral and allow the child themselves to come up with their own perspective of their parents. You should not be molding their perspective of their parents. Instead, you should be a safe ground to listen, provide wise wisdom, be a sounding board for them to release some of their frustration. But you should in no way try to agree with their baby brain that their parents are, their parent really is a jerk or just because they didn't pick them up this weekend, they don't care about them. You remain neutral. I'm telling you this because I've gone through this myself where I've had opportunities where I, yes, could have brought down their parents, but I decided not to because I grew up with a stepmom and a stepdad that in which my mom and my dad did not take those shots at them. They waited for me to build my own viewpoint of my parent and my step-parent. And I thought that that was a much better way than them doing it for me. You understand?
The last thing that I want you to understand about blending the family is I want you to think about how resilient your relationship is.
How will you build up that resilience, right? How will you build a strong foundation for co-parenting, for blending the family? How will you build that backbone and understanding that y'all are not two separate individuals, that you are a team raising this family? Because the three things that you are going to need in this period is communication, comprehension, and connection. Without those three things, in any relationship, but specifically for y'all that are deciding to blend your families, you are going to need an extra dosage of communication, comprehension, and connection. You understand?
You have to be…what's the word I want to use? I'm tripping up on this episode because I feel so strongly about this, but bear with me. I want you to understand how important dating someone with kids or having kids and deciding to bring someone into your family is.
If you don't do this the right way, it will leave such a smudge of love, of bad love on these babies. You are dictating memories for the rest of their lives. They will grow up one day and say, my stepdad, my stepmom, my mom, when she married my stepdad, my dad, he got with my stepmom, they will repeat these stories. And so I want you to understand that this isn't just about you and your partner. This is about these children and the stamp of love that you are starting to put on them. And you do not want it to be a smudge. And I'll tell you right now, with the incorrect heart posture of a step-parent, you can certainly mess up, the stamp of love that you place on these kids. You can certainly change the entire trajectory of these babies if you don't do this right. If you don't build a strong resilience. And the reason why you need resilience in your partnership is because you gonna have people have opinions. You're gonna have your ex partner having a lot to say about the dynamics of the relationship or about how their child is being raised. Other people will talk too. And so you both need to have a strong resilience and partnership to be able to withstand. so, and all of this. And so that when things come your way, it ricochets right off of you both and right off of the relationship because there's such a strong foundation. You understand me? You both having a strong foundation isn't just about this relationship. It's about these kids that are watching this new relationship that watched the other parent not be present or the other parent not be in the household because they recognize there's a breakup going on. You are impacting their lives. You understand? It's so important that that resilience is built between you both, okay?
And the last thing I want to say before I pray for y'all is this is specifically for those that are dating someone with kids. I resonate a lot with that. And I want you to understand that there is space for that feeling of you're going from not having kids or, you know, a sense of a lot of freedom is how I want to put it to your weekends being taken up, you having to think twice about your plans. For those of you that have dated someone with kids or are someone with, or are dating some, or are married to someone with kids, you're gonna resonate with this part. And I want you to know that there is space for that. There is space to have that healthy conversation with your partner to say, this was just a lot and I'm still getting used to it. It's such a transition. I do wanna be here. I maybe need a beat and you need to take a second.
Cause they're used to that situation, but you may not be. And there's room for that. And if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't even know how to have that conversation. You need to work with me. Okay. I want you to go to the link in my bio, excuse me, and book a consultation call so that we can talk about everything that's happened so far, what you tried and how I can help as you transition into dating someone with kids. Okay. And if you're telling yourself, Karina, I don't know if I need four months with you or six months with you. I just have a question. Relationship 911 hotline is for you. You can also go to link my bio or if you're watching this live right now, you can comment 911 and I'll send you exactly the link to subscribe. If not, send me a direct DM and we'll talk there. Okay. Let me pray for you.
Father God, I thank you so much for this day. I ask that you cover our relationships and our children so much. Father God with the blood of the lamb, Jesus. I just ask that any plans that the enemy has for our lives be sent right back to the pits of hell where they belong. Jesus, this morning you shared such a lovely verse to my kids about sin and about the way that Satan works. And you also made sure to remind Terrence and I how Satan works. And I ask in this very moment that you provide so much clarity for those listening about the way that the enemy is working in their lives, ask that you pull them to study the enemy so that they can have a clear comprehension of the difference between when you're at work and when Satan is at work, Father God. I ask that you protect our children today as they go to school, allow them to have teachers that actually care about them, Lord. We love you so much. In your name we pray. Okay?
Listen, if right now you are struggling with a number one relationship issue, whether it be dating someone with kids, whether it be cheating, whether it be y'all have been arguing, whether it be you're ready to go and you're not sure how to do that process, you're not sure if you should and you're looking for that last shot, I am your last shot, okay? I don't want you to wait anymore. You need to do this work now to get the answers that you need to make decisions in your life, okay? My name is Karina F. Daves, I'm a relationship expert, speaker and podcast host of this podcast Relationships. You Understand? and thank you again for coming back to this series. Next week we're gonna start a series called, hold on I got you. It's called through thick and thin, through thick and thin where I'm gonna break down the different stages of marriage that you will go through and this is specifically not for those that are married also but it's also for those that are waiting to get married. It's gonna be a good series. Okay, I love you so much. Bye.
