I Now Pronounce You Family and Family

We live is a society of muliple marriages, the generation of yours, mine, and sometimes ours.In my situation the ours consists of farm animals , dogs, and cats. The yours and the mine are made up of seven kids belonging to me and three kids belonging to him, and then all the fill in family as well on both sides.



I met my husband a little more than three and a half years ago on myspace, and in person three years ago. We will be married two years this fall. He was then a divorced dad of three and I was a widowed mom of seven, five of whom still lived at home.



In the months before we even thought about marrying, he met my kids, I met his kids. We spent time with his parents, his brother and sister in law and their children, his sister, I even met an aunt of his. He met my aunt, my sister, her husband and their boys, my brother, sister in law and their blended family of his and theirs, my cousin and her family.



Given the fact that everyone liked one another, all talked, laughed and seemed to enjoy one another, you would think that when we did get married our lives would have blended smoothly into one big happy family!! Wrong!!!



We learned quickly that the kids that like you , like you much better when you are around now and then, not daily. We have learned that no matter what ways we try to be creative to include everyone it won't happen that way. We have learned that grown children are very jealous of young children, and that whether kids despite what age they are liked you before they don't like you very much if you have "taken" their daddy or their mom! Through it all we have discovered they for all their wanting you to be happy really liked it best when you had no real personal life at all and they could count on you to be there at their beckon call.



And this is what we call our blended family! Between us there are a total of seven boys, three girls, one granddaughter, and one grandson. There is his family which he refers to as " My other family" and their is my family. There are his kids and my kids, one set of parents on his side. A grand total between us of three brothers, two sisters, two sisters in law, and one brother in law. and somewhere in the middle of it all there we are. Two people surrounded by the obstacles of many, trying to be a couple in our spare time.



We have discovered that getting together with the family ( that is the entire family consisting of both sides ) is an illusion, well at the very least is a memory of our past. We have tried birthday parties that included from both sides and have ended up with no one from either side. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, you name it we can only get some to agree, and the rest are busy. Add to it that the ones who do agree come hours after you have asked them to be here for dinner, or say they are coming and then just don't show up at all.



We both remember the days of family reunions, aunts, uncles, cousins, in laws, and probably some outlaws but the whole entire family, gathering for feasting, playing, joking, talking, laughing, and reminiscing about the good old days. That is how it was when we were kids. That is how we were brought up to think it was supposed to be~always! That is how we somehow thought it would be when we blended our two family units and that is also the point where we were the most wrong! Now in fairness he has family that lives in other states, and so do I, but they do come to visit. He sees his family and I see mine and every once in the while it works that I see his and he sees mine too.

But our dreams of blending the families and being one large happy family have long since fallen to the wayside. The harder we try to do that the harder it becomes and now we just accept that he was right when he labeled it his other family.

Scotty and Missy are a couple, they live with five of her kids, and lots of farm animals, flower gardens, and fruit trees. He has a family, and they belong to him and she has a family and they belong to her. His kids have no desire to be a big happy family, and hers don't either. They have learned through the blending journey that they are the only common denominator and that if we of them fell to the side, his family would go their way, and hers would do the same.

Now you might say well perhaps it the ages of the kids, and I suppose perhaps for some that is true, our children combined range in age from 7-32, and age could be a contributing factor. Life is a facgtor too I imagine as everyone is busy in the world today, but how sad that we are too busy for family, for following traditions, for making traditions. Sad also when I think how we now live in the generation of I now pronounce you family and family....go your seperate ways and hope what God has joined together, children don't put unsunder.