Overcoming Extended Family Opposition to Your Blended Family
Getting married and blending families can be an exciting journey full of ups and downs and twists and turns. Unfortunately, there are hazards and roadblocks, too, and sometimes those can come from our extended family. Our parents, grandparents, siblings, and others may reject our new spouse and any children they bring into the marriage. Unfortunately, this all-too-common scenario can be painful and create lasting rifts unless handled with care.
Whether parents are stubbornly loyal to the previous spouse or siblings insist the remarriage is too soon, there are ways to improve the situation. With empathy, boundaries, and an emphasis on your blended family’s unity, you can work through these issues and watch your marriage and family flourish.
Seek God
God’s desire is for reconciliation, restoration, peace, and unity. These are the marks of His character and His Kingdom. He wants to bring peace where there is conflict with your extended family. Get before Him and ask Him to bring about acceptance, cooperation, respect, and love between your extended family and your blended family. Pray that He will change the hearts of those who oppose you and your new family. Ask the Holy Spirit to highlight any ways you may be causing friction or reinforcing the problem. Pray that He will show you how to respond when a parent, cousin, sibling, or anyone else belittles, shames, dismisses, or hurts your spouse or bonus kids. Nothing is impossible with Him (Luke 1:37), so stay on your knees before Him—it is the best place you could be.
Understand Their Perspective
As maddening as the rejection may feel, try to have some compassion for where older relatives are coming from. Their concerns and biases stem from their own history, belief systems, or fears about losing their existing family connections. Elderly grandparents, for instance, may worry about a stepparent disrupting inheritance plans or shirking their idea of family obligation.
However misguided, remind yourself their resistance does not mean they do not love you. They may be afraid and struggling to adjust to a new family dynamic that bewilders them. Giving them some grace (but also firm boundaries) can go a long way.
Let Connections Grow Organically
While you want to foster understanding and connection, trying to overly force or rush relationships between resistant extended family and your new spouse and bonus children rarely works. It can often breed more resentment and conflicts that puts everyone on the defensive, which can reinforce the problem at hand.
When you are beginning to blend, introduce your future spouse and bonus kids gradually. Invite your parents out to dinner with you and your significant other. This allows them to get to know them without the added noise and distraction of the little ones. Invite your nieces and nephews to meet your spouse and bonus kids at the pool or the park. Mention your future spouse and kids to your grandparents as early as possible so they can get used to the idea (see above).
After the wedding, continue to suggest fun outings so your extended family can get to know your spouse and bonus kids in a low-pressure environment. When you take a picture of the biological and bonus kids together, text that photo to your parents and grandparents so they can feel included. We can invite extended family to holiday gatherings, birthday parties, and our kids’ and bonus kids’ sports activities. Doing so can open the door for better conversations and better relationships. It can take time, so don’t get discouraged if you do not see progress early on.
Establish and Enforce Boundaries
Boundaries are the limits and rules we set for how others—like extended family—can interact with our immediate blended family. Boundaries define what is and what is not acceptable behavior. We can create physical boundaries, such as when others can come over to the house. We also create behavioral boundaries, such as asking extended family members to treat children and stepchildren equally. These boundaries help others know what they can do to honor and respect our blended family.
If extended family members challenge or ignore a boundary, it is important to initiate conversations with them. In a Christlike manner, we can restate the boundary and name a consequence, such as limiting time with our family, children, and bonus children. If that person continues to ignore a boundary, enforce the consequences. Creating healthy boundaries may not be easy, but they are necessary to protect us and our blended family from the unhealthy or hurtful behavior of extended family members.
Reassure Your Spouse and Bonus Children
Your new spouse and stepchildren need to know you wholeheartedly have their backs no matter what rejection gets thrown your way (or their way). Communicate your commitment to them often (especially if tensions flare up with your extended family). Then, demonstrate your priorities with your actions. First John 3:18 says, “…l let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” When you establish and enforce boundaries, talk with extended family members who treat your spouse and bonus kids poorly, and choose to spend time with your blended family (especially bonus kids early on), you communicate love and commitment to them.
Pursue and Protect Unity
The enemy would love nothing more than to create chaos, disunity, and confusion in your blended family. Recognizing this truth is the first step in protecting the unity of your home. So how can you guard against the enemy? First, pray for and over your blended family. Second, prioritize regular check-ins and open communication between you and your spouse about handling extended family situations and supporting your kids and bonus kids.
Preserving unity also requires you to watch out for defensiveness, insecurity, and hurt feelings that can flare up because of an extended family member’s words and actions. As soon as those feelings begin to brew in you or your spouse, it is important to stop and talk through the situation. While these conversations can be uncomfortable and vulnerable, they are vital to the health of your marriage and blended family.
Limit Time Together
As disappointing as it is, sometimes a healthy boundary is keeping contact with certain relatives to a bare minimum—at least maybe for a season. If they remain stubbornly unwelcoming, mean, or cruel every time you are together, we recommend no longer subjecting your spouse, children, and bonus children to their mistreatment.
No rule says you must gather for every holiday, birthday, or event. You can politely bow out of some events without making a big thing of it. Focus your energy and time on creating happy memories with your blended family. Extended family bonds may or may not be repaired later when people have had time to adjust.
Distancing yourself from extended family members may not be easy, but necessary. You may feel sad for taking this step, and that’s okay. Be careful, though, that your grief does not morph into resentment toward your new spouse and bonus kids. Remind yourself that they are not the cause for distancing yourself.
Unfortunately, some people may never fully accept the situation, no matter how amazing your new spouse and stepchildren are. The goal is establishing basic respect and protecting your blended family, not achieving harmony with extended family members who oppose you.
Seek Out Support
Even with strong boundaries and healthy coping strategies, dealing with rejection from any family member can weigh heavy on your heart after a while. Share your struggles with a caring circle of godly friends who solidly support your blended family. Look into family counseling or coaching. Find a small group at your church. (If there isn’t a group geared for blended families, ask your pastor to start one.) Prioritize self-care and quality bonding time with your new spouse and bonus kids—the people who truly matter most. Over time, that growing strength within the family unit can overcome most outside rejections.
When you get married, you are not joining somebody else’s family. They are not joining your family. You are creating your own blended family independent of any other family unit. You and your spouse get to choose how extended family members can or cannot interact with you and your blended family.
Getting along with extended family members can be challenging. However, we can take steps to ease tensions, reassure others, protect our blended family, and show empathy and grace. We can live peaceably with our extended family as far as it depends on us (Romans 12:18). And we can ask God to do “far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). With His help, we can watch our blended family flourish.
Scott and Vanessa Martindale
Founders of Blended Kingdom Families
