67: Nothing is Working, Now What?

Brian Mayer talks about how you are in this remarriage and blended family situation and no matter what you say or do, you feel like nothing works.  What does this mean?  How do you handle this?  How should you move forward?  We will tackle all this and more on today’s episode.  We hope you are inspired by what you hear today.  For more information and additional resources please visit our website at http://www.theremarriedlife.com Today's Goodies Remarriage and Blended Family situations are among the most tough situations you will ever face in life.  This is not like hammering a nail into a piece of wood, cleaning dirty dishes, or putting a bandage on a paper cut.  This is much more complicated than that and it is more complicated because it involves lots of people of all ages with different feelings, motivations, and agendas.  Remember the Rubik’s cube?  The 6 sided cube with 9 little squares of each side of different colors.  The object was to get every side to be uniform with it’s own color.  This was something I could never figure out and despite my best efforts was consistently foiled in my attempts to succeed at this puzzle.  I got my first cube back in the 1980’s and unfortunately I have to say that decades later I have never been successful in solving it. The same can be said for lots of us when it comes to blended families.  You may never feel like you have fully solved this puzzle.  This can be so extremely defeating that you could in fact feel like giving up.  No matter what you say, what you do, what you try you feel like nothing works.  You have listened to all my podcast episodes, you’ve listened to other podcast episodes, you have read books, you’ve reached out to others in similar situations, you’ve prayed and you see that it is not changing.  So what do you do now?  I am going to offer you some suggestions and these suggestions are more about taking care of yourself through this situation.  Today is not about giving more advice on what to do differently or what to “try” to do to get others and the situation to change.  Here again is what I want you to do today:  Know that you are completely normal for what you are going through.  As I have mentioned, research says that it can take 5-7 years for a blended family to begin operating closely to what a nuclear biological type family would operate and then there are a large percentage that may never get to this.  Is this because anyone is doing something wrong?  Often times the answer is “No.”  Breathe and rest easy (easy for me to say I know!) knowing you giving it your best shot as a biological parent and as a step parent.  You know what to do and yes while you might have differences of opinions with your spouse and the kids regarding what is right, just know that what you think and feel are very valid.   Pray.  This one is tough because you might say look I pray all the time every day and things just don’t change.  I cannot deny that this is probably true.  What I would say is change how and what you pray about.  Make your prayers to God one in which you are focusing on the time spent with Him and that you are simply looking to get closer to Him and not that you are focused on a laundry list of needs or wants.  Just think about a friend you might go visit.  If your visits were all about what you needed and nothing else, pretty soon your friend might not be so accommodating and possibly feeling like the relationship is one sided.  Positive Self Talk.  Pay more attention to the conversations you are having with yourself in your mind.  If you are like me, you will often discover that you might be beating yourself up.  You might focus more on the things you are doing wrong versus the things you are doing right.  Or maybe you are personalizing those negative things you’ve done to define your character or who you are.  The things that have resulted or things you have done do not define your character.  Take care of yourself.  Go do something on your own or maybe buy yourself something.  Of course be careful and don’t try to find happiness in other things, but from time to time we all need breaks and to do things for ourselves.  You definitely deserve it for all that you have been through in trying to hold this blended family thing together.  Maybe a flavored coffee or a massage might be in order for today!     Is this going to solve everything?  Of course not.  But that is not the goal here with what we are talking about.  It is more about taking care of yourself through some of the pain and difficulty of being married to a second, third, or spouse beyond and trying to raise kids from different backgrounds and situations.  The goal today is to be a bit selfish.  Not in a mean and demeaning way to the rest of the family, but it is more about being kind to yourself.  Resources: None Mentioned. Thanks For Listening! With so many things that take time in our lives, I more grateful than you know that you took time to listen to this podcast episode.  If you liked this episode and believe that it would be beneficial to a friend, family member, or colleague, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. The Remarried Life Facebook Group is a community of people just like you who get and give support.  Please join today!  ​ As always remember that marriage is not something you have, it is something you do.  Talk to you next week unless you are binge listening in the future in which case I will talk to you in about a minute!  Take care.