In-Laws and blended families

When nuclear families change to blended families, In-laws are facing new challenges. 

It’s like seeing one branch suddenly splitting in two and where will be the nest?

When it's easier for the mother side: our daughter and her children without their dad and husband.

Dad’s side is more complicated. If children will stay more time with mum and parents decide that mum will act as primary parent and dad will take up weekend parent roles, then dad's parents will automatically feel that their “nest'' is now on the other side, on mom's side of the split branch. As a result, their loyalty will travel with the “nest” following the blood line and they will adapt to the view of subfamilies. There is still their son but there is another bloodline: their grandchildren, who are separated from their son and living the majority of their time with their mum. Same is with all other in-laws (sister in law, brother in law etc.).

If there is a legally equal split: 50-50 and both parents will carry on doing half of the parenting, the effect for in-laws is still the same. Their bloodline will not disappear after mom's house front door closes behind their grandchildren. Their bloodline is inside that house, that means this house is now biologically connected to them.

Sometimes it is the same even when dad has primary guardianship. Depends on the in-laws individual personalities. Some people are interested in maintaining close contact with close family members only and some people are putting a lot of effort into having frequent interactions with distant relatives as much as the first circle of the family. So called  “Everyone is family” people.

It's rather surprising how new partners (potential step-parents and long term stepparents) can be so emotionally blind here. The anger: “How dare my MiL and FiL have lunch with MY husband's ex wife!!!!”  How those people seem to not have any ability to see that THEIR boyfriend/husband is someone's son/brother/dad too. Being in a relationship with you doesn’t delete his role as son/brother/dad to third people. 

Your MiL and FiL did not have lunch with YOUR husband's ex, they had lunch with the mother of their grandchildren. Your sister-in-law did not have phone calls and play dates with YOUR husband's ex but their cousins and their mother. 

And your MiL and FiL in their FB page did not congratulate YOUR husband's ex, they congratulated their grandchildren's mother. 

It's not all about you. It's about the blood line. You will have your turn when you and them will be connected via umbilical cord, 

How become a "bad co-parent" can be good thing for your children's mental health

For beginning we all are trying to achieve the mystical perfect co-parenting. But what if its not possible? What if we are met with the situation when we only can not do the "good co-parenting" whatever that is. What does that mean for children we are focusing on?

When mother of my partners son realized that I am here to stay, she found the new reality too much to accept. Her initial demand was that dad has to “hide me”. Meaning; I was not allowed to “show up” anywhere she goes, not to be seen during school pickups, not be be seen within after school clubs, school events, or whatever other child related events. She stated that only bio-parents can be seen with their son. She expressed that she will not allow me to be in handovers or even in the car when driving to handovers. And as a last resort: If I will not obey those rules and will be in his car, I am not allowed to leave the car or say a word to her, or even look at her direction. (From their phone conversation: “Tell to your girlfriend that she can not talk or look at me during our handovers. I find any word or comment from her triggering, because she should not be here anyway, she is not a parent, she doesn't belong to the picture. Last time she said: "Hi, how was your weekend" and I find it upsetting. Its not her business to ask how was MY weekend. If you really must bring her, she must keep her mouth shut and stay in the car.”)

Obviously, those demands were silly and surely could not be taken seriously! The first impulse for the majority of people in this situation would be: BM should get over herself! Grow up! Who the hell she thinks she is to dictate, where I can or can not be and how many words I am allowed to say in public places! All those are valid reactions. Yes, she did cross the line of acceptable requests and expected boundaries. I would lie, if I say, that those thoughts did not cross our minds and our conversion. The mother of his son announced that she was going to mistreat me and now we were put in a situation where we had to decide, how we will respond. She said out loud that she will apply “silent treatment” that is a well known form of abuse in social groups. I am writing about the silent treatment between Bio-mothers and step-mothers (or ex partners versus new partners if that applies to your situation) here. On the other hand, I am a trained CBT therapist and have a degree in psychology and human development. The situation intrigued me professionally. As well as I am a divorced mother and my children have a step-mum. I can remember my own very conflicting feelings when my ex found his now wife. So we took a bit of time to think. Rule of thumb: never give a response immediately, without giving yourself some cooling down time. We chose to look behind the rude words. To act upon why she said what she said, hoping to reduce her discomfort. Fact is; if you are going to corner someone, they will only attack, not surrender. The way to lower conflict situation is not to corner that person, who already feels hurt and who lost control over things she used to have control over? (Their co-parenting relationship was fully orchestrated by the mother of their son, but that is a story for another chapter) We were able to identify couple of her needs: It is painful for the mother to face reality. Yes, in words she accepted the fact that he has a partner now and her son is spending time with that partner, but she doesn't want to witness that reality. She is desperate to shelter herself from the reality. Maybe she can face it later, when she had more time to adapt with the new reality? What are we willing to accommodate as a gesture of good will? We are willing to respect the fact that she is feeling emotional pain about the situation. We will not have any benefit from adding to that pain. We will try out best not to agonise her more. To minimise the chance for her to "lose it" we can choose to drive me home before driving to the handover point whenever possible. If driving me home first is not possible, I can respect her request and stay in the car and will not say “hello” or any other pleasantries that are expected in similar situations. Yes, it feels like "giving in a toddler tantrum" but she is not in sound mind at this point, so we can not expect her to start behaving reasonably only because we said "no, you can not have it". If she asks dad to come and collect their son from her home, I am not getting out of the car before he is driving up to her driveway. But I am happy to remind in the car and "not put my foot on her driveway", as it's her private land. However, in this case dad will not spend time in her house to get their son dressed and ready for leaving. Mum has to get their son ready and dad will only collect. When our offer was presented in response to her requests, the mother of his son stated that now dad is ruining their good co-parenting. She described emotionally, with a suitable amount of tears and sobbing, that now their son will suffer badly because dad isn't spending time in mum's company anymore. What their son's need is that dad will come up into mum's house, spend some time indoors playing with him before they are getting ready to leave. Dad must keep doing family days with mum and son only or he will cause emotional damage to their son and overall everything is now wrong. Why is dad not following the rules she is saying how a correct co-parenting should be? That now dad is choosing to be a BAD DAD and a BAD CO-PARENT. Dad said that he can hear her opinion, but he is refusing to act as family with mother if she insists that their son's step-mum has to be left out and excluded. Mum realised that she can not make him change his mind about this and because they do have to have a handover somehow, mum said she will take their son to a playground instead of allowing dad to come to her house from now on. This was the first unexpected win. For the first time in 4 years, dad was able to negotiate to meet halfway (they have 40 mile between their houses). Against mums' threats, it had a very positive effect on their son’s emotional wellbeing. When handovers happened from one parent house to another parent house, their son was crying during the time when he was carried from one parent’s house to the other parent’s car and driving off. It always felt for that little boy that he was taken away, had to leave one of his homes and one of his parents and he experienced feelings of loss and emotional pain every handover. When the duty parent took him to the agreed playground before their handover, it wasn't anymore "I have to leave my home to go to another home" it was replaced with: “I am having one parent at playground and if this one has to leave, now I have another one here to carry on having this fun”. Their son did not experience a feeling of loss and "being taken away", now it was one parent swapped out another one. He was still playing in the same playground, still having fun to the point when he had enough of playing. Then they left with the parent present to carry on with his day. After couple of moths and couple of attempts to create some "innocent co-incidence" or plain set ups situation, where they would spend time "just three of us, as the our son's real family", mother realised that dad really meant, when he said that he will not go out for any socialising with BM and their son only without including step-mum. Second win: The mother of his son called him up one day and said that now she wants to avoid handovers in person entirely. That her first 3 years friendship has been always conditional and now dad lost the privilege for a friendly co-parenting. As a result, a new parenting plan was created and pick ups and drop offs happened from/to school or childminder from now on. Their son was now school age. Once again, against bio-moms prediction: the new arrangements had a positive impact on their sons emotional wellbeing. Previously handovers happened from parent to parent and their son lived through separation every time. That was because he got separated from one of his parents every time when it was handed over to the other one in person. Their child did feel that he is made to “leave one parent behind to be taken away by another parent”. With the new arrangement two parents did not meet. There was no parent to leave behind when one of them turned up in the nursery door or later on in the school gate. There was only excitement to see that parent who came to pick him up and take him home (one of the two homes he has). Obviously there were still rare occasions where parent to parent handovers had to happen. example; when nursery (and later school) were closed/ school holidays. Now those happened strictly on neutral ground (Playground half way between homes). One parent arrived 5-10 min earlier, got their son playing and when another one arrived, the first one left and the second one carried on playing with their son. The usual cry during the handover and driving off from a parent house got replaced occasionally: “Why do you have to leave already? Stay longer and play with me!” and a sad face, but no crying or feeling of being taken away or leaving one of his parents behind because he did not leave anyone behind. one of his parents had to leave the playground but he was still able to stay with the other one and carry on playing. Adults benefited from the fact that new "bad co-parenting" meant that parenting time was agreed for 6 months ahead and recorded in a shared excel table. A steady timeshare pattern gave stability and routine their son (and all the adults in this mixture) appreciated and benefited from. Previously mum and dad's day to day tasks were blended, they were talking daily about anything and everything and that meant that they arranged childcare very flexible: with a couple of days advanced and they swapped and changed a lot all the time. It worked for them when they were both single, because mum likes to socialise a lot and dad was happy to be very flexible as he is not a person who would plan ahead, rather goes with the flow. When dad moved his partner in, there were more people to consider and his partner had to plan things because of her work and child care obligations. Before the "bad co-parenting" era, during the "good co-parents" years, it was impossible for dad's side of the family to plan anything. Dad never knew he would be asked to do any swaps or extra nights because mum has new plans. He was confronted with a common quilt trip: “We suppose to be friends! that what good co-parents are doing, they will help each other out, I would do the same to you if needed.” ( Do I have to mention that those two times when we asked for a swap, the response was both times: “I would love to but I have plans for that time already but I definitely will help out next time.”) With being a "bad co-parent" we had information up to 6 months in advance about when their child will be with us, when with mum. Now we were able to book any holidays without "asking BM permission" to not send their son to dad's house over certain dates. Previously it was very difficult to keep parenting fair because mum pulled the guilt trip card every time. She used to say things like: "That what a good co-parenting suppose to be", "Don't forget that you are doing it to be a good co-parent! You don't want people to think that you can not be a good co-parent, do you?" "But we are friends! Don't you want to keep our co-parenting friendly?" and dad just did not want to call her out in fear of losing the friendship. ( read about co-parenting myths here) Now the friendship was out of the window anyway. When mum declared that friendship is gone, she also gave away one of her manipulations tools she used to have all the previous years. Without being threatened to "not play friendly anymore if you don't do XWZ for me" both sides were able to rely on the schedule and actually plan things in advance. There was less reasons to fall out or get into arguments, so a low conflict co-parenting was achieved with the "bad co-parenting" approach. Their son loved stability and became more relaxed, more settled and his constant tantrums disappeared. He became happier and more social and within 12 months his emotional health improved massively.

The third benefit of "bad co-parenting" came about social media use. The mother of his son began to worry that dad might see what she was posting on social media (she is massively involved with social media and is trying to make a living out of it) so she blocked both of us from her social media accounts. For us, it was a huge relief. Previously they (dad and mother of his son) were friends in social media and that is why we constantly had conversations about what we can post and what we can not regard as what might trigger her or how she might react to any of our social media moves. Finally we were free to handle our accounts without constantly worrying about her mental health and mood swings. As well as us his family was able to like our posts without upsetting BM who found it all disrespectful to her if they were “liking me too much”. Blocking each other from social media improved a lot at everyone's emotional wellbeing.

As you probably noticed: I have been using quotation marks when saying “bad co-parenting” and “good co-parenting” It's because good and bad are subjective terms. Far too often we read from social media or the internet what a “good co-parenting” must be. Unfortunately those are subjective opinions, not the reality. A good co-parenting is and always will be: the co-parenting I want to get, doesn't matter what others might need. And “I” have their own personal goals and motivations. They are unique and CAN NOT EVER BE RULE FOR EVERYONE ELSE TO FOLLOW. Each and every one must have enough self awareness to understand what kind of parent they want to be. If it is matching with your co-parents ideas, good for you. More often it will not ( read about the reasons here). Even more often happens that your co-parent will have changes in their lives and your current arrangement will not work any more. Your current co-parenting will not be the “good one” anymore for their side, but it's still the preferred option for you. Trying to force them with guilt-trip (you are a bad co-parent if you like different things than me or different things you used to like) is wrong idea and will only lead to resentment from both sides. The only sensible thing to do now is to get a book. Yes, a book, not a web page that comes up in google popularity contests. Books are more likely to be neutral and written by people who are specialists not sharing their personal experience. Remember: whoever tries to sell you their personal experience: they are not you, do not copy, adapt!

Why ex suddenly demands "family time" when dad has a new relationship?

  Whenever you are dealing with a situation you should be able to answer the following questions: Why I don't like this behaviour? What are the negative impacts if this behaviour happens? 

If we are bothered about something then it must be a reason, it must be potential harm to be worried (wary) about. 

If we are bothered that my partner's ex is noticeably invested to have “family time”.

Some exes are requesting that family time to happen with new partners in present (those exes are in a new relationship themselves)  and others are requesting family time only for bio-parents and children, no spouses allowed. (those exes are usually single or they have a strongly dominant role in their new family where their new partner has no voice).

If you read carefully, you already noticed the pattern: BM wants to have a special time where they can feel equal in their co-parenting dynamic. It is emotionally unbelievably difficult for a mother to accept the reality- my attempt at a family with that man failed. He is now happy and has a family and I have ...nothing?  …another partner but it's not a nuclear family nevertheless. And then the worst possible scenario, that usually rocks even the most sure-footed BM to the core - dad is remarried to a childless woman and will start a new nuclear family with her without any additional baggage from her side.  That is a very hurtful potion of emotions, mixed with feelings of failure, self-pity, anger, disappointment, lost self-worth and jealousy. 

The first natural instinct is to secure their position as “the most important mother” “the mother who was here first” or whatever any specific person needs for her own peace of mind. 

With the same root is another very common and very annoying behaviour: undermining (sometimes belittling, sometimes even attacking)  his life partner. The need to do so comes from a very basic instinct of equalizing situations: If I can not have as much as I want then I can take away something from others, so I still have more than them. If I am not 100% in the leading role, I have to try to make another woman's position less important (at least try to make it look like it's less important than it could be).

To achieve remedy for those hurtful feelings and emotional wounds, BM needs visual signs, visual proof of her superior position. She needs to be seen in the company of the father of her children. Depending on her own relationship situation, she will request that dad has to turn up on his own (the ultimate leadership status) or with his partner if BM is in a new relationship (her superior status shall be applied to both partners too).

BM needs reassurance that her “siren call” still has power over the father. 

Dads with non-conflict personalities are often able to go with this request, because they can see- it's innocent, BM has no chance to “get back together” and she only wants to feel important. I can give her this 60 min ego pat and keep her in a positive co-parenting mindset. 

Unfortunately, dads are overlooking serious traps with this. In psychology it's called- using a short-term remedy instead of dealing with the cause of the problem. 

First: every time when you are giving in BMs requests in hope of reassuring that anxious person, you are not making that person feel better about the uncomfortable situation (she will not feel less divorced) you are teaching BM to demand proof that “she has not pushed aside, not forgotten, not the past, not unimportant to you” and every second time it has to be a greater task. Because that is how life is, if you agree to give a little, next time you will be asked for bigger favours. In every aspect of life. (work, money loans, personal favours).

Second: every time when you are spending time together as a nuclear family, you make your child hope that mum and dad will work it out one day. They are already getting along better. If I can make them come together more, they will learn that they are actually good friends and then we all will live together happily ever after. 

And here where BMs who are malicious (or just low empathy and won't mind hurting their children to achieve their personal desires) are making their children their “flying monkeys”.

This term is used in psychology to describe a person who is made to be the messenger or emotional influence (usually without knowing that they are delivering someone else's message). They will tell their children that if they are asking dad to come and spend time with only three of them then “we all can be very happy”. They are making their child believe that actually, dad wants to be with them only he needs a little bit of encouragement from you. 

And when a dad agrees to "just come in and have a cuppa" or "let's have a walk together, it is such a nice day" and behaves friendly and tries to give their child a nice time - their child gets confirmation: "mummy was right, dad does want to spend time with us and dad does want it to be us only! He is so happy, he is clearly loving it!"

It's extremely easy to achieve, because naturally ANY child in ANY age is dreaming of nuclear family and parents to be friends and living in the same house. Give them the smallest, faintest hope, that there is a possibility, and they will cling onto that hope and … if dad will disappoint them by NOT TO MOVING IN WITH MUM after all those friendly walks and eating ice-cream and having a fun time at the park- then they will direct their anger to dad: You failed me! You were nice to mum and still can not marry her, it's your fault!

When we should not "open our children's eyes" to let them see, that the other parent is a bad person.

 

It's so hurtful for us, caring and loving parents, to see how the other parent saying all those things that makes our child forgive them that they are in fact, a bad person. We really would like our child to open eyes and see- they don't care, they don't love you as much as I love you. They don't do as much as I do for you! 

It feels so unfair that my child can not see that. 

In our personal need for fairness, we are forgetting that children are not looking for fairness. They want to know: am I good enough to be loved? Am I willing to be loved? If we are taking away their belief that dad loves them more than anything (even though he seems not putting the same amount of effort in showing that) we are taking away our child's self-worth.

Here, where all the therapists are telling you: love your child more than you hate your ex. 

Make your child believe that she/he is amazing and loved by both parents. Even if you can not believe that. Like we made them believe in Santa, the Tooth-fairy and Elf on the shelf. 

The amazing benefit is that, when they are older (maybe not before they are adults) they will see who did care and who took the easy path, but they now have self with not to be tricked anymore. They grow up knowing that they are good enough to be loved and if someone is choosing not to- it’s their loss, not my fault. 

Different case scenario: a child, who is convinced that the other parent doesn’t love them enough, doesn't love them properly or doesn’t love them at all, that child will try for the rest of their life to earn that love from another parent. 

Similarly, like children will (most of the time subconsciously or in secret) blame themselves as reason why parents split, children will always blame themselves(most of the time subconsciously or in secret) that they were not good enough to be loved by that parent and will try to earn that love (sometimes subconsciously or not acknowledging that) and will always feel bad about themselves. They are often people who are throwing themselves into abusive relationships because they feel that they have to earn love, work to be worthy being loved and won’t expect being loved for themselves.

 

Why should the Ex feel hurt? They were the ones who walked out of their marriage!

One of the most recurring complaints new partners seem to have been: “Why the ex acts like she/he is hurt about the end of the relationship. She/he was the one who ended it, walked out or cheated and left! He/she wanted it !"

I would like to ask; would she leave if she was happy in that relationship? Should she stay in an unhappy relationship? We agree that leaving can be the right thing to do if you can not make it work so everyone can be happy.  Now: leaving means breaking down that relationship. 99% of people who had to go through a relationship break down are describing it one way or another as a big loss. Sometimes like being cut deep. Like someone caused you serious injury.  We are able to understand that pain when someone is leaving you and breaks your relationship. 

Now I would like to bring in a parallel example for this pain and loss. 

Imagine that someone caused you an injury: stabbed you or cut off your finger. Hurts, leaves scare or leaves you without a limb. 

But what if it was you? What if someone cuts themselves? Won't that hurt? Or if something is very unusual with that person's ability to feel pain, won't it leave scars? Won't it leave that person without that limb? 

And what if that person, who pulled this “knife” was trapped and had to cut of own finger/arm? (think back to the famous movie: )   Should we have an attitude towards them, that they can not be seen or treated as disabled person because they did it to themselves.

Or like Siamese-twins: They had to be separated to give them chance for normal life (or some cases- life at all) but doesn’t matter who was removed from who, they are both separated now and as a result, they both have scars or physical special needs after that separation. 

I believe you can see already what the point is I am trying to make with this. It doesn’t matter who made the decision to cut the ties and break a relationship. It hurts everyone who is involved. 

 

 

The stigma of unwanted children.

Not all mums have their child because they wanted one with that man.

Not all dads have their child with a woman they wanted to have children with. 

The scenarios why this child is here are endless and here we will not analyze everyone's special circumstances.

We have a very impersonal scenario; there is a child arriving for parents where one or both did not want to have a child with the other parent.

The first thing parents are doing is, they are starting to convince everyone (themselves included) that the child was very much wanted: “No, I did not plan to get pregnant. No, I don't want to have a family with that person. No, I don't have a plan for next 18 years. No, I am not in a place to start family - BUT THIS CHILD IS VERY MUCH WANTED.

And let's face the fact: IT MUST BE TRUE. Because you must want that child very-very much if you are choosing to start the ultimate challenging style of parenthood. You are choosing to be a parent without knowing- whether you will get anger, resentment, denial or support form the other parent. If any of those happens then, which extend, or how consistent that might be? Will you get promises, then going to be ghosted instead? Or will you get a load of abuse to start with and then on top of it you have to start co-parenting and sending off your child with a person who caused you months/years of emotional pain. How much conflict with the other parent and his friends and family will bring to your life. When that conflict might park up. From the beginning? Will it be triggered by any changes along the journey? What can be the trigger? Can potential tigers be avoided? Will my child have half-siblings? Stepsiblings? 

And the ultimate: HOW WILL I SHARE MY CHILD WITH OTHER PEOPLE?  How will I feel when my child is spending milestones in another house? How I am going to feel when another woman is holding my child when my child is sad/or poorly? How often it will be that instead of me, the mother, another woman(man) is sharing happy moments and special "firsts" of my child, ie: my child will see snow first time but not with me, because my child first snowfall happens during another parenting time. What if my child makes the first step when in another house, my child will lose the first tooth when in another house? You are walking into parenthood knowing there is a 50-50 chance that you will miss those “first” because because no one can not plan those. 

99% of parents in this position are avoiding thinking about it or even acknowledging the truth that having a child in this situation they have to start sharing their child. 

How do you feel that you have to share your child's birthdays and Christmas with a person you maybe can not tolerate to be in the same room or who doesn't want to be in the room with you? Every celebration, that meant be a happy event, will be clouded by anxiety because you tied yourself with a person you were not meant to be with. What if every celebration will be full of hateful looks and snarky comments or just fear of possible snarky comments or just plain discomfort from the fact that you are in the room with a person who had sex with you ones but now would like to pretend that you are non-existing here.

Remember, you can not predict what it will be. You really don't know that person or maybe only know the negative aspects that made you decide you don't want to be family with that person. 

Yes, too often we can read or hear encouragement from bystanders to go to court and fight against all of it. Get full custody, he can not take YOUR baby from you, mums are more important than dads! All those pep-talk slogans can be comforting before the reality kicks in. The ugly truth is most of the time you have to share your child sooner or later. Courts won't care if you want to breastfeed- you will be ordered to provide milk for that time. Courts won’t care if your child is crying during the handover, you will be reminded that children are crying when they are dropped off at nursery and at school. These days Dads will fight for parenting time and they will get it. If they don't want to be parents themselves then they will fight for the parenting time so they can hand over their child to his partner (stepmum) to do all the parenting for him. There are very few parents who are willing to disappear for good and you only will receive a check with child support and you can build your life freely.  And even if you had no contact for yeas and you are still not free to move on with your life - you will always live with the fear that the other parent can turn up and executing his rights to have parenting time. Most terrifying is the fact that your child will run to the returned parent because, deep down, your child always missed having that parent in his/her life.

To sum it up; choosing to become a single parent this mum to be is choosing to live in constant stress and constant fear of losing their child to the other parent.

Even if those two parents have a book example of co-parenting and everything is perfect like in Adam Sandler's movie - situation can change in a second. The smallest change in routine can turn everything upside down and in the blink of an eye, your fairytale becomes a warzone.

But I know you decided to start that journey anyway. That's why you are reading this blog right now.

Congratulations on your baby! 

Is commonly recommended ideal co-parenting being a modern name for polyamorous family model?

My statement is that the description of what the recommended co-parenting is the same as a description of poly family model (specially Polyaffective family model).

Is having sexual relationships between grown-ups the only determine where line: family, not family is?  Of course not.  (What about families where one of both partners can not or don’t want to have sexual interactions?)

 Types of Polyaffective Relationships: Nonsexual Intimacy

Cognitive dissonance theory.

f we are refusing to admit that it is a poly-family model separated parents are aiming, then all members involved will experience cognitive dissonance. Everything my future partner is saying sounds good and correct and honorable but somehow living in it makes me anxious, uncomfortable. I feel like I have to modify information about my day-to-day family life I share with my family and friends because they would not understand or would get upset with me or my partner (somehow when I describe what is going on it sounds “bad” but he said he doesn't do anything “wrong”).

I spoke with adults who admitted that their friendly co-parenting separated parents caused them different uncomfortable feelings. Starting from constant hope that they are so friendly they must soon reconsider and reunite only to get those hopes crushed every time. Or getting questioned by other relatives or community members about their “unique” family and sometimes being the target of impropriety jokes from teenage peers (your parents must have group-sex with all four together?). One man admitted that they agreed between siblings that one of them is always somewhere eyeshot when both of their parents are attending for whatever reason/even. Reason was, because their parents were so friendly and chummy towards each-other, that their children become worried that their parents might “be improper with each other”, insult their current spouses with this and end up divorcing again. I guess those parents were sure, that children are enjoying their friendly relationship so much that they are always glued to the hip when when both parents are attending (sad laugh from me) 

Why is mum living with that man if she is doing everything with dad? Why can not mum and dad live together if they are doing everything together, discussing everything together, sharing their time and money and jokes and secrets with each other?

Who is dad's partner? Mom, because he is making all decisions with her and attends all the family events with her or his wife who is sharing a house and bed with him? 

Will confuse and unsettle children, because they cannot understand the “command order” as it seems to be changing all the time. Why are we saying “our family” and to describe:  mum, dad and children who are not living together and sometimes we are saying “our family” but only mean children with one parent and her/his partner and relatives on that side? 

Confusion is the reason for anxiety or frustration (anger) and these feelings will lead to problems between people, problems with mental heaths, problems with behaviour, antisocial actions. And not for children only, adults are equally affected.

Absolute majority of co-parenting and blended family problems are directly confusion triggered from:

Why is my partner acting with ex like they are still family?  They are separated!

Why for co-parenting they have to go and hang out?

My partner keeps telling me that they are not family anymore, that we are family but he/she is sharing all our personal information with the ex, discussing all the plans with the ex first or allowing the ex to veto our plans or change plans we made?

Why being in a relationship with someone who is co-parenting, I have to act like a side piece who has to just accept that someone else made decisions about our family time, budget, activities, holidays, duties?  Aren't we family now? Aren't they separated? 

Why should the other parent consult with their new partner before giving me an answer? We are parents, partners should not have any say in our family decisions! 

Why is my partner upset that I agreed to have my children with us during our weekend trip? They are my family!  

Why is my ex upset that I don't want to stay at their house for night to look after children when she is out? Why can't I take them to my home? My wife is their family too?

When one is entering into a relationship with expectation that she/he will form a family with a person who has children but not cohabiting with another parent, then there are certain expectations. 

We are making decisions; other people will not get involved with our day to day life.

When one is hearing a statement that they are co-parenting then there is expectation for 

a) business like involvement where rules and expectations are agreed and followed.

b) uncle-auntie style friendly but respectful for personal space.

Reality is almost never like this. Reality is that the new person is expected to be part of an already formed family, but rules are not spoken or not labelled. Or the rules are presented but in “socially acceptable form” that lead to misunderstanding, unrealistic expectations, confusion and loads of negative emotions.

Those confusions could be avoided or easy to answer if we are honest enough to admit: you got involved with a polyamorous family. Then the new person knows exactly what to expect and can make a decision will that setting be acceptable for him/her or not. 

No one will appreciate when their partner is 

Describing themselves as “adventures and not vanilla in the bedroom” but when moving you find that you are expected to take part or as minimum, to host swingers’ parties in your house. 

Describing themselves as “people who every now and again like to let their hair down” and when moving in they will discover that it means being drunk every single evening. 

Describing themselves as “someone who can appreciate friends and friendships” and when moving in you find that they are out with friends, or they are occupying your home and emptying your fridge every single day. 

 

Reality is that people do hide their real motivations and their real lifestyle. Maybe because they sub-conscious level are aware that this is extreme for most people's standards. Maybe because they are aware that if the potential partner would know the extent of the eccentricity, this person would not agree to start a relationship. maybe because poly-affective relationship is still criminal offence in numerous countries when exactly the same lifestyle itself is perfectly accepted by officials when called: co-parenting.   list of countries

That means: it is on that person, who is invited to start a relationship with a person in co-parenting situation, to work out what is the real situation with the so-called friendly co-parenting. 

The rule of thumb is: take time and observe. Taking notes is highly recommended too. Our memory has a habit to remember only events that are supporting what we would like to see. When in love, we only want to see positive hinds, however small they are and we are happy to ignore big significant red flags. If we are writing up everything, then we are not filtering out things that are uncomfortable. (yes, we are forgetting them straight after writing them up and only will think and talk about the positive things that we also wrote up that day). Only when reading back what you noticed, felt surprised, your feelings, questions, and how often the same theme is occurring can give you a relatively accurate picture of what you are getting yourself into. However, there will always be people who are choosing to write up only positive things and not anything negative (they have many excuses to do so) or reading back their notes they are still choosing to call those occurring red flag events “not important, this was then and he said he will change now”.  For those people we have to admit that we all are choosing our path. Choosing not to follow advice is a choice.

 https://www.todaysparent.com/family/parenting/polyamorous-parenting-the-surprising-benefits-of-the-ultimate-modern-family/

https://www.moms.com/platonic-parenting-explained/

Because of the social pressure and expectations, most women are not self-aware enough to akwnolege (being aware of) their real motivations when they enter in the dating game. There is large number of women who are looking for a relationship and starting a relationship, because they want "children and family" or "family and children".  Not because they want this man "in health's and in sickness". They actually don't care much who is the person who is filling the "missing piece in puzzle".   Some sources are hinting that this number is close to 80% of  20-40 years old female population. 

Those woman you can hear using lines like this:  He is a good husband material. He is such a waist of time, he is not ready to start family. He is perfect, he is ready to settle down. 

Notice that those positive or negative qualities are not about the ones personality, its the valuation how this person would function as a co-parent or family provider. All the dating game and romance is to make this potential co-parent to "choose me for semination".  Love? Those women are in love with the idea of the house this man will provide for her to raise her children in it. In the moment when desired number of offspring has been produced, this woman is loosing any romantic interest towards her co-parent. At the same time she reminds very active and caring towards family as a unit. A marriage ( co-habiting family) is functioning now as not-inmate co-parenting team. 

https://www.todaysparent.com/family/family-life/i-love-my-kids-mom-but-i-miss-my-wife/