We understand both the positive and negative effects children can have upon a couple’s relationship.

When two partners give birth to their own children, their love for one another is often strengthened. When a couple marries and one or both of them bring with them a child or children from another relationship, these children can, in some cases, contribute to the dissolution of the marriage. The chances for a marriage to survive involving children from a previous relationship are significantly enhanced when the children are accepting of their stepmother or stepfather.

It is generally more difficult to raise someone else’s children than to raise one’s own. While it can be difficult in cases where a parent may have died and the other parent remarried, it is even more difficult if one’s parents are divorced. A number of factors can make this situation more or less difficult to handle. For example, how does the mother of the children relate to her former husband’s new wife? Do the children look upon their father’s/mother’s new spouse as someone who contributed to their parents’ divorce, or are they happy that their mother or father has found a new mate to share life and love? Do the children sometimes try to play a parent against a stepparent when the stepparent may attempt to exercise a certain degree of discipline?

The younger the children are when their parent’s remarry, the easier it often is to accept a stepparent into their lives. Teenage children are often more traumatized than young children by divorce. Hence, partners should be well informed of ways to help a child or children avoid experiencing various problems that can result when their parents’ divorce.

Unless a couple is too old to have children of their own after one or both of them had children earlier, new born children can not only strengthen the love of the natural parents, but their presence at times can also help their stepbrother(s) and/or stepsister(s) be less critical of their own mother’s or father’s new spouse.

Because of the challenges that one partner can experience in raising a child or children from the other partner’s previous relationship, it is important that a couple thoroughly discuss how they are going to handle this situation. Children may also need to be counseled about how they should relate to a new stepparent in a way so as not to harm their natural parent’s chances for love and happiness.

If one or both of you have a child or children from a previous relationship, who has custody and where will they live? Would a stepparent consider adopting the other spouse’s children and curtail receiving child support payments if it could strengthen his or her relationship with them? If both partners have children from previous relationships, how well do one partner’s children get along with the other partner’s children? Have you discussed how one partner might discipline children from the other spouse’s previous relationship?