Blended Family Relationships?

Hi all! Here’s my situation: My partner and I have a 3 month old son. We got pregnant pretty early on in our relationship (baby was planned though!), so we’ve been together about a year and a half at this point. This is my first child. We live in Florida right now. My partner has two other children from a previous relationship from when he was young - an 11 year old daughter and a 9 year old son. They live with his ex (they split up a long time ago, probably like 7-8 years) and her husband in PA. The ex and her husband have two children together - a 5 year old girl and a brand new 1 month old baby girl. So there’s a total of 5 kids right now who are related in one way or another. We moved to FL pretty early on in the relationship, so I have not met his other kids yet. He was in 2 serious relationships between his ex and me and his kids met both of those women. They grew attached to them and when he and these women broke up, it was difficult and confusing for his kids - so we decided to take it more slowly with introducing me to them, which I totally respect. These kids and their emotional well-being need to come first! We are working on a new custody/visitation agreement (his ex up until now point blank refuses to let the kids come down here to visit him in FL), so once they are able to come down, I will be meeting them and they’ll be meeting their little brother! I really want to meet them and have a good relationship with them - I love them already simply because they’re his other kids, my son’s siblings, and they’re part of my family now. No real question here, just curious about what other blended/not “typical” families we may have on here and how all your dynamics are :)

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3 days ago

@Lila Thank you so much for sharing! And agreed, there is no one definition for the word “family” and I love hearing about your husband’s relationship with your first son. I hope I can create a bond like that with my partner’s older children 💜

3 days ago

On our son's behalf. Again, his bio Dad and other Mother have NEVER despite my son living with them. My son calls my husband Dad. They are close and talk often. We now live cross country but he still texts my husband. Still calls. Also worth mentioning, we married when my son was about 12. So he wasn't in my son's life till later. His other Mom has been in his life since he was 9. My son is not close to her. He still calls her by her name, not her title. Not unless they make him, such as when his sister was young. When I use to take his sister and him to the park I would always say "Those are my two right there."

3 days ago

I despise the term "blended family" or "bonus (insert random relation here)". The family isn't a damn smoothie! Knock it off! It's also no one's business how the family came to be. It's a family! I grew up having 2 Dads, 2 Moms and 5 brothers. Never once felt the need to explain my life to anyone. I have a son from a previous relationship. We dated about a year, got engaged, got pregnant and 8.5 years later split up. I eventually got married as did my son's Father. He and his wife had a long engagement and got married when their daughter was 8. My husband calls my son "My son" or "Our son/oldest". We have a daughter together. So when people ask my husband how many children we have it's always "Two". He has volunteered on our son's school trips. (His bio Dad and other Mom NEVER.) He was teaching our son to drive, takes him on special forging classes. (Male bonding) They cook together, have went to the shooting range together. My hubby has been to parent teacher meetings for him, talked with the counselor

3 days ago

@Annette Thank you so much for sharing!! Families come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes made up of blood relatives and sometimes not. You sound really happy and that’s wonderful! 🥰

3 days ago

Finding a baby is on the way....boy things really ended up scarce. I was scared to tell my parents about it and his sister's. We found out I was pregnant during my second trimester at 18 weeks! Not much to really be able to take in slowly lol. We thought I was about 6 weeks. Afterwards we ended up being extremely happy about it, and he would lay on my stomach and laugh when baby was kicking his back, he took me to my appointments and always checked up on me at home while we was at work. It got really bad at the end of my third trimester, at 37 weeks I was forced to get induced and had an emergency c section. But we had a healthy 8lb 2oz baby boy. He's now 7 weeks old. We still get to see the kids (his daughter now 8 and his son now 5) every other weekend but...we wish we could get them more often. They have met their baby brother and love him so much. And the kiddos warmed up to me pretty quickly back in 2020 when I met them, unfortunately it was during the time he wasn't allowed to see them because of her.