Before You Marry the Family

A man who marries a woman with children needs to understand his place in that family before he makes her his wife. Love for her is not enough. They need to talk honestly about what will be expected of him as a husband, what role he will have in the children’s lives, what authority he will and will not carry, how discipline will be handled, how the biological father fits into the picture, and whether she will actually allow him to function in the role she expects him to fill.

Marriage is hard enough when two people are building a life together from the beginning. When a man enters a family that has already been formed, he is walking into relationships, loyalties, routines, wounds, memories, and expectations that existed before him. He needs to know whether he is being invited to become part of that family or simply expected to provide for it.

If his primary role becomes paying the bills, fixing the problems, providing stability, and carrying responsibility while the mother and children continue to function as the real family within the marriage, then what exactly has he become to them?

A man should not be expected to carry a father’s responsibility while being denied a father’s voice. At the same time, marrying their mother does not automatically make him their father, nor does it erase the children’s relationship with their biological father. That tension has to be faced honestly.

The woman must understand what she is asking of the man. The man must understand what he is agreeing to. And both of them need to consider what the children are being asked to accept.

These questions do not become easier after the wedding. They become more expensive.