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BlueSkyGirl
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Default May 18, 2020 at 12:06 PM
  #1
Good afternoon,

Does anyone have experience with divorce or blended families? Please complete my questionnaire as I would love to hear all of your opinions. Thank you all for your time.

1. Do you have first hand experience with a blended family or divorce? Explain.
2. What is the best thing you've experienced about it? In other words, what are the strengths of blended families or divorce from your experience?
3. What are the hardest parts about blended families and divorce?
4. If you could go back in time and make one significant change, what would it be?
5. Are you religious and/or spiritual? How does this play a role in marriage and divorce?
6. How do you think bipolar plays a part in divorce or blended families? What are things to be cautious of?
7. Do you have tips for someone thinking about divorce or separation? We have two little kids and I'm thinking about doing a trial separation to clear my mind and take a breather from our unhealthy relationship.

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Bipolar 1
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Current age: 36
Married for 12 years
Math Teacher
Mom of two kids


“Keep your face to the sunshine and you won’t see a shadow” - Helen Keller

“Faith is to believe what you don’t see, and the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” - Saint Augustine
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Aviza
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Default May 18, 2020 at 01:07 PM
  #2
I've been married a divorced 3x. The first was hard. The 2 was a blended family. It was hard, it was ultimately the demise of the 2nd marriage. The 3rd was a con. I'm catholic first husband cheated, than hit me. I was hurt and broken. Never wanted to be divorced. But i don't put up with **** either. 2nd husband abused my son and threatened his life, divorce 2. Didn't have a plan just reacted, went crazy, lost custody of kids been miserable basically ever since.

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marycarmen
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Default Jun 18, 2020 at 11:02 AM
  #3
1. Do you have first hand experience with a blended family or divorce?
Yap. I got divorced four years ago, had been married for 13 years and he had been my high school sweetheart so we where together for 22 years. Now I have a new relatioship and but we aren't married and we don't live together every day. We are together on weekends and hollidays.
2. What is the best thing you've experienced about it?
In my opinion, there is nothing specially good about blended families. What would have been very good was if I had found a normal, decent guy to marry and have kids, and would not have had to go through the hell I was put through, just to realize I should have never have married that guy in the first place. I'm just tring to live a life as good as I can while triyng to acept that the life I planned and wished and worked so hard to have will never be possible for me.
3. What are the hardest parts about blended families and divorce?
The hardest part is raising kids with a man that is not their father. Although my new partner is a much more decent guy than my ex husband ever was, he is not the father of my kids and they were not sweet little babies when he met them, they were pre teens so that makes a lot of difference. He would have raised them differently, and sometimes those differences come up as problems we have to adress. I also had disagreements with the father of my children, in fact I had even more than I have with my new partner, but I knew he loved them as much as I do, and that makes a bit of a difference.
4. If you could go back in time and make one significant change, what would it be?
I would not have married the father of my children. I would never put my dear children through that hell if I knew we where to be separated in the end. Not being able to do that, I would have divorced sooner.
5. Are you religious and/or spiritual? How does this play a role in marriage and divorce?
No, I'm not, so it plays no role.
6. How do you think bipolar plays a part in divorce or blended families? What are things to be cautious of?
Bipolar makes everything more complicated, so I don't dare to comment this one.
7. Do you have tips for someone thinking about divorce or separation? We have two little kids and I'm thinking about doing a trial separation to clear my mind and take a breather from our unhealthy relationship.
If you feel like leaving, do it. If it's not meant to end, you will find yourselves together again. If you are meant to go on with your lifes appart, the sooner the better. When you start considering divorce it's like you are always balancing plus and minuses of the relashionship in your mind and that is not a good way to be in a relashionship. The longer you stay, the more bitterness you collect.
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newlyD
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Default Jul 17, 2020 at 09:37 AM
  #4
1. Do you have first hand experience with a blended family or divorce?Yes Explain. 2nd marriage was with a women with 3 teenagers. I have one teenager and a elementary child.
2. What is the best thing you've experienced about it? When we all got along it was great. In other words, what are the strengths of blended families or divorce from your experience? The divorce was very hard.
3. What are the hardest parts about blended families and divorce? Communication and trying to understand people that have lived a certain way before the marriage.
4. If you could go back in time and make one significant change, what would it be? I would have dated her longer and not rushed the marriage.
5. Are you religious and/or spiritual? Yes How does this play a role in marriage and divorce? She is very faith conscience yet she would be very angry towards me often. as well as very judgmental which goes against the bible.
6. How do you think bipolar plays a part in divorce or blended families? A lot. What are things to be cautious of? Not being united.
7. Do you have tips for someone thinking about divorce or separation? A little We have two little kids and I'm thinking about doing a trial separation to clear my mind and take a breather from our unhealthy relationship.
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MrMoose
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Default Jul 18, 2020 at 11:39 PM
  #5
I saw this a while back and have been hesitating to answer because although I have experience here I'm not sure if any of it applies to your situation. That said:



1. Do you have first hand experience with a blended family or divorce?
Yes yes. It seemed like a wonderful idea to merge partial families (one child per parent) into one bigger family (Mum, Dad, two kids). But, my wife couldn’t control her increasing anger in life against me or the children, she couldn’t control her spending, she couldn’t enjoy life. We separated 2017 and finalized divorce 2019.


2. What is the best thing you've experienced about it? In other words, what are the strengths of blended families or divorce from your experience?
It’s a new start, a marvelous journey. Everyone can reinvent themselves. It could have been quite wonderful. It just ended badly for us.


3. What are the hardest parts about blended families and divorce?
The fault lines that exist at the beginning take a lot of time and hard work for both parents to erase, otherwise they linger. In our case my wife decided to open up the fault lines again as a manipulation tool, setting one child against her stepsister.


4. If you could go back in time and make one significant change, what would it be?
Not taking our kids through a gigantic heartbreak. I really wish I had waited another year to get married, and if I had, I would have recognized what was happening, and I would never have married. I really wanted to get married at the time. I was so optimistic and I thought it looked so perfect. But I was too hasty and I thought we could all just power through any problem.


5. Are you religious and/or spiritual? How does this play a role in marriage and divorce?
Somewhat. She used the religion to manipulate me and the kids. I’m somewhat spiritual but my wife isn’t, at all, so there was a huge disconnect there.


6. How do you think bipolar plays a part in divorce or blended families? What are things to be cautious of?
I think my wife’s changeable mood and zero patience and no empathy and constant cruelty and explosive rages eventually had everyone walking on eggshells trying to avoid another explosion.I'm not sure what the caution would be except to see if both adults (and even the kids) are willing to take responsibility and work to get better.


7. Do you have tips for someone thinking about divorce or separation? We have two little kids and I'm thinking about doing a trial separation to clear my mind and take a breather from our unhealthy relationship.
What’s a “trial” separation? If you need to separate, you need to separate. If you both want to work—as partners (!)—on the marriage, then you both have to go to marriage counseling together, separately, and work on it 50/50. You both need to accept responsibility, you both need to change. If one of you doesn’t accept responsibility or just reacts to everything with anger it won’t work. And if marriage counseling doesn’t work, better to work out a fair solution and have the kids get used to Mommy’s house and Daddy’s house and yes, it’ll be harder financially, but I think kids would rather have a harmonious household rather than a large separate dining room and a two-car garage.

Addendum: I really don’t know if any of this applies to you or your situation, but I will say the kids deserve happier parents, you deserve a happier you and I hope you figure out how to puzzle-piece it all together eventually.
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