Q: I’ve never written a letter like this before because I’ve never been faced with a situation like this before. I’m getting married soon for the second time and have two kids that I’m bringing to the marriage, plus, my wife to be has two kids as well, and we want to have kids of our own. We’ve read that second marriages have an 80% chance of failure, due in part to trying to bring two different  families together. We are both nervous and scared, and want to do this right. Any suggestions would be really, really appreciated.

     One of the things that tells me you have a good chance of being a family that beats the odds is that you are thinking about this ahead of time. Most people just sort of stumble into these things, making it up as they go along.

     With that in mind, here’s a few suggestions called “the universal laws for blending families.”

¨       The Law of -Ing

     The law of -ing refers to a misnomer in the way we talk about this special kind of family. By calling them “blended families” we imply that blending two families together is a one time event, and all the work is done. Nothing could be further from the truth. “Blending families” is a much more accurate term, because it implies that putting two families together is a life long process, with lots of work to do.

¨       The Law of Brady

       Let’s get this one out of the way right now. The Brady Bunch was a TV show, complete with scripts so everyone knew what was coming in advance, with as many takes as necessary to get it right. Blending a family together is real world stuff. And it’s all live!

¨       The Law of Pace

      Allow your new family to develop and set it’s own pace. Don’t try to force relationships or closeness.

¨       The Law of Instant Love

     Related to the law of pace, the law of instant love states that you cannot realistically expect “instant love” to occur between siblings and children and adults. Love and relationships take time.

¨       The Law of Magnification

     In many of the blending families that I have worked with, at first it feels like everyone is walking on egg shells. Walking on egg shells makes it feel like every little issue is a huge deal, on which rides the success or failure of the family. Watching out for this law can help you keep things in perspective.

¨       The Law of Loyalty

      I’ve yet to work with a family where this wasn’t eventually a very powerful issue. Just consider the situation above. We’ve got four kids, all in various stages of recovering from the trauma of divorce or perhaps death, coming together in to a new family, and developing new relationships and loyalties. Yet they still have loyalties to the previous families. This is hard enough for adults to figure out, much less children.

     It’s like what a 10 year old boy in a family I once worked with said, “How can I love Daddy and Jim (step-father) at the same time?”

¨       The Law of Permission

     Here’s one answer to the loyalty dilemma. As much as possible, even though it can be incredibly difficult, it’s crucial that kids have permission from as many of the

adults as possible, to form new and loving ties with members of the new family.

¨       The Law of Step, Part 1

A parent once told me they didn’t like the word step because it implied less of a connection between the family members. As this father put it, “While I am not the biological father of two of our children, I am a father and dad to them. And they may be the biological children of my wife, but they are also my children.”

¨       The Law of Step, Part 2

As another mother of a blending family once told me, “Yeah, we’re a step family - we’re going to be taking lots of steps together.”