January 26, 2008

QUESTION: I'm a 39-year-old male who has been dating a woman for a year. I have two boys; she has a boy and a girl. Her kids aren't used to having rules. We want a relationship, but she claims her kids don't like to come to my house because they can't do what they want, like run in the house, yell, scream, fight, jump around, enter any room without knocking and get whatever they want out of the fridge whenever they want it. My kids don't act like that. I'm lost because we have a newborn, and when I ask my girlfriend if her kids can calm down, she gets offended and makes excuses for them. Yesterday, she left and went back to her apartment. What do we do?

ANSWER: Sorry, but we have to go on a little rant right now. Call us crazy, but what were you thinking? “I'm lost because we have a newborn”? If you would have asked us first, we would have suggested things in this order: meeting, condoms, courting, condoms, having a plan in place for how you would both co-parent, condoms, living together and/or marriage, condoms – unless you were planning to add to your family. We certainly wouldn't have suggested you bring a child into the world without having a clue about how you would live with his or her mother. Thank you. We are done with our rant.

But this is the problem you've put before us, so here is our suggestion. With the help of a counselor familiar with bonus-family issues, make a plan for your life together. You'll need to decide how you both will discipline; set up house rules you can agree upon; and, most important, establish a forum for conflict resolution. Without such a forum, the mother of your child will head back to her own apartment whenever she gets angry, and the kids will just act out when they have issues; this will eventually tear your family apart.

One possible “forum for conflict resolution” is the “family discussion.” Make sure that it's a place to solve problems, not just a way to vent and blame people for bad behavior. One suggestion we always offer: “Come to the table with a solution.” If you're angry, don't just complain; have an idea of how to fix the problem and present it to the family as a possible solution, then ask for help refining it. “Please help” always goes over better

than “$&*!”

The Ex Files is written by Jann Blackstone-Ford, M.A., and her husband's ex-wife, Sharyl Jupe. They are the co-founders of Bonus Families (bonusfamilies.com) and the authors of “Ex-Etiquette for Parents: Good Behavior After a Divorce or Separation.”

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