What to Do When Your Kids Don’t Like Your New Partner

Expect it to happen. The best thing you can do is prepare. How to prepare, though, is the key when it comes to divorce. If you don’t know how to handle it, you’re already set up for failure, hence you take notes here and learn just a few strategies to try and minimize the heartache and develop something positive out of your current family situation.

For starters, you want interactions to remain appropriate depending on where you are in the relationship with your new significant other. Your child may not understand if it’s just two people dating. However, if the relationship is getting extremely serious, and marriage is right there on the horizon, preparing your child is crucial. If the child definitely shows a great deal of disgust over your new partner, address it with him or her specifically. The point, though, of asking, isn’t to try and change the child’s mind, but to get some insight as to why the child hates your potential spouse. A child hating the fact that the person’s not as funny as mom or dad vs. a child feeling upset over the fact that the person verbally abused him or her creates a definite line of understanding. Know what that line is.

Without a doubt, though, you have to support your new partner, if you’re on the brink of marriage. Dispel any fantasy of a ‘reunion’ and try to minimize the jealousy by spending as much time as possible with your child. It’ll be quite the balance, but you have to establish ground rules. Know, for sure, that this is a gradual process, a healing method, if you will –

Because, for sure, your child needs help to move on. It’s a new family. A new period in life. This is only a step toward that direction in this thing called divorce. Help your child make that step.