If you’ve recently become part of a blended family, you are likely already familiar with the beauty and benefits that come from being a stepparent, watching your spouse be a stepparent, or both. Of course, there are some challenges that come with merging two families together and making them one; after all, biological families face a number of obstacles at various points as well. Once you and your family decide to go to counseling, there are some positive aspects of the process that you can anticipate. However, there are some additional benefits that you may not have considered that will help everyone in the family understand one another better and lead to more fulfilling family relationships.
1. You’ll Understand Each Other Better
Blended families often don’t understand one another, and this is a problem with biological families as well. Family therapy gives everyone a chance to talk about their feelings and opinions, which makes everyone’s goals for the family clearer.
2. You’ll Be Clearer About Motives
Therapy provides the communication methods you need to be clear about your motives when you’re talking to family. When your relatives know why you feel the way you do, they will better understand your actions.
3. You’ll Learn How to Work As a Team
Everyone has a part to play in a family. When everyone feels valued, you can work as a team to accomplish family goals, and family therapy can help you accomplish this.
4. You’ll Learn Your Role In the Family
Family therapy teaches you what your responsibilities are in your blended family. You may have to take on more of an authoritative role, or your role could be to befriend your stepchildren. Knowing what your stepchildren need and why they need it will make the family dynamic successful.
5. You’ll Learn About Mental Illness
It’s an uncomfortable subject to talk about, but you and the members of your blended family may be dealing with some type of mental illness. Anxiety and depression can often occur in children after going through a divorce or having to get used to a new stepparent. As a stepparent, you may experience these things as you attempt to be a parental figure in your stepchild’s life without overstepping any boundaries. Therapy will give you the instructions (and possibly medication) you need to be mentally healthy, and you and your relatives may also be referred to other health professionals who can help you live a fulfilling life despite mental illness.
6. You’ll Be More Aware Of Your Emotions
When you feel angry or sad, you won’t get so thrown off guard when you’re attending family therapy sessions. When you feel a sense of pride or peace as a result of being a part of your new family, you’ll learn how to express this. Therapy assists you in not being afraid of your emotions, so you can convey them healthily.
7. You’ll Communicate Better
Family therapy will show you how to say what you mean, mean what you say, and use your tone and body language to accurately get your message across. You’ll learn how to speak the truth lovingly and how to be more comfortable with your emotions so that you can avoid being passive aggressive.
8. You’ll Learn Patience
You probably know in your mind that it will take some time for everyone in the family to truly love and get along with one another, but being patient is easier said than done. Therapy sessions can help you to se properly assess the behavior of family members as you’re trying to form a bond, so you’ll be more patient with the process and avoid unnecessarily hurting each other’s feelings.
9. You’ll Resolve Issues Quicker
It’s naive to think that you’ll never have any issues as you and your family start to adjust to a new way of life. When you’re going to family therapy, you’ll learn methods for being honest about the issues that occur in your family and working with everyone to come up with a solution that benefits everyone.
10. You’ll Manage Your Emotions
Becoming part of a blended family means that there will be moments of frustration, and there may be times when certain family members feel neglected or misunderstood. If you learn the proper ways to manage your emotions, you can avoid saying or doing something to your relatives that you’ll regret later. Therapy gives you the tools to initiate a conversation that can lead to resolution and clarity.
11. You’ll Become a Better Person
Overall, family therapy for blended families can help you become a better person. You’ll get the tools you need to recognize how you feel, deal with it in a healthy way, and recognize the emotions of your family members and help them through negative or confusing feelings in a productive way. You’ll also get a better understanding of what makes you happy and what makes your loved ones happy, so you can incorporate this information into your family structure.
