Blending families should be easy... right?

I’ve always been taught getting married means you leave your family and start your own. You and your husband start a new life. You get your own place, make it your own, start your own traditions, and get to know the person you will spend the rest of your life with. The concept of this is much simpler than it really is.You get married, start your own family, and have to figure out how your new family blends back into both of your individual families.I grew up in a pretty normal white family, by western standards.  My mom was a single mom for the first part of my life, got remarried, I was adopted by my dad, and met my biological father a few years ago. I can call that normal, right? Hey, I did say by western standards… Needless to say, Joel wasn’t walking into a simple family. There was tons of baggage and a long, confusing line of family history.Joel’s parents had an arranged marriage and moved to the United States immediately afterwards. His mom was finishing up school and Joel’s grandparents offered to have him live with them in India for two years until she was done. He moved back from Hyderabad and grew up with his parents in Chicago.We didn’t grow up entirely different. We both had ice cream cakes for every birthday, parents who loved us, we were the oldest siblings, and grew up in Christian families.We got married and started our lives in California. My parents and some of my brothers lived there. Joel learned the ins and outs of a white family and my family learned a bit about East Indian culture. It wasn’t always easy. We had to come into these new situations with an open mind, humble and forgiving, tons of communication, and remember that we love each other and the end of the day.We’ve never lived right next to all of Joel’s family. We were able to live in the same city as Joel’s younger brother for the last few years. We also try to visit one to two times a year. In being so far away, we’ve been slowly learning what it means to blend our little family with Joel’s. I think we’ve encountered most of it after we had kids.Even though the situations we’re confronted with are different in my family and Joel’s, the responses have to be the same. We pick and choose what we want to confront and what we should submit to. We’ve both had times we’ve had to sit down with our in-laws, apologize, and have long talks with each other.We’ve had times we treated our in-laws in a way we found respectful and later find out it’s taken in a completely different manner. It would be easy to brush it off and refuse to accept any responsibility. However, the tough reality is this is someone you will now have in your life forever. If you brush it off, welcome to a life of awkward family get-togethers you dread. Sorry, I’ve never wanted that. I love my in-laws and so does Joel. We work hard on our relationships. This means you have to look at what is respectful and expected in their culture.You’ll never get it all right. New situations are constantly arising and you learn how to deal with them as they happen. Have grace for each other and know that all the hard work you put into your relationships with your new family pays off. Blending families is one of the hardest things I’ve done. I’ve messed it up in so many ways. I’ve picked the wrong battles and made a fool of myself. The funny thing is it’s all been so worth it. I am now getting close to Joel’s family, which I consider my own. I now have another set of parents, a sister, a brother, aunts and uncles, and more cousins than I can count.Email me and share your experiences with this!