It helped us forge the friendship we now have. Achieving this kind of harmony has been hard work, but Shepherd has no doubt that she and her family are better off financially as a result. For one thing, marrying into a blended family is a monumental adjustment, according to Esther Birenzweig, a counselor with the agency Families in Transition, Family Service Association of Toronto. Suddenly, a child is spending time in your house, messing up rooms, whatever, and the child's mother is on the phone asking if you remembered to give him his medicine. It can feel like an intrusion on your physical and psychological space.
Hard feelings present another huge obstacle to achieving harmony.
In such a case, the best you can hope for is civility. And then any shot at harmony goes up in flames. You can fuel the fires of antagonism even further by adding lawyers into the mix, according to Linda Tippett-Leary of Halifax, herself a lawyer. Pop-culture depictions of the process only make matters worse. Luckily, that's changing.