I am a newlywed. I married a man who has two children; I do not have any. When I married him, we discussed ceratin situations that may come up because he has children. One being financial soundness. He assured me that his children would not interfere with the relationship that we have.<P>Now, that we are married that has not been the case. I am finding it very hard to become one with my husband because I feel like I am taking care of him, as if he was a cild. My income goes into our household. his income goes out of the household and then what is left, we can share. What is left is very little.<P>I want to be one with him, but this is causing some serious conflicts in our household. I feel like one of my most important emotional needs is not being met, and therefore, I am subconciouslly not meeting his needs. Is there hope for us? How can we bond as one without me feeling like I am the one who is doing everything?

Becoming One<P>The problen you described encourages me to suggest you go and get a book by Joe Beam entitled "Becoming One." <P>You can order it from <A HREF="http://familydynamics.net" TARGET=_blank>http://familydynamics.net</A> <P>KenDoll

I am not an expert in the field, having no kids myself, but this seems like a frequent problem people I know complain about. I think it is unlikely to go away, if the kids are young. Your husband had his kids before you, you knew this, and he is legally and morally obligated to provide financial and emotional support to them until adulthood. This is not a battle you will ever win, and to ask him to take away support and affection from two innocent children to have your own emotional needs met? I don't think that's what Dr. Harley meant.

I have first hand experience with this situation, my husband had three children. I knew before that a substantiail portion of his pay goes to the support of htese children and there was nothing he could do about it. The first thing was acceptance. The children are a psrt of him and he is doing what is right by supporting them, that's honorable when a lot of fathers don't.<BR>Second think back, you paid your bills when youwere single and he paid his, why is it now that when you have condensed your lifestyles into one all of a sudden there's not enoough money to go around. In my situation we got rid of our debt first and when we got married moved into the less expensive of our two homes, saving a ton of money. Credit cards are out we pay for everything up front so as not to build any debt for now and we live within our means. My entire pay check is overage (and I make more $$). With my check we are able to go out to dinner or take a trip or but a new toy for the house. My husband and I made the decision t live within HIS means because he is the provider for our household. He wants to be able to take care of us. It was an ajdustment but we compromised the whole way though, I don't love his home, the way I loved my home but I do love the mortgage!! I don't live in the same neighborhood, but I live with my husband and there is no greater place i'd rather be than at his side. And we don't deal in a lot of mine and his. If there is a bill on the counter that needs to be paid that has been there a little while, Sure I will pick it up write a check and drop it in the mail. He is dedicated to getting to a point where he can buy me the house of my dreams (And I have big dreams) So isn't it wonderful that my whole check can go into savings as a down payment. We don't even miss the money that goes to his children, though we could sit around and play with the numbers thinking, "well if we had that money we could do x,y, and z" we DON'T have that money so we concentrate on living a wonderful life together with what we have. And in contrast to a lot of our married friends, we don't argue over money, nor lack of it. It's about priorities, If you want to become one with your husband, die to self. it's not about what you as an individual deserve for your hard work it's what you as a couple have together. You married him. What if tomorrow you had nothing to call your own, you would look to your husband to be your support and share everything he had with you...freely. it shouldn't take a natural disaster that should happen as of your wedding day.