When a marriage brings two people together, it brings two family philosophies together as well. The man and wife are drawn to each other but they just may have different ideas about life, love and parenting that can place a strain on their relationship.

At first, love is physical…life is forever…dreams are shared.

Then, they fall into expectations they have from a personal journey that each partner has taken without the other. The growing up in another household. The couple comes to realize that their dreams and expectations are grounded in that separate upbringing.

The sharing of love, hopes for happiness and family unity are defined differently in many nuclear families and can be a real obstacle to a “happily ever after” scenario in the brand new family made in marriage.

Recognizing the differences is the first step.

Hopefully the next step is accepting the differences as different. It is all too easy to feel they are wrong and right.

Overall, each partner needs to accept yet retain their separateness. People have signals that require definition to each other or misinterpretations are inevitable.

Being a family is not easy…combining phylosophies, religion, values, and dreams can be really tricky. It takes much effort and a lot of unconditional love and two people who support each other equally. Good luck to everyone!