“Home for the Nth Time” stars Zhao Baogang and Song Dandan as a couple, both married for the third time! This 30-episode television series is a rendition of the current hotspot: the high divorce rate of 40% to 50% in big cities, where even hedgehogs have to hug for warmth, and reorganizing a new family is certainly the choice of most divorced men and women. But what is the key to unlocking the door to reunited family happiness?
The rule of happiness #1: Give up idealized expectations of marriage
Psychologists recommend
not rushing into a reorganized family and healing old relationships with new ones. Think about marriage, love, and what your expectations really are.
Letting go of the expectation of perfection in marriage means truly maturing and no longer thinking of yourself as a little girl or boy, but entering into a partnership as an adult.
It also means becoming aware of the marriage you’ve ended, being aware of your patterns in loving and being loved, and completing your self-growth. This is quite important. Without awareness, we enter new relationships with old patterns, leading to restructuring relationships in old cycles.
The Rule of Happiness #2: Honor Every Ex
Psychologist Advice
It is unrealistic to expect the other person to be past-free, to deny the ex-wife position and to expect to completely replace the ex-wife position. In fact, no matter how many ex-wives there are, accept them for who they are and accept that they came into the man’s life before you did.
It’s understandable to be jealous and rejecting of your ex. It requires mutual empathy. If you are still living in the same house, be careful to put your ex’s things away and give a good mental cue for your new life from the physical space.
Where does the current person draw the line at finding out where the ex is? It should only stop at why the divorce and the handling of the previous marriage and attitude and personal awareness. Don’t pry into details that are too intimate or you’ll have a sense of disrespect and create unnecessary situational imagery for yourself. Not exposing at all can be just as damaging as overexposing.
The Law of Happiness #3: The incumbent should build an alliance
Building an alliance with the incumbent Building an alliance means fully respecting and valuing the current partnership. Focusing on the present relationship when considering things and making decisions. It is easy for Chinese partners, especially men, to put relationships such as parents and children above the partnership. The truth is that the partnership comes first, whether it is a first marriage or a remarriage, in order for the marriage to be successful.
Psychologists suggest
When your ex keeps showing up in front of you in the name of children, etc., be sure to talk to your ex about The first thing you need to do is to make sure that you have a clear line with your ex and get the consent and understanding of the current one. This is an important principle of respect for the current person.
If living with the incumbent’s children, the incumbent will use how you treat his/her children as a measuring stick for your relationship. With children, kindness is important, but more importantly, take your time. Time can help build a coaching and friend-like relationship with each other. Don’t forget that two adults are in an alliance.
The ex asking for money to support the child’s future must be made known and understood by the current.
If the ex has some excessive and unnecessary contact with the incumbent, it is possible that the TA is not dealing with the emotions of a marriage that has ended, and this is the time to give the incumbent the utmost trust and face the ex together. A joint discussion is essential.
The rule of happiness #4: Make peace with the incumbent’s loved ones
The significant other in the current life is also important to you.
They had a strong connection with the TA’s ex. They are comparing! You have to let go of the comparison mind as well as the sensitivity.
Psychologist advice
In-law relationships have always been seen as the most difficult relationships, let alone if you are a new daughter-in-law who has remarried. Don’t be demanding about intimacy. Getting along like company and clients is already a great success.
Be prepared for the fact that she doesn’t necessarily like her ex-daughter-in-law much, but it’s possible that she has taboos about divorce, which in her mind is bad, and she will view you with a critical eye. Treat your new mother-in-law with graciousness and respect. Even if she goes overboard, do your alliance with your husband and don’t respond in a tit-for-tat manner, but also make it clear to her what your boundaries are.
Happiness rule #5: A formal wedding is necessary
Psychologists suggest
a formal ceremony is an opportunity for the reunited partners to make a public appearance to their social relationships, and an important time to gain social recognition and receive blessings. Both partners formally make their social relationship with each other public and are invited as a whole or to events with family and friends in subsequent social interactions. When a remarried woman proposes to have a wedding, it is not a love of pomp or vanity, but a psychological need: to be publicly acknowledged!
Happiness Rule #6: Create a new partnership on the level of your true self
Psychologists suggest
unconsciously comparing the current relationship to the previous one, or unconsciously realizing that they failed in a previous marriage, both make people long for what they have now to be a better option, and can’t help but worry and Doubt that they cannot have a better choice. In fact, these longings and worries can influence your determination to commit fully to creating a new partnership.
The word “create” is especially important for restructuring a partner. To give your relationship a new keyword of happiness. Be sure that you are not a replacement for your past partner, and that even if you both have what you consider to be stubborn and damning flaws in each other’s emotional patterns, you are two new people to each other.
All deep and lasting partnerships are the ones that remove masks and pretense, are free to be themselves, and allow each other to be themselves, meet at the level of their true selves, and love each other at the level of their true selves. And this law applies to all partners, whether first married, or remarried.