133: Having the Tough Conversations in Your Remarriage

Summary Brian Mayer talks to Author and Counselor Megan Bottom about having the difficult conversations in your remarriage.  Megan has written a new book called “Nana’s Pearls” which is a book written from a fictional perspective and offers all sorts of wisdom for tough discussions on blended family topics like boundaries, parenting, and sex and intimacy.  We hope you enjoy today’s message.  For more information and additional resources please visit our website at http://www.theremarriedlife.com Today's Goodies Megan Bottom joins us today to talk about having the difficult conversations in our remarriage and blended family.  It can be tough to have conversations about boundaries, parenting, and sex for example when we possibly have been hurt quite a bit over these topics.  The following are some great words of wisdom as shared by Megan during the episode many of which she draws from her book: On Boundaries: “the biggest lesson that she learned in all of this was setting boundaries and not letting people control her emotions through developing her own family and not letting people have have too much influence on her own family. And that's something that I think that we as counselors talk so much about in in our with our couples that we counsel and how to have those conversations, you know, what does that look like? Where is my voice? Where is my opinion? Where how does that count in our relationship?” “There was just a quote that I read that I actually put in my book that ‘when there's tension in a relationship, most likely that's a lack of boundaries.’ And and that's something that's so important to have those boundaries in place before they become tension.” On Parenting: “What are your parenting styles? What do you hope? What are your goals for your children? What are your hope? What's your hope for what they're going to do? And I think that that's something that's so neglected because those are hard conversations to have. And not that if they're different, not if you have different dreams and goals and aspirations for your children or for your parenting styles that you shouldn't get married, but at least you know, going in. This is my boundary in the parenting of the children. This is where, you know, there might be what I call it caution tape boundaries, or there might be some barbed wire boundaries and that and we're not going to cross those barbed wire boundaries, but the caution tape that's something that I'm willing to compromise with. And I think that having those conversations before you get married, and if it's too late, and you're already married, and now there's friction, they're setting up those conversations and talking points. And before they happen before the friction and the anger happens, I think that those conversations are so often neglected.” On Sex and Intimacy: “There's a lot of shame involved in sex. There's a lot of hiding involved in that because that's the way that it's been presented, I think, forever and it's not just It's not hiding when it's done in the right context as husband and wife. And another thing with blended family marriages is that a lot of people feel shame because obviously they have had intercourse or intimacy with another person because they're bringing children into the marriage. It's, kind of obvious. and so they kind of tried to avoid talking about that. My thing is that there's so much lost there. And those are things that you have to heal and you have to repent from in order to move on to a new healthy relationship with your now spouse.” Resources: Broken 2 Blessed is Megan Bottom’s website where you can find out more about her and her new book called Nana’s Pearls. Megan’s Email Address: [email protected] Thanks For Listening! With so many things that take time in our lives, I am more grateful than you know that you took time to listen to this podcast episode.  If you liked this episode and believe that it would be beneficial to a friend, family member, or colleague, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. The Remarried Life Facebook Group is a community of people just like you who get and give support.  Please join today!  ​ As always remember that marriage is not something you have, it is something you do.  Talk to you next week unless you are binge listening in the future in which case I will talk to you in about a minute!  Take care.