Having a good relationship with your family is tough as a family is made up of multiple family members each with their own different personalities, personal problems, and opinions. No matter how nice you are to each other or how much money you have to resolve common issues, you will without a doubt face your good share of a family crisis, like every family does.
In this article, we are going to discuss the main causes of the family crisis, so you can have a better idea of what they are and how to avoid them.
Financial Problems.
Money does not guarantee happiness, with celebrities always being in the tabloids for the drama ensuing in their everyday lives. However, money is an essential need of the lives of everyone in the modern world and if you cannot afford basic necessities such as a place to live, food, utilities in your house and also travel to name a few common examples then this can cause a lot of stress on everyone in your family.
In turn, this additional stress and worries will result in your family members having ‘shorter fuses’ meaning that it will take a lot less than usual or normal to get them upset or angry with you.
It is important to note that in the wide majority of cases the people who fall financial problems do not do so thanks to their own actions, but instead the bigger circumstances around them that are out of their control such as the performance of the company that they work for and even the economy of the country that they happen to live in.
Despite these things being out of the control of most people, there is still a lot of things that you can do in order to minimize the risk of encountering financial problems.
The most obvious of those is to make sure that you are constantly saving a good part of you intake every month into an emergency fund rather than spending it on short-term pleasure such as constantly ordering fast food when you can instead buy ingredients from your local supermarket for a quarter of the price and cook an equally good meal.
The emergency fund will be key as there are bills that you cannot just ignore such as rent, mortgage, taxes and especially if you are looking after children you need to make sure that they are properly fed and dressed.
Families that are going through financial problems will witness major changes to the way they live. Therefore, communication is key in order to make sure that everyone is able to cope, as well as keep everyone updated on the progress of the return of normalities to the lives of your family.
Divorce.
The parents are the head of every family with the children looking up to them as well as grandparents being possibly heavily dependent on them. A divorce is never easy, but sometimes even though it may cause a family crisis it is the best thing to do in the long term for everyone to be happy as it is better to divorce rather than your children witnessing you arguing with your partner constantly which is far more damaging as children learn a big part about relationships and life from how their parents live theirs and how they act which if done wrong can change their psychology about everything.
Apart from the feelings of lust and jealousy during a divorce, another big part is the financial carve-up of assets that are either mutually owned or used by both parties.
If it is possible, you should try and negotiate with your partner about how assets are going to be divided between each other, with both of you making certain sacrifices to even things out.
Sometimes you may happen to be in a situation where your partner does not want to negotiate in any way and instead wants to make things difficult by being stubborn or even deciding to take you on in a court battle which on average costs a few tens of thousands just in lawyers fees.
This is the worst option out there as it will just prolong thing which will negatively impact the children who may be involved as well as widen the rift between the two parties and their own families who will most likely take the side of their respective family members, but sometimes you simply do not have a choice, so you have to stand for what you think is right.
After a divorce has been concluded with financial assets divided and the visitation rotes for children decided, you need to keep in mind that if, for example, you are no longer in a relationship with a woman she is still the mother of your children. Therefore, you should still treat her with the needed level of respect and not bad mouth her in front of your children as that is again not a good example for the young members of your family, but it could also cause further arguments.
Sometimes it takes a lot of years before ex-partners can truly sit down and talk without any hard feelings or arguments.
Being a Step-Parent Is Not Easy.
Families that include step-parents have an extra level of difficulty as this could mean an extra pair of ex-partners as well as step-children who if not very young will take a lot of time to see as your parent. The initial challenge when becoming a stepparent or your partner becoming a stepparent is the likely clash of family cultures.
For example, the step-children of your new partner may have been taught that they go to bed at 9 pm while your children go to bed at 10 pm, this can cause a crisis, so it needs to be discussed and resolved as soon as possible with a compromise from one side being very important.
For a lot of step-parents, the hardest thing is that no matter how hard they try that they never feel or the children in question do not see them as their real parents, but simply as the partner of their biological parent.
This is honestly tough but understandable, the best thing that you can do is be understanding, patient and be ready for the fact that you may never be seen or called ‘dad’ or ‘mum’ by your stepchild however this doesn’t mean that you cannot love and care for them and vice versa.
Also read a fascinating post: How Do You Keep Peace In Your Family? Top 15 Rules.
