Don't change the furniture! Don't even move it around. And don't throw anything away. That was the advice I read before marrying a widower with four kids. I think it served me well. When I found myself abandoned by my first husband, a few years under 40 years old with three very young daughters, I was desperate to remarry. I wanted two things -- a committed father for my children and a relationship for me. So I looked for someone who had the ability to commit. I found a widower who had nursed his first wife at home until she died.

When you blend families, you are performing alchemy: turning metal into gold. Your chances of success are better than the alchemists' of the Middle Ages and this community can make it even better. Each of us has to find our own formula, one day at a time. Just when you figure out one formula, new challenges will appear. Different metal to transmute into gold. When you decided to move two families into one house, you were aware of the challenges and felt that each family would benefit from the merger. But sometimes the view from inside makes us feel that everyone is losing. The loss of freedom of choice, loss of privacy, space, individuality and autonomy.