In 2012, after 14 years of marriage, the Indianapolis Colts felt it was time to move on. Sent packing by his only NFL team, one he transformed from afterthought to Super Bowl champion, Peyton Manning said goodbye to the Indianapolis Colts with a shaky voice and tear-filled eyes, then got ready to find a new place to play quarterback.
“Nobody loves their job more than I do. Nobody loves playing quarterback more than I do. I still want to play. But there is no other team I wanted to play for,” said Manning, who turns 36 this month.
This Sunday, Peyton Manning will return to the place where he called home amidst a lot of fanfare. Some of the Indianapolis Colt fans are really looking forward to his return, but not in a way that you would think. Angie Six, devoted Colts fan, and blogger puts it this way.
In college I fell in love with a sports fan, and his enthusiasm was contagious. Shortly, after I we got married, we moved to Tennessee. It was 1997, we were in the middle of SEC country, and a kid named Peyton Manning was king. There was something about the guy I couldn’t resist. His dorkiness, his antics at the line of scrimmage, his work ethic, those commercials. I watched football just to watch him, and suddenly found myself caring about the rules, the players, and other teams. But it was mostly about Peyton.
Come Sunday, my loyalty is with the Colts. Peyton is the big brother who left for college when you were a kid. Now he’s back. You missed him like crazy, but you can’t wait to show him how big and strong you got while he was gone. You want to wrestle him, pin him to the ground, and then hug it out.
With all the attention focused on Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck, the Colt’s current quarterback has rarely been mentioned in the conversation. But,
Luck is dealing with something Manning never had to contend with: following an icon. He could go on to have a very good NFL career and still fall short of the standard set by his predecessor.
According to Brandi Mitchell, author of the The Blended Family Survival Guide, blended families have become the new norm.
More and more people are having children before marriage, and the reality is that most people who do have children before marriage, end up marrying someone other than the parent of their child. Add to that the rising rate of divorce and remarriages and about 1300 new blended families are created in the U.S. everyday.
In fact statistics show that:
• 50 percent of all Americans are involved in some type of blended or stepfamily relationship, which is about 75 million Americans.
• 30 million children under the age of 13 are currently living with one biological parent and that parents current partner.
• And, 1 in 3 people are a stepchild, stepsibling, or stepparent.
Many people are also getting married later in life, which means the chances are extremely high that when they do marry someone or get in a serious relationship, that person (or sometimes both people) will usually have a child, sometimes MORE THAN one child with them.
So, if you are a new spouse replacing an ex. that was so revered, how do you start to carve your place into the family. In our In the Trenches segment, here are some tips:
Establish your own Love Bank style.
According to Dr. Harley, author of His Need/Her Need there is a place within each of us is a Love Bank that keeps track of the way each person treats us. Everyone we know has an account and the things they do either deposit or withdraw love units from their accounts. It’s your emotions’ way of encouraging you to be with those who make you happy. When you associate someone with good feelings, deposits are made into that person’s account in your Love Bank. And when the Love Bank reaches a certain level of deposits (the romantic love threshold), the feeling of love is triggered. As long as your Love Bank balance remains above that threshold, you will experience the feeling of love.
Acknowledge the challenge.
You knew that your spouse was bringing a child from a previous relationship into the marriage, so that part of your situation can’t be a shock, just like Andrew did, when he was given the reigns as the Colts starting quarterback. If you’re shocked about having to come up with a plan to resolve difficulties, get over it! Nobody said this would be an easy hill to climb. You need to sit down with your spouse to discuss money, discipline, childcare and any other issues that you haven’t mutually agreed upon yet.
Create a personal relationship.
Make a commitment to developing a relationship with your stepchild that has nothing to do with your spouse. Set aside some special time in which you and the child can interact alone. You also need to stop thinking of your stepchild as “his/her kid” and regard the child as an individual. Make no doubt about it, you are a pivotal person in that child’s life.
Being interviewed before his Sunday Night match-up Luck had this to say, “I figured if you can take of your business, if you can hopefully win some football games then it becomes easier on that end.”
And the same goes for you as the new partner in a blended family. If you can take care of business, and enjoy some wins with the family, it will become easier over the years.
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