Marrying a man with a son

auddiebug

My fiance and I have been living together for the past two years. His son, who is 4, stays with us on the weekends and lives with my fiance's parents the rest of the time. My question is how do we explain to him that we are getting married in a way that will make sense to him?

I have searched the internet over and most of the advice that I can find is about second marriages. My fiance and his ex were never married and she is barely in the picture so this advice doesn't really apply in my situation.

steph861

I'd be doubtful that he would even understand the concept of marriage. If you live with your FI and his son sees you whenever he visits FI, his perception of you isn't going to change just because you get married.

theartistformerlyknownas

Disclaimer: I don't have kids, so take this with a grain of salt.

I assume your FI's parents are married? I would explain to him that vows are very serious promises, and you are going to say vows to each other that make you partners forever, the same way his grandparents did a long time ago. Nothing else will change, he'll still come stay with you, etc. etc. 

Shouldn't be too hard for him to grasp since you've lived together for his whole memory, and has other married couple(s) to relate it to.

STARMOON44

How did you explain to him why he doesn't live with his Dad during the week? Or when he will stop living with grandma and grandpa? Or where mommy is?

Probably by telling him things simply and calmly, answering questions when he asks them, and making sure the number one take away of any convo is " daddy loves you." He doesn't really need to understand what marriage means yet, he just needs to know how it impacts him.

manateehugger

Also childless, but I would something along the lines of explaining that sometimes two adults love each other enough to want to stay together forever and they care about each other enough that they would like to declare it publicly to the world through a ceremony called a wedding.

I'm drawing blanks on good options right now, but I wonder if there's a kid friendly movie that contains a wedding that could help him understand what a wedding looks like especially in the circumstance of blended families (e.g. I came home to H watching "Rugrats in Paris" last week - yeah, he got all sorts of crap- and there's a wedding that involves combining two families - though it's more about mothers). I imagine watching a movie like that and walking him through it could explain it. 

southernbelle0915

STARMOON44 said:

How did you explain to him why he doesn't live with his Dad during the week? Or when he will stop living with grandma and grandpa? Or where mommy is? 

Probably by telling him things simply and calmly, answering questions when he asks them, and making sure the number one take away of any convo is " daddy loves you." He doesn't really need to understand what marriage means yet, he just needs to know how it impacts him.

This. He doesn't need to understand the ins and outs of the process, but how his life will be affected. If nothing is going to change (i.e. he's still going to live with your FIL's and not with you, etc.) then I don't think it has to be a high-impact conversation. 

I liked @PDKH's suggestion of watching a movie where people get married and telling him you're going to do the same thing. That might make things "click". 

auddiebug

Thank you for all of the suggestions. He loves movies so I may take that route!

holyguacamole79

These may help:

http://www.whattoexpect.com/forums/hot-topics-1/archives/how-to-explain-marriage-to-children.html
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=A0LEVi2IgeJTmjIAXAcPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTBybnV2cXQwBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMgRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkAw--?qid=20091118214821AAR5FNK

Simply Fated

I love the idea of using a movie for a segue. Shrek has a wedding scene, well the second one, not the first one where the dragon sorta crashes the ceremony lol. Tangled has a follow up sequence seperate from the actual movie that features a wedding. Ummm... there was another movie that I'm blanking on... It was a recentish one, too. Dang.

Anyway, I'd keep it short and simple. Try not to throw too much info at him at once. Let him know if he has any question, you, your Fi and his grandparents will be happy to answer them.

zitiqueen

auddiebug said:

My fiance and I have been living together for the past two years. His son, who is 4, stays with us on the weekends and lives with my fiance's parents the rest of the time. My question is how do we explain to him that we are getting married in a way that will make sense to him?

I have searched the internet over and most of the advice that I can find is about second marriages. My fiance and his ex were never married and she is barely in the picture so this advice doesn't really apply in my situation.

Just out of pure nosiosity, why doesn't your FI have full custody of his son?

auddiebug

It is a really long story that I don't think he'd appreciate me spelling out on the internet. Long story short, the best place for his son to be at the time was with his grandparents.

ohannabelle

Holy over complications, batman. 

If the child is four, and doesn't live in a bubble, and watches TV and reads books, it's simple. The conversation will go something like this:

Adult: I have something happy to tell you. Your dad and I are getting married, and we're having a wedding.

Child: Today?

Adult: No, not for a while. In (insert month.) We'll have a nice party, and a big cake.

Child: Like Rapunzel and Flynn?

Adult: Yep, but not that fancy.

Child: Will there be candles in the sky?

Adult: No, just cake.

Child: Rapunzel and Flynn had candles in the sky. 

Adult: That just happens in movies.

Child: Can I go play in the sprinkler now?

Or something similar. If the child has questions, like, what's married? you say it's where two people promise to love each other forever, or something age appropriate. No need to over complicate things.

zitiqueen

zitiqueen said:

auddiebug said:

My fiance and I have been living together for the past two years. His son, who is 4, stays with us on the weekends and lives with my fiance's parents the rest of the time. My question is how do we explain to him that we are getting married in a way that will make sense to him?

I have searched the internet over and most of the advice that I can find is about second marriages. My fiance and his ex were never married and she is barely in the picture so this advice doesn't really apply in my situation.

Just out of pure nosiosity, why doesn't your FI have full custody of his son?

auddiebug said:

It is a really long story that I don't think he'd appreciate me spelling out on the internet. Long story short, the best place for his son to be at the time was with his grandparents.

Continuing with my nosiness, will that change once you get married?

Senecaf

He is 4 and you have been living together for 2 years so I don't think it will be big life altering news or anything. Using examples of familiar relationships will probably help. At four there will be no emotions to go along with this more questions and curiosity.

My kids didn't really question why their dad and I were not married till they were 4 and 6 respectively. And it came up because of something we saw or something they heard. I don't remeber. We talked about it for a few weeks actually. But really they were just curious and wanted to know what it is all about.

[Deleted User]

Next summer/this Christmas/after you graduate kindergarten your daddy and I are getting married!  We'll be having a big party/picnic in the park/dinner on a beach and you'll get to wear an awesome suit/vest/superman cape and sit at the front of the church/picnic chairs with Gramma and Grampa!  Then we'll eat mac&cheese/chicken fingers/spaghetti and  you can have all the cake you want!  Mmm, cake!  Now I'm hungry for cake!  Do you want to bake a cake with me now?  Vanilla or chocolate?

auddiebug

That's the plan.

AmaCassidy

I'm another one without kids, who would second the simple and casual approach. Though I'd also like to add that perhaps it might be better for his dad to actually do the telling than you? But I guess that depends on your relationship with him.  

auddiebug

In case anyone was wondering, we told him last night and it went well. We told him we were getting married like Grandma and Granddaddy are married and that he would be in charge of the most important part, the rings. He seemed to take that just fine.