The Remarriage Blueprint: How Remarried Couples and Their Families Succeed or Fail Paperback – August 12, 2014

This book is absolutely essential for anyone entering a second marriage/relationship after kids or into a relationship with someone who has been divorced and has kids. I am a therapist as well as in a relationship with someone who has kids from a previous marriage and I found all the information extremely helpful in my life and my work. Ms. Scarf is absolutely right in her assertion that most couples beginning a relationship do not consider the dynamics of how that relationship will function as a new family. Often little to no thought is given to how the new person will fit into the existing family dynamics, and expectations like instantly loving a partner's children while common are certainly not realistic. I gave this book to my boyfriend to read after I was finished with it, because it definitely helped me understand what we were experiencing. While not the drastic, glaring problems with communication that many of the couples highlighted in the book faced, they were still important things to address. It was also very interesting to see the couples many years later, whether their relationships had succeeded or failed.

This book has definitely hit home on a couple issues that my fiancé and I have been going through. There are definitely obstacles you don't think about when going into a second marriage. However, this will be my first marriage and his second this book is absolutely relevant, well rounded, and easy to read. It has help shed light on underlying issues but it has also shown we have been doing a lot of things right! Highly recommend for step families to read!

A must read for any remarries couple! It game me new perspective and greater understanding. I now have some great tools to use in my new marriage and have compassionate, meaningful discussions with my husband. We both want our marriage to work and this book has giving us some practical ways to address remarried couples issues.

The people and families that were written about helped bring the issues to life. However, there was very little incite to be gained. This book was recommended by a person that claimed it saved her marriage, so I kept waiting for the Aha! moment to to take place, aaand I'm still waiting...

This book helped me so much. I divorced and remarried and had some adjustments to make and better understand things. I highly recommend this book.

There is no other book like this out there. All of the issues we had trying to make a new family with my kids and boyfriend were addressed. Who knew our problems were textbook?! Wish I had this years ago. It would have changed our lives.

Very informative book on a subject that there is very little information on.

Remarried 8 yrs. myself, I learned a lot! I recommend this to everyone embarking on or already in that triumph of hope over experience we know as remarriage. Thank you, Maggie Scarf and her mentor Patty Papernow!