Welcome to the Awesome Marriage Podcast, a place for honest conversations about marriage and how to have the relationship that God has designed for you.

I am your co-host, Christina Dodson. On the show will be our host, Dr. Kim Kimberling and Nell Smith.

To engage with the Awesome Marriage podcast, use the hashtag Awesome Marriage.

This month, the Awesome Marriage, we are talking about second marriage, use the hashtag awesome marriage. This month of awesome marriage, we are talking about second marriage.

So the ministry at awesome marriage is for all couples who want to have an awesome marriage

by submitting themselves to God.

And this certainly includes couples who are in their second marriage.

We are here for the marriage you are in now to help you make it thrive and to help you honor God in it.

A lot of times when it comes to second marriages, it can be extra complicated with a little bit of

extra baggage, but there certainly is some practical things that you can do to help make your

second marriage thrive.

Today we're going to be talking specifically about how it's important to not be blindsided. So a lot of times when

you're in your second marriage, you have to, you know, let go of the ideal and realize that there's

going to be some unique challenges since this is your second marriage. So our encouragement is to

not be blindsided by thinking that this marriage won't have some challenges because it will.

So Dr. Kevin, do you think a lot of

couples that are in their second marriage start out unaware of the unique challenges that they're going

to face? I think so. I think because it does bring a lot of challenges, you know, a lot of times

you're going to have a blended family. That's certainly going to be a challenge. A lot of times

they haven't, maybe they blame the

end of the first marriage on their ex, and so they haven't taken time to really look at themselves

and see how they contributed. And even if it was 90% your ex, you still contributed some ways,

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