🛟 STEPPARENTING SURVIVAL GUIDE
8 tips to keep your head above water when you're struggling to blend your family
Becoming a stepparent is not for the faint of heart.
My early stepparenting days felt like a total disaster. My stepdaughter wanted nothing to do with me, no matter how hard I tried to connect with her. My husband Dan & I kept fighting in circles about his kid and his ex. And my own kiddo was getting lost in the shuffle.
What was I doing wrong?? I didn’t know, but I definitely blamed myself.
You might be blaming yourself too. But you shouldn’t.
I believed — as many stepparents do — that becoming a stepparent would consist of a brief adjustment period and then we’d move on with regular life like a regular family. But stepparenting is not an on/off switch; it’s a process.
You won't figure this gig out right away. You will make mistakes. You'll struggle to define your role. All of this is normal and okay.
What stepparents need most of all is support, not judgement — including more support and less judgement toward ourselves.
So with that in mind, here’s 8 foundational stepparenting tips I wish I’d known back at the beginning of this roller coaster ride:
TIP# 1: No actually this is not what you signed up for
Before you became a stepparent, you probably had some preconceived ideas of what it means to be a stepparent or blend a family. The reality is very, very different. Your version of how you thought the stepparenting role would look might not work in real life with your actual stepkids.
But that’s okay! Because a blended family doesn’t really work the same way as a traditional family anyway.
So many factors that define stepfamily dynamics simply don’t exist in traditional families… things like custody schedules, loyalty binds, and guilt-based parenting, to name a few. And because stepfamilies are so different, we think those differences must mean we’re failing to blend or we’re stepparenting the wrong way. We worry we’ll never feel like a “real” family.
I promise you’re not failing. It's just that blended families don’t quite fit into a traditional-family-shaped box. And the stepparenting role doesn’t quite fit into a parenting-shaped box.
The trick is to let go of those preconceptions and figure out how to make the stepparenting role your own: ➡️ WHAT'S A STEPPARENT'S ROLE, ANYWAY? 👀
There's no one right way to stepparent or blend a family. There's only the way that's right for you.
TIP #2: Mixed feelings are normal & okay!
I used to think I was the only stepparent who struggled in this role, which also made me feel like the worst human ever. But the more stepparents I talk to, the more I believe that the folks who find this role easy are in the vast minority. Turns out it's super normal to for stepparenting to be harder than you expected.
There’s an intense pressure put on stepparents to feel 100% happy in our role, 100% of the time. Like since we willingly chose a partner who has kids, we’re also obliged to accept all the associated complexities and baggage with a smile. But that’s not really how stepparenting works.
I both chose to become a stepparent and it’s been a hard choice. I both love our little foursome, and also can’t stand how complicated blending our family has been.
You can feel completely committed to blending your family with your partner and also feel stressed and overwhelmed by the challenges becoming a stepparent brings. That’s how most stepparents feel, honestly — some just hide it better than others.
Good news, though: turns out we can both have mixed feelings up the wazoo and also be excellent stepparents! So please give yourself plenty of grace around all those exhausting contradictions. Here’s a guide to help with that — it’s free for paid subscribers, or you can unlock access during your free trial:
TIP # 3: It’s okay if you don’t like your stepkids (and vice versa)
Speaking of overwhelming emotions… one of the main places you’ve probably noticed some mixed feelings is toward your stepkids. This is normal and okay! They probably have mixed feelings about you too, which is also normal and also okay.
The emotions any stepparent feels for their stepkid are different for every single stepparent, just like every single stepparent defines their stepparenting role differently.
Your feelings about your stepkids — good or bad — do not make you any more or less of a stepparent. In fact, there are several valid reasons stepparents can struggle to connect with a stepkid: ➡️ WHAT IF I DON'T LIKE MY STEPKIDS? 5 LEGIT REASONS THAT DON'T MAKE YOU A MONSTER 👀
Stepparenting is hard enough without us holding ourselves to some imaginary gold medal standard. All you can do is the best you can do. If your best includes love, great. If not, don't beat yourself up. Just keep doing your best, keep being present, and let that be enough. Showing up every day and continuing to put in the work is, in and of itself, an act of love toward your stepkid and the stepfamily you’re trying to build together.
All that said, what’s not okay is for stepkids to be openly disrespectful or rude toward you. And if that’s happening, you definitely need support from your partner to sort things out. Which brings us to….
TIP #4: You need your partner’s support.
As stepparents, we have this idea that it's our job to fit ourselves into our partner's family. That if the kids don't like us or we feel like a third wheel, it's somehow our fault and we just need to work harder at this whole blending thing.
Nope. Nope on several levels.
Stepparents aren’t here to complete an incomplete family, like we’re a missing piece in someone else's jigsaw puzzle. Nor are stepparents technically joining an existing family. You, together with your partner, are creating a new family.
You can't stand alone as a stepparent; it's not all on you to "just try harder." The role of your partner must be an active one, not a passive one. You absolutely need your partner's help bushwhacking your way through the unfamiliar landscape of blended familydom.
To successfully blend a family, your partner needs to be willing to A) put your relationship first, B) parent their kids, and C) set clear, firm boundaries with their ex if needed. The two of you need to be in this to win it: together, and for the long haul.
If you need help explaining this to your partner, Dan & I put together a guide to help. This too is free to paid subscribers, but you can also zip through the whole thing during your free trial, no strings attached:
TIP #5: Blending a family takes time.
The process of blending a family takes 5 to 7 years on average, and 10+ if high conflict is involved. I don’t think this statistic is mentioned nearly often enough.
I remember feeling so depressed that at 2 years in, my stepdaughter and I were still tip-toeing around each other like virtual strangers. But really, when I think about how often I saw her in those 2 years — a few hours a day, maybe once or twice a week — that’s only a few months total spent together in real time. No wonder we felt like strangers!
In addition to the time factor, there’s also the emotional acceptance factor. Not everyone in your family will blend at the same pace. Some family members might need more processing time than others.
That 5 to 7 years is the length of time it takes for everyone to get used to each other, learn to adapt and compromise, and accept that this is the new normal. Dan & I talk more about how that (very messy) evolution looked for us in this episode of our private podcast:
The process of blending cannot be rushed, so if your household resembles a war zone more than it does an actual family, don’t get disheartened. Blending a family is the long game. But hang in there! While you’ll experience a boatload of adjustments and challenges along the way, you’ll enjoy plenty of tiny victories along the way too. Even if sometimes they’re hard to see.
TIP #6: High conflict is a whole thing
I’d never heard of high conflict personalities or parental alienation before becoming a stepparent. I had no idea these things even existed, let alone that they were major factors undermining my role as a stepparent and our ability to blend. Knowing what I know now, I’d approach stepparenting so much differently.
When you’ve never stepparented before, you don’t know the difference between typical vs. toxic co-parenting dynamics. Nor do you realize just how much those dynamics impact your stepkids — and, therefore, your ability to form a relationship with those kids.
I can’t tell you whether your partner’s ex is high conflict. But if it seems like you and your partner continually have the same fights about the ex, or if the ex is attempting to put limitations on how involved you or your partner are “allowed” to be in the kids’ lives, it’s very possible they’re high conflict. In which case, the usual “just compromise more!” co-parenting advice does not apply, and you need a different skillset.
Here’s the best place to start with that: ➡️ HELP FOR HIGH CONFLICT 👀
TIP #7: Don’t forget to exist outside your stepfamily
There’s a ridiculous amount of work involved in blending a family.
You're juggling your relationship with your partner, plus the stepparent-stepkid relationship, plus your relationship with your own kids if you’ve got any of those running around. This is all on top of normal everyday stuff like work and bills and remembering to pick up cat food on the way home.
As stepparents, our response to all this stress is usually to work harder at blending. We believe we’ve gotta solve alllll the problems before we can blend properly. Then once we’re blended, life will finally calm down and we can relax.
Turns out this is backwards. In order to blend, you need to relax first. Prioritize your own mental health above any other factor.
You can’t let your entire life revolve around stepkid problems or the latest shenanigans from your partner’s ex. It’s definitely not fun to live like that for one thing, but also it puts way too much pressure on this family you’re trying to build. You’ve gotta give yourself and your stepfam some breathing room along the way.
And if you’re reading this like “Mmm nice thought babe but I’m already neck-deep in burnout over here” — I totally get it, and have a bunch of resources to lovingly bust you out of burnout mode: ➡️ STEPPARENT BURNOUT & RECOVERY 👀
TIP #8: Keep the big picture in mind
It’s all too easy to hyperfocus on your stepfam drama of the moment (lord knows there’s usually plenty to choose from) and see every less-than-ideal incident as a disastrous dealbreaker.
To break out of that perspective, try viewing the latest nonsense in context of that 5 to 7 year timeline instead of in the moment. Roughly 90% of the stuff you think of as a Very Big Deal in the early days of becoming a stepparent will fade away into obscure irrelevance.
So your stepkid complains about being unhappy at your house or having to do chores. So what? Kids from traditional families complain too. Or maybe you said or did the exactly wrong thing in a delicate moment. Well, that sucks, but shit happens and we all are imperfect humans who make mistakes. Forgive yourself, move on, and take notes for next time.
All you can do is your best, even on the days when your best feels like not nearly enough. Nix the self-criticism, remember to breathe, and remind yourself that the world will not end if your stepkid sulks and pushes their dinner around on the plate like you served up bugs and worms. Someday that'll probably be funny.
Eventually, you will make molehills out of those mountains. Your family will find its way, and you will find your way as a stepparent. It just takes time.
YOU’VE GOT THIS!
Crazy curve balls fly at your face from every which way when you're a stepparent. This gig is one hell of a steep learning curve, and you might live through more days than not when this role — and the blending of your family — feels just about impossible. I felt like that for years.
But then a day will come where you're involved in some totally un-noteworthy family activity and you'll realize... waaait a second. We kinda sorta feel pretty much like a regular ol' family! When did THAT happen?!
Blending happens somewhere along the way without you hardly noticing. Somewhere among the millions of baby steps you'll all take together over that 5 to 7 year span. There's no shortcut, there's no secret solution, there's no magic button. You become a blended family by ditching preconceptions, letting the little shit go, living daily life together, and doing the best you can.
That's it. That's the recipe.
Not to say that it's gonna be easy. I can't promise that... especially if you're dealing with more serious issues in your stepfamily, such as deeply troubled stepkids or a high conflict ex.
But I can promise you that time passes. Your family will change, and you will change. Stepparenting will get easier.
And if you need some help along the way... hey, that's what we’re here for! Because as much as you might feel like you're in this alone, you are not alone. Dan & I are right here with you, and boy do we have your back.
🧡🧡
— Maarit // @blendedfamilyfrappe
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