😞 The loneliness of stepparenting

Why do we feel so isolated in a role where we need so much extra love & support?

So many stepparents are out there giving ourselves beyond empty because we believe it's 100% on our shoulders to make our blended families work. Most of those stepparents also believe it's 100% our fault if things aren't working.

I respect how committed we all are to our respective future happiness… but um… where are our partners in all this? Why do so many of us feel so damn alone all the time? Especially when the whole reason we're on this roller coaster ride in the first place is because of our partners.... who are then MIA when we ask for extra help or express our need for support.

How dare we bring our own emotional needs into our blended families, right? 🙄

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The issues stepparents face in this role range from normal relationship stuff to extremely serious, way-above-our-paygrade type stuff. I never thought in my life I'd have to learn about the effects of childhood verbal/emotional abuse or c-PTSD. I'd never heard of Mini-Wife Syndrome, Disneyland Dads, Golden Uterus Complex, high-conflict co-parenting, or parental alienation.

Yet here we are. I've now researched the crap out of every one of those bizarre niche topics, all of which impacted us as we attempted to blend our family. Meanwhile Dan, although he was slogging through that shit right there next to me the entire time, didn’t do a dang thing to educate himself. 🙃