🛑 When you feel like calling it quits in your blended family
A pep talk (love lecture?) for anyone who’s considered walking away from stepparenting.
If I could only pick one message that I want each and every stepparent to know, it's this: yeah this shit is hard, but you are not alone. So many other stepparents have been where you are and made it through. There is hope. This does get better.
I'd be lying if I said that message applies to every stepparenting situation, though.
In fact, stepfamily statistics tell us that 66% of relationships that involve children from a previous relationship don't work out. And that statistic takes into account only couples who made it far enough to move in together or get married. How many don't make it that far?
About once a month or so, I'll get a DM or email from some stepparent who tells me they're breaking up with their partner, but they wanted to say goodbye and thank me before they unfollow or unsubscribe.
"I just can't do this anymore," they'll say apologetically. As if deciding that being done putting themselves through the physical, financial, and emotional wringer of stepfamily life is some kind of personal failing.
There's a question that every struggling stepparent has asked themselves at some point — a question we're not sure we really want the answer to: should you walk away from your blended family?
Those who say yes would be in the 66% majority. And I don't for one second think it's because those stepparents don’t care enough or aren't trying hard enough.
Because even as someone in that other 34%, I’ve gotta admit that my own answer to that question was pretty mushy. I inexplicably kept telling myself “Not yet” while dodging multiple Dumpster fires.
Until at some point, our dynamics shifted enough for me to decide that hopeful-seeming light at the end of the tunnel was not an oncoming train. All those slow, small improvements finally gained enough traction that I found I didn’t need to keep asking myself whether I should call it quits anymore.
So while I want to believe that most stepparents reading this will, like me, find that the dysfunction of those early days fades out and steplife does get a whole lot better, I do not believe that is true for every stepparent.
Stepparenting doesn't always get easier for all of us.
We live in a society that idolizes toxic hustle culture. We're told over and over again, both covertly and overtly, that if you fail at something, well then, clearly you didn't try hard enough. You must not have wanted it enough.
But walking away from a relationship that's destroying you isn't giving up or failing — it's loving yourself enough to save yourself. And that can be a brave and beautiful thing.
🧡🧡
— Maarit.
PS - Be sure to listen to the podcast/voiceover version of today’s post to catch Dan’s take on this. xo
So how do I know it’s a “brave and beautiful thing” or if it’s just throwing in the towel?