💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!)

Only after I'd been dating Dan for somewhere like 2 or 3 years (flying totally blind and feeling pretty miserable the entire time) did it finally occur to me that maybe there were some kind of stepmom resources I could look into that would help me figure out what I was doing so wrong.

I guess I thought stepparenting advice really didn't apply to me since we weren't married. Or maybe I figured, hey, if I'm not married to this guy, I don't have to put in the time or effort to really dig into these problems with his kid or his ex.

Maybe I thought that without being married, I shouldn’t really get a say how his actions toward his kid or his ex affected me, so I'd just wait until I was more official or whatever. And then we could have some real conversations about all this.

Boy was I wrong.

Your relationship as a stepparent starts on Day 1. You’re a factor in your stepkids’ lives as soon as you're part of their parent’s life. This is true even if you haven’t met your stepkids yet. Similarly, if your partner's actions with their kid and/or their ex impact your life, then damn straight you get a vote.

Don't think for one single second that just because you started dating someone with kids, you abandon your right to have a voice in your own life and your own relationship. Becoming a blended family is a years-long process, and the sooner you start educating yourself on the typical dynamics of stepfamily life, the better the chance that you can shorten your learning curve.

If you’re feeling lost or lonely in the stepworld and wish you could connect with like-minded stepparents, please come join our Substack community! Paid subscribers get access to our chat room, weekly newsletters, and a Q&A with me & Dan every Wednesday. You also get access to all our formerly paid offers, including workshops, ebooks, and longer-form podcast episodes. Best of all, our community is totally private and completely troll-free. We’d love to have you. xo

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🧡 Need a bigger pep talk? Start here or join us over on Substack! xo

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