Tiny Pep Talks for Stepparents

💬 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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blendedfamilyfrappe.substack.com

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!)

Stepparents have the best of intentions. We think we’re supposed to support our partner, help parent their kids, smooth things out between houses… basically make our partner’s lives better, in the interest of becoming a family together. Seems sensible enough, right

So it can be a REAL FRIGGIN SHOCK if none of our efforts seem to work — or worse, backfire! And then we’re like, well, what are we doing wrong here?? If we were stepparenting the "right" way, then surely stepfamily life would be easier. 

I’m here to tell you that nope, it’s not you; it’s the situation. Stepfamily dynamics are incredibly complex, and stepparents actually have way less influence over that than we think. Our partner's parenting (or lack thereof), our stepkids' behavior, the ex being difficult... the idea that we can control ANY of these things is a total illusion. So it’s really okay to stop bending yoruself into various pretzel shapes trying to figure out what everyone else wants from you.

It’s not until we learn how focus on what we can control (a damn short list, I can tell you) that stepparenting finally starts getting easier. Which is where the idea of disengaging comes in. For more help understanding this concept, start by reading the Disengaging Essay. xo

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blendedfamilyfrappe.substack.com

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!)

Even if you love having your stepkids in the house, the switcheroo from kid-free to kid-full can feel like... a lot. And if you don't love having your stepkids around — well first of all, that's normal, and secondly that means transition days are that much harder for you. (And don't get me started on the complications of transition days when you're co-parenting with a high-conflict ex so your stepkid's visitation time happens to coincide with some fresh new drama. Every. Single. Time.).

There is some light at the end of the tunnel though: knowing all of this, you can put together a proactive plan that helps make transition days somewhat less stressful — for you, your partner, AND your stepkids.

Maybe start a fun tradition, like always grabbing ice cream on the way home. But also, keep in mind that it’s normal for everyone to have mixed feelings on transition days, so you might want to keep things low-key instead of rolling out the red-carpet treatment, which might feel like too much pressure.

On transition days, your stepkid needs adjusting time, decompressing time, and 1-on-1 time with their parent. It’s okay to lay low and give everyone some space instead of diving straight into Super Stepparent mode.

For more practical stepparenting tips and suggestions, you might wanna start with our free STEPPARENTING SURVIVAL GUIDE. It’s basically a very condensed version of what I wish I would’ve known back at the beginning of this roller coaster. xo

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blendedfamilyfrappe.substack.com

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!)

Would it be nice if the ex supported you? Of course. But if they don't, that's also okay... because you don't actually need their approval.⠀⠀⠀⠀

You don't need the ex to acknowledge the importance of your stepparenting role for your contributions to be valid. You really don't. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Remember that the way the ex acts toward you is more about the story they're telling themselves inside their heads than it is about who you really are as a person or as a stepparent. If the ex has their mind made up to blame you and be negative toward you, there's no different way you can act or different thing you can say or do to win them over.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 

Don’t ever let the ex’s mind games make you believe that you don’t matter. YOU MATTER. This is a fact, not an opinion. Whether anyone else agrees isn’t relevant — so don’t worry about anyone else. And especially don't waste time stressing about what the ex thinks! Instead, pour all that energy into the new stepfamily you're building together with your partner.

If you’re feeling frazzled by the intensity of stepparenting when the ex is high conflict or otherwise difficult, I have a workshop that might help: HIGH CONFLICT STEPPARENTING: BLENDING UNDER PRESSURE. It’s free to our paid Substack subscribers, but you can unlock access during your free trial. Plus you’ll also get to connect with a great community of very supportive stepparents who totally get it, because they’re dealing with this shit too. We’d love to have you join us. xo

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blendedfamilyfrappe.substack.com

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!)

Because stepparents are the new kids on the block, we tend to think that A) anything that goes wrong must be our fault and B) it's all on us to make our blended family work. Nope! Wrong on both counts.

It takes ALL the people involved to make a blended family work, but especially the support of your partner. It's not all on you, the stepparent, to "just try harder.”

You ABSOLUTELY need your partner's help figuring out your role as a stepparent. The role of the primary parent in a blended family ABSOLUTELY must be an active one, not a passive one.

If your partner's putting all the pressure on you & you alone to make your family succeed — or if you’re putting that pressure on yourself — please start educating yourself on stepfamily dynamics. And along the way, hopefully your partner will learn some stuff too.

Most importantly, BE YOUR OWN ADVOCATE. You're only human, and you can only do so much.

If you're struggling as a stepparent, please know you're not alone. 🧡 

And if you're looking for some help along the way, here’s our free stepparenting survival guide to get you started. Better yet, join our private Substack community and get connected with a bunch of very cool, very supportive stepparents who totally get it. Plus a bunch of other goodies. xo

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blendedfamilyfrappe.substack.com

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!)

I expected my stepkid to be a little distant with me at first. What I didn't expect was her extreme and total rejection of me. And not just for a little while — for YEARS.

So I’m sharing with you what I wish I would’ve known earlier: that some hesitance from your stepkid is totally normal, but an extreme and disproportionate negative reaction to a new stepparent could be a red flag that there’s something else going on.

At first, I figured it was just me. Something I was doing wrong. I tried everything I could think of to overcome her objections toward me and try to connect with her in more positive ways. Nothing worked.

It wasn’t until my stepkid also started rejecting her dad did I finally start thinking… I don’t think this shit is normal. And once I learned about the terms “high conflict” and “parental alienation” and learning how those issues affect your ability to bond with your stepkid as well as your ability to blend as a family did the dots finally start connecting: yep, that shit was not normal.

Every blended family faces speed bumps along the way. But if you're facing landmines and razor wire barricades instead, you need to start looking outside the typical vanilla blended family advice and start educating yourself about high conflict stepfamily dynamics and how to effectively limit a toxic ex’s ability to damage your blended family.

Dan & I have put together a ton of resources on high conflict to help with this, everything from a parenting plan checklist to a high-conflict co-parenting guide. Even a blog on how to protect your own mental health as a stepparent if your partner’s got crappy boundaries.

And if you want a little more hands-on support, our Substack community is awesome and helpful and so many of them are going through exactly this kind of crap. We’d love for you to join us. xo

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blendedfamilyfrappe.substack.com

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!)

You are not obligated to a life of thankless servitude just because you're in a relationship with someone who has kids.

FAR too many stepparents find themselves in the position of primary housekeeper, primary scheduler and organizer, even primary parent. All of this is somehow just assumed rather than discussed (let alone agreed-upon), which can leave you, the stepparent, feeling overwhelmed at best and unappreciated & resentful at worst.

If that sounds familiar, it’s time for you & your partner to sit down sometime when you’re both calm and talk about what works for you, what exhausts you, and what you'd like your role to be. Keeping in mind that if either you or your partner have unrealistic expectations about your role as a stepparent, then you genuinely can’t succeed. No one can win when the goal itself isn't achievable.⁣

So make time to figure out together what works for your relationship with your partner as well as with the kids, the vision you both hold for your stepfamily, and ways you can both contribute to make that happen. Yep, BOTH OF YOU!!.... it's not all on the stepparent to figure out how to blend your family.

If you need some help guiding this conversation and think your partner might hear this message better from someone who isn’t you, my husband Dan & I put together a guide to help with that: HOW TO ACTUALLY BLEND: THE MISSING INSTRUCTION MANUAL FOR STEPCOUPLES. This guide is free for our paid Substack subscribers, but even if you’re not a paid subscriber, you can unlock access during a free trial. xo

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blendedfamilyfrappe.substack.com

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!)

Let me just start by saying it’s totally, totally normal to feel some jealousy about your partner’s ex. Even though, if you’re anything like me, all of that feels sooo very 8th grade. I promise it’s not just you. In fact it’s so common, I included jealousy as one of the 7 stages of becoming a stepparent.

Anyway, here’s the thing. Your partner's relationship with you is NOT the same as what they had with their ex... and that's a good thing! Even though your partner had kids with someone else, they've chosen YOU to help them raise those kids. No matter how many significant life events your partner shared with the ex, all future life events will be shared with YOU.

And your future together is just as important & carries just as much weight as what's happened in the past. It's just harder to see because you haven't lived it yet.

But you will. And with time, the ex will become less and less important in your partner’s life and memories as the actual life and actual relationship they’re living with you become more and more important. So hang in there. xo

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blendedfamilyfrappe.substack.com

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!)

Letting “blending” become our sole life’s purpose doesn’t serve anyone, especially ourselves. Continuing to push down and push through our mixed feelings and stress and frustration and uncertainty is a sure recipe for burnout.

Stepparenting is part of who you are; it’s not everything you are. And you cannot put your own needs and dreams and self-care on hold indefinitely while you’re waiting for your family to blend.

So today’s pep talk is to remind you: if you need a break, take a break. It’s okay to take a step back. It’s okay to say "Know what? Not today!" and give yourself the day off.

Stepparenting is one of the many roles we play in any given day. But you are so much more than just a stepparent. Try not to forget that. xo

Oh and PS — if you’re feeling a little lonely in this gig 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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blendedfamilyfrappe.substack.com

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!)

The stigma against stepparents is so real and so deeply engrained in our society, it’s practically palpable. If you dare to admit you think stepparenting is hard — boy will someone launch a witch hunt against you.

But saying stepparenting is hard is just a fact. Just like saying any type of parenting is hard. It doesn't mean we're bad stepparents or that we hate our stepkids. Saying we need a break sometimes, expressing concern (or even frustration!) over our stepkids' attitudes, table manners, grades, and emotional/mental/physical health… none of that means we’re bad stepparents or hate our stepkids.

Just because we chose this role does not mean we're not allowed to have mixed feelings and express those mixed feelings. Kinda like how parents chose to be parents yet are allowed to vent whenever they want without getting accused of being bad parents who hate their kids.

Oh and in case you wondered, stepparents also allowed to screw up and make mistakes, just like regular parents. This might sound crazy but… it’s almost as if we’re all imperfect humans doing the best we can.

And don’t let anyone guilt-trip you into believing otherwise. xo

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

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blendedfamilyfrappe.substack.com