Tiny Pep Talks for Stepparents

You can trust your partner completely and still feel jealous of the life they had with their ex.

It's normal to feel bummed that you'll never share all those important "firsts" with your partner because they already shared them with someone else. It's normal to feel angry that you'll never enjoy an uncomplicated relationship with the love of your life.

So go ahead and feel jealous sometimes. Feel angry, feel hurt, feel sad. Just don't let those emotions eat you alive. If you notice your thinking turns obsessive or toxic, make a committed effort to change the TV channel in your head to something else. (ANYthing else!)

Most of all, focus on your future together. Your partner may have had those "firsts" but do you think they're happy they had to be shared with someone who's now an ex? Of course not! Your partner is looking for their own fresh start, or you wouldn't be in the picture. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

The future you'll share together adds up to way more than a chapter in your partner's past that's already over.

PS - If you’d love a guide for how to juggle the insane emotions that seem to go hand-in-hand with stepparenting (seriously, does anyone else feel like they’re back in middle school or something??) please go check this out: ➡️ 17 Coping Tips for Managing Overwhelming Stepparenting Emotions 👀

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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

I used to blame myself when Dan's ex would go off the rails, like it was my fault I encouraged him to grow a backbone. Like maybe I never should've tried to create rules and structure for my stepkid. Maybe if I'd just kept my mouth shut, the conflict between houses wouldn't have escalated the way it did.

Then I remind myself of something my sister always says: "Crazy doesn't need a reason."

Even if Dan & I had never met, his ex would've found some other way to alienate him from his kid. She'd have found some other excuse to flip out about every little thing, because that is the nature of a high-conflict person who thrives on chaos and drama. Nothing we did or didn't do would ever have changed that.

When you're dealing with a high conflict co-parent, the answer is always better boundaries, not more compromise. A high conflict person is gonna be high conflict either way, so you might as well err on the side of protecting yourself and the family you're trying to build.

Unfortunately, this advice is the opposite of what most co-parenting resources will tell you. But the truth is that most co-parenting resources don’t have any lived experience dealing with someone who’s determined to be unreasonable. Which is why I wrote this: ➡️ 4 things typical co-parenting advice gets wrong about high conflict 👀

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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

If you're a stepparent feeling frustrated, stuck, or unhappy, change for the better is absolutely possible. But it's probably not gonna come from the direction you think it is.

We keep waiting for our stepkids or partners or the ex to change so our lives become easier. We get increasingly frustrated when no one seems interested in changing. And the whole time, we forget that WE can change; that's the one thing we have 100% control over in our blended families.

In order to blend, everyone in your family will need to adapt and compromise. Including you. You can’t accelerate this process for your other family members, but you can start with yourself. As the saying goes, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Or in this case, be the change you wish to see in your stepfamily.

The first thing we typically need to change? Our own preconceptions: about how our stepkids should act, or how our partners should parent them. We could also stand to change all the wasted time and energy we spend wishing the ex were less intrusive or less crazy or just plain didn’t exist.

It can't be said often enough: blending a family, on average, takes 5 to 7 years (or more). You're in this for the long haul. The sooner you start letting go of your own preconceptions, the sooner you’ll start feeling more comfortable in the stepparenting role. To help, try one of these:

The 7 stages of becoming a stepparent

Stepparenting survival guide

Why everyone in a blended family needs to let go of “should”

17 coping tips for managing overwhelming stepparenting emotions

And of course, you can always find more support in our private Substack community. 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

Let's talk about your partner’s ex for a sec. Anyone else gotten wayyy too obsessed with the ex for their own good?? 🙋🏻‍♀️ That was definitely me.

Man anger is a tough emotion to shake. Especially when the ex is causing so much drama that you feel like you never get a damn break from their presence overtaking your entire life.

I'm not gonna say you shouldn't be mad (you're almost for sure justified) and I'm certainly not saying you and the ex need to be BFFs (you absolutely do not) but I will say: as long as you are angry, you will stay stuck in that anger.

If you’ve ever looked at your stepkid and felt your blood pressure go up because they look or act so much like the ex that it’s like having a little mini me in your home, you know exactly what I mean. But transferring our anger at the ex onto how we feel about our stepkids is a lot of baggage for those kiddos to carry. And then we're stepparenting from the worst possible place.

It's hard to move past the anger. Believe me, I have been there and I know. But do NOT let the ex take up rent-free space in your head. Evict them. They don't deserve your time or energy. Once you can disconnect your anger at the ex from your feeling toward your stepkid, you'll find that love enters way more easily. And actually, today’s entire pep talk was inspired by a quote from Joan Lunden, who said: "A heart filled with anger has no room for love."

Struggling to relate to your stepkid because they remind you too much of the ex is very very common, and is yet another one of those forbidden topics no one really talks about. So please know, if that’s you, you’re definitely not alone. And you should probably read this: ➡️ WHEN YOUR STEPKID REMINDS YOU TOO MUCH OF THE EX 👀

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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

I found it tough to connect with my stepkid, especially in our early years. She came across as entitled. She spoke in a cutesy baby voice almost constantly. She had terrible manners, including frequently being rude to me.

I’m embarrassed to admit how long I thought this was a problem with her. It literally took years before the light dawned one day like — wait a sec. Where’s Dan in all this? Sure this kid chews with her mouth open and ignores me at her soccer games but… Dan is the one letting her get away with it.

I didn’t have a stepkid problem. I had a partner problem.

Guilt-based parenting (or rather, lack of parenting) is super common after a divorce or breakup. There are all kinds of reasons this happens, and most of those reasons actually come from a good place. Like wanting the kids to have fun when they’re with you, or not wanting to be the bad guy. Single parents often feel like their kids have it hard enough dealing with their parents’ breakup without coming down on them.

The thing is, kids actually need rules and structure to feel safe and thrive. If you’re stepparenting a stepkid who doesn’t have any of that, or if your partner agrees that their kids need that yet they aren’t stepping up themselves, please please please go check out our guide: ➡️ HOW TO ACTUALLY BLEND: THE MISSING INSTRUCTION MANUAL FOR STEPCOUPLES 👀

There’s an entire section in there about why kids need parenting, and how a lack of parenting can negatively impact your family’s ability to effectively blend, as well as affecting your personal relationship with your stepkid.

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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

As the newest members of our stepfamilies, stepparents are the outsiders, which means it's easier for us to see any dysfunction or unhealthy patterns that have been invisible to everyone else.

That's why, when we bring up issues that concerns us, we're told there either isn't a problem, or it's just OUR problem. Like “Well, this is how it's always been... so if you want to be part of this family, you'll have to get over yourself.”

Folks, that's not how stepfamilies work.

Stepparenting is an ecosystem, not an island. Every blended family is only as blended as the sum of its parts. So while the stepparent's actions contribute to any given outcome, guess what, so do the actions or inactions of everyone else. Including your partner and your stepkids.

In other words, stepparents aren't to blame for everything that goes wrong in their blended family. And yet, we so often do blame ourselves.

If you're carrying around a whole bunch of guilt today, feeling like you're the reason your family isn't blending like you'd hoped, today's a great day to set that shit down. 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

"No" is a complete sentence. And it's a sentence stepparents are allowed to say.

It really is okay if you don't want to drop everything to watch your stepkids when your partner decided to change the visitation schedule at the last minute and didn't check with you first.

It's also okay if you choose not to attend yet another school event where your stepkid ignores you and your partner doesn't correct them.

And finally, it’s okay to take a break from blending your family — especially if you feel like you're the only one working at this.

Setting boundaries and saying no sometimes are a critical part of learning how to stepparent effectively. Without putting your own oxygen mask on first, pacing yourself, and knowing your own limits, you’ll quickly find yourself feeling resentful or burned out.

And if you’re listening to this like “Too late babe, I am already there” then I highly recommend you go read this: ➡️ THE DISENGAGING ESSAY 👀

It’s basically an explanation of how you got here and encouragement for how you can start course-correcting back to feeling like yourself again. 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

A lot of folks act like stepparenting is easy. If it’s easy for them, that’s great. But stepparenting being hard for you doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.

So many books and articles I read in my early stepmom days made it sound like there'd be this brief adjustment period and then we'd all be BFFs. So I thought, feeling like this gig is really hard must mean I'm reallllly messing up as a stepparent.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Here's what I know now, though: hard is the default setting when it comes to blending a family, especially when the ex is high conflict. Feeling confused about your role is normal. Wondering where you fit in is normal. And it's also normal to not love stepparenting 100% of the time.

If you feel guilty about those feelings or feel like you're failing as a stepparent because of them, first of all that’s not at all true. And secondly, please know that it's not you. It's just this role. It's the circumstances. It's all the collateral baggage that gets dragged into our lives along with our partners and our stepkids. Please don't beat yourself up if blended family life ends up as way harder than what you thought. I promise, none of us knew what we were getting into.

Anytime you need some reassurance that you’re not alone, we’d love for you to join us in our Substack community. It’s a bunch of very supportive stepparents who totally get it and who’d be very happy to cheer you on and cheer you up as much as you need. 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

At first I thought my stepkid just had terrible manners or a bad attitude. TBH, those might be true too. But after years of this with no improvement and actually seeing her behavior get suddenly worse, I finally realized my stepkid was being super shitty to me & Dan on purpose; she wanted to drive us away. And that is the heartbreaking nature of alienation.

On some level, she wanted us to give up on her — so she’d be free from that loyalty bind where her mom kept her trapped. Alienation is like a self-fulfilling prophecy: the alienating parent keeps telling the kid we don’t care about them. And they reject us so hard and are so awful to us that many of us do give up, because we don’t know what else to do and we think that must really be what these kids want.

Instead of giving up though, Dan & I kept trying. Kept showing up and trying our damnedest to show my stepdaughter that we were her family too. That made her so mad for so long I thought she'd never forgive us.

Fast forward to today though and here we are. Life is pretty damn normal with my stepkid these days. She even tells us she loves us now and gives us hugs and stuff, which she quit doing for years. Just goes to show that no matter how bad your relationship with your stepkids seems right at this moment, you never know when you might turn a corner. 💕

If you’re currently trapped in your own personal worst-case scenario with alienated stepkids, please know I’m sending you love. And also, please don’t lose sight of the big picture. Don’t forget that underneath the layers and layers of the rejection and anger of parental alienation, your stepkids are your family. And you are theirs. No matter how hard they try to prove otherwise by pushing you away.

There’s no aspect of stepparenting life I found more heartbreaking than the alienation we lived through, yet finding accurate advice to support you through that is incredibly hard. Which is why Dan & I set out to create the resources we wish we’d had ourselves back when we were living our own worst-case scenario, such as this workshop: ➡️ Parental Alienation: Survival Strategies for Blended Families 👀 It’s free for our paid Substack subscribers, or you can watch it by signing up for a free trial. I really hope it helps. 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

One of the few things stepfamilies have in common with a traditional family is that your romantic relationship acts as the foundation.

In a traditional family, we know exactly what would happen if we continually neglected our partner to tend to the kids. We know the kids can’t come first at the cost of our relationship, and that we’ve got to carve out couple time if we want to survive as a couple.

Somehow in stepfamilies, we tend to forget that.

Stepcouples, please make time for yourselves and each other. You’ve got to nurture the soil so your stepfamily can throw down the deep roots necessary to help you grow.

If your partner has a different philosophy about this or you otherwise feel like you’re not quite on the same page, Dan & I made this to help you out: ➡️ HOW TO ACTUALLY BLEND: THE MISSING INSTRUCTION MANUAL FOR STEPCOUPLES 👀

It’s free for our paid subscribers on Substack but you can also access the whole thing if you sign up for a free trial. I mean obviously we hope you’ll stick around longer than that, but even if you don’t, we’d just really love to help you turn your ship around. 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