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

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