The Extra Nobody Asked For
Being a stepparent is by far the hardest seat that I have ever sat in.
I feel like I can hear a thousand step-moms (and step-dads) saying this repeatedly to themselves. Because it is true. I thought being a single mom was hard, but sometimes being a step-parent is so much harder.
You either love too much, or not enough. Either way, judgment is falling on you by someone. And you never realize how making the decision to become a step-parent will impact your home and your other children in your home.
Looking back, it was foolish of me to think that we could just all blend together as if we were one big immediate happy family. Truth is, that isn’t possible for anyone. It takes time.
I have lived on both sides of the fence when it comes to being a stepparent, or my kid having a stepparent. I have personally experienced it go well and I have experienced it go polar opposite.
Maybe because I grew up with divorced parents and had two homes, I tend to approach things differently. I also think that plays a major factor when families blend successfully, or when parents and stepparents coparent together well.
I will always sing praises to my daughter’s stepmom, even at times of disagreement. She has always been easy to communicate with and I have the utmost respect for her. She too grew up in a similar manner as myself and maybe that is why we clicked and it was automatically easy. We just get it.
However, on the flip side, marrying into a high conflict situation naturally comes with hiccups. I have said it before and I will preach it from the rooftop… THERAPY THERAPY THERAPY, and coparenting counseling.
If you are preparing to enter into a marriage and your spouse is in a high-conflict situation with his ex, I would strongly advise you to begin therapy before you get married. Stepping into this situation is exceptionally hard. Not everyone wants an added person to love the kids, even if they do just present themselves as extra.
You also quickly learn that you can’t make others work together and co-parent, no matter how hard you try. You can’t make others go to therapy or co-parenting counseling.
Then all of this chaos and conflict resides in your home, in some form.
Therapy has been a part of my life since we blended families, which has been a huge help. I also discovered Nacho Parenting, which too, has also come with great success.
After seeing some things, living through some things, and doing some research, I quickly learned that this is a life that many live.
What I found was a whole lot of stepparents trying to navigate some really complicated situations with very little direction on what to do when the conflict extends beyond normal co-parenting disagreements.
There is plenty of advice about boundaries, disengaging, supporting your spouse and knowing your role. All good advice. But sometimes you can do all of those things and still find yourself affected by a situation you didn’t create and have very little ability to change. And the situation of others ultimately ends up having control over your very own life.
That is the part that stuck with me.
And it struck a chord in me. A chord for change. A chord for our State to do better. A chord to protect blended families when everything else has been exhausted—or simply isn’t possible.
And that is how StepAL.org came to be.
It is completely anonymous. It doesn’t ask for names or case information. Just experiences.
Experiences that can become data.
Data that can show patterns.
And data that can eventually be presented to our State Judiciary Committee as evidence that maybe there is a gap here worth addressing.
I don’t know where this will lead. But I do know that blended families are hard enough without conflict outside of the home being allowed to control the peace inside of it.
And maybe, if enough of us document what is happening, we can help make it a little easier for the blended families who come after us.
Leave a Reply