137: Stepparenting is Hard!

The Remarried Life

Summary Brian Mayer offers support in this episode for stepparents especially new ones. Becoming a stepparent might just be the hardest role you will ever play in life. In many other areas of life you might feel like you have some control but in the stepparent role we often feel like we don’t have any. Today is more about support and encourage than it is about a laundry list of what you should and should not do. For more information and additional resources please visit our website at http://www.theremarriedlife.com

Today's Goodies

• Being a biological parent sometimes results from a plan and sometimes not. I remember when I became a biological parent, we had this thought that it might be nice to wait another 2-3 years in order to be more financially stable. Well as you can imagine it happened around the time we wanted to wait and so definitely an example of not exactly choosing when to have a child.
• It is also interesting that becoming a biological parent is not really regulated in any way by law. On the other hand, becoming an adoptive parent means you have to go through lots of red tape and lots of waiting. Doesn’t seem to make sense does it. Would almost be nice if before having a biological child, we went through some kind of background check or maybe even some classes to help us prepare. But understandably that gets into civil rights and other things which is a subject we won’t tackle today.
• So it might seem like I am tearing down being a biological parent and that I am dismissing it as not being that hard. Quite the contrary in that it is so hard being a biological parent, but in my opinion I think it is much harder being a stepparent. Why is that? Well let’s talk about that:
• The X reasons why being a stepparent is so hard:
• • You are “stepping” into lives and situations that have already been formed and formulated in a certain way. Of course there have been changes, but
  • You may not have the control you are used to. Getting used to a new normal can be hard. It has probably been a bit easier to get your own biological children to listen to you because there is a bond and some trust built up.
  • Anger is probably a very common emotion that is present in everyone in the family. No one likes the situation they find themselves in when it comes to being in a blended family. Often logical decision making is thrown out the window when it comes to what is the right thing to do.
  • You and your current spouse probably have different ideas on how to parent. This is a complicated issue one where all sorts of issues are at play. Things like the relationship you have or don’t have with the kids, how you and your partner parented in your previous relationship, and then something parenting from a place of guilt for the bio parent and conversely parenting from a place of a lack of love for the kids by the step parent.
  • It can take years for a stepfamily to gel together and sometimes it never fully happens. This is why a stepparent must have an immense amount of patience as the new family dynamic and system unfolds.
  • You will feel like an outsider. This is because at some point you were an outsider and you have come into a situation where again relationships have already been formed and that can be a tough thing to break into.
• Ultimately it takes perseverance and patience for you as a stepparent. Both of these concepts involve time. Perseverance involves more action oriented nature and patience involves just holding back a bit more. But both have their place and are equally important as you walk through this new situation.

Resources:

• None Mentioned

Thanks For Listening!

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As always remember that marriage is not something you have, it is something you do. Talk to you next week unless you are binge listening in the future in which case I will talk to you in about a minute! Take care.