17 Tips for Dating Someone with Kids
Whether you love kids or can't stand them, whether you're already a parent or you're childfree, dating someone with kids is hard. Mystifyingly, disproportionately, unbelievably hard.
There's a bunch of reasons for this. Trying to fit romance in around a schedule that's at least twice as chaotic as other people's. Exponentially increased potential for stress and drama. That whole "kids come first" thing creating abominable snowmonsters where there once were special little snowflakes.
Even if your new partner gets along cheerfully with their ex, even if your future stepkids are an absolute delight, even under the most ideal circumstances possible, there's a million more balls to juggle when dating someone with kids compared to regular dating. And of course, the percentage of us who are dating under ideal circumstances is pretty teensy.
Everyday life is complicated enough as it is, which can make adding any relationship feel like a bit of a tight squeeze. But when you're dating someone with kids, you need to make room not just for your new partner's schedule, but their kids' schedules (and personalities) too. And if your new partner is in a high-conflict co-parenting situation, well, that’s a bunch more stress piled on top of an already steep learning curve. 😬
Successfully blending a family takes a long time — 5 to 7 years on average (per Dr. E. Mavis Hetherington in her book "For Better or Worse: Divorce Reconsidered”) and even 10 or more years if high conflict is involved. I quote this statistic a lot, because it's such an objective reminder that you are not just dating; you are committing. Committing in a way that you've never committed, committing to a path that might be far rockier than you imagined.
Yet — I’ve found the rewards of stepfam life to be all the more satisfying because they’re harder won; every success we’ve experienced as a stepfamily felt impossible at some point.
No one except you can answer the question of whether you should date someone with kids. Whether you're ready to be a stepparent, whether you'll be a good one, whether maybe you should cut loose and look for a less complicated relationship elsewhere instead. Only you know your strengths and your limits.
If you are positive, on a planet of some 7 billion souls, that you have found Your Person, and that person just happens to have a rugrat or two, then you're in this. Buckle up and hang on. These tips can help you avoid some of the most common pitfalls that could trip you up.
1. Dating someone with kids is really hard
I know we just talked about this, but really I can't stress it enough: dating someone with kids is hard. And not in the ways you'd expect; in totally different more complicated ways! More exasperating, exhausting ways!!
You'll feel powerless over all the crap you can’t change — which is pretty much everything. You'll suspect your partner's kids don't want you around — and you'll be right. You'll feel compelled to defend your choices to everyone from your own mother to your partner's ex to strangers on the street. ("They're just my partner’s kids, I swear! I had nothing to do with their upbringing!")
You want to be involved, but not so much that you're overstepping. You want to help your partner with the kids, yet you're not realllllly comfortable parenting. You need to give your pre-stepkids space, but not so much that it seems like you don't care.
You need to be realistic about the role you're taking on as a stepparent, yet optimistic enough to keep on truckin' when the road gets dicey. You're turning all your personal preconceptions about what being a stepparent means upside down and redefining the role till it makes sense to you. Because there is no one “right” way to stepparent; there's only the way that works for you and the blended family you're trying to create.
Basically, you find you're accomplishing impossible, superhuman feats on the daily when here you thought you were just dating someone who happens to have kids — hm, kids. That's a new twist I guess, not really something I ever thought about but how much different/harder can it be?
Good news: hard is not the same thing as impossible. Just don't waltz in thinking this whole dating-with-kids thing will be a breeze. You'll end up flat on your ass not knowing what hit you.
2. Yes, even if you're a total kid person
I am a total kid person. I have always loved kids and they have always loved me, so dating a guy with a kid didn't seem like that big a deal to me, especially since I already had a kid of my own. There was no part of me that worried about not getting along with his kid. I don’t think the possibility even occurred to me.
But HOO BOY did my stepdaughter hate me. 🤣 🤦🏻♀️ With the passion of a thousand fiery suns, with all the fury her little 7-year-old body could muster, she made it clear that she DID NOT LIKE ME and WOULD NEVER LIKE ME.
And I was so unprepared. I mean, I didn’t expect us to be besties overnight but… but I was a kid person!! Kids love me!! Not like those other stepparents whose stepkids reject them and who therefore must surely be doing many wrong things.
Man was I wrong about that.
So many stepparenting resources are written as if all incoming stepparents are childless morons who have never interacted with an actual child. Which may lead you to falsely believe (as I did) that stepparents who don't get along with their stepkids must just be clueless about kids in general and that's the whole problem.
I thought any stepparent who didn't immediately fall head over heels for their stepkid must just not like kids that much. (Read: there's something wrong with those stepparents, obviously.) And vice versa, if your stepkid doesn't like you, you're clearly not trying hard enough. (Read: yep, the stepparent is still the problem here.)
But for a kid person such as myself, surely my transition into becoming a stepparent would be way easier. For a kid person like me, then the stepparent-stepkid relationship would totally click. Right??
Not necessarily.
The challenges you'll face when dating someone with kids do not boil down to kid-person/non-kid-person problems. If you like kids, then yes, you have one less hurdle to overcome. But one less hurdle out of a bajillion or so isn’t much of a head start.
Also, there are no shortcuts that will force the kids to like you. You just gotta hang in there and put in the time. There’s nothing you're doing wrong or could be doing differently to win the kids over when dating their parent; them warming up to you is just a process that takes time — it takes 5 to 7 years to blend a family, remember?
3. Stepparenting is dealing with way more than kids
If you were just dating someone with kids and that single element — the mere presence of tiny humans — were the only wild card, becoming a stepparent would be way easier. But there's sooooo much more to dating someone with kids than trading in candlelit dinners for play dates:
Your time with your new partner is impacted by their time with their kids.
How long should you wait to meet your partner's kid, anyway? You don't want to wait so long that everyone gets performance anxiety, but you also don't want to get too close too quickly.
Also, are you emotionally scarring your partner's child if you hold hands in front of them? What about kissing? Is kissing in front of the kids okay?
Cute-sounding dates like "Let's go to my kid's soccer game and grab pizza on the way home!" that in reality end up with you sitting on the literal sidelines being totally ignored by everyone.
Calls or texts at awkward times from your partner's ex, which are hopefully only kid-related except sometimes they aren't and you don't always know which is which and you feel weird asking.
Mid-stream plan changes due to kid stuff like someone getting homesick while at a sleepover and needing immediate picking up.
Ruined plans due to last-minute visitation schedule changes… maybe frequently.
Your own unrealistic expectations about blended family life, your stepkid's behavior toward you and your partner's willingness (or lack thereof) to be your advocate.
Your partner's unrealistic expectations about the role (or lack thereof) you'll play in your stepkid's life, about how involved you'll be or not be, about what counts as overstepping vs. what counts as not being involved enough.
The presence (or lack thereof) the ex in your partner's life/their kid's life/your life together.
How supportive your family and friends are about you dating someone with kids, including how much well-meaning but crap advice you'll have to wade through.
The degree to which you're willing to let go of your personal vision for the family you hoped to have someday and the future you envisioned for yourself.
To sum up: dating someone with kids is about WAY more than just the kids. You can't separate the kids from everything that connects those kids to your partner — custody schedules, extracurricular activities, the other parent, general kid and parenting stuff, financial obligations, endless driving kids around to here or there.
But just like "hard" doesn’t mean "impossible, "more complicated than you realized" doesn't mean you're doomed to failure. Focus on flexibility and keep yourself open to changes happening — because happen they will, and more often than you probably expect.
4. Connecting with your future stepkids takes years
I don't think any pre-stepparent with half a brain thinks their future stepkids will fall in love with them overnight. Sure, there'll be a bit of a warming up period. Some shyness, some reluctance…but they'll come around once they get to know you, right? 🤞🏼
I was totally fine with my SD's initial hesitance around me. But I started feeling less fine as weeks turned into months and then into years… and as hesitance turned into committed rejection. I spent years feeling like a stepparenting failure, wondering what I was doing wrong, wondering if me and my stepkid would ever have a relationship that could remotely be considered positive.
Turns out this is very normal.
Most kids don't want to get to know whoever their parent is dating. They'll actively resist getting to know you. And again, not just the first few times you meet, but for weeks, months, even years. This so common, I have an entire blog post about it: ➡️ WHY DOES MY STEPKID HATE ME? 5 REASONS WHY STEPKIDS REJECT STEPPARENTS 👀
Dan and I had been together nearly 4 years by the time we got married. At our wedding, out of hundreds of photos taken, I have exactly 2 where my stepdaughter is smiling. Two.
AFTER 4 YEARS, FOLKS.
Yet a year later, my SD wrote a school paper on how beautiful the wedding was, what an important and exciting day in her life. 🤷🏻♀️
These are the kinds of glimpses you catch that your stepkids' emotions are conflicted and barriers are dissolving. It was those few and far between moments of hope that helped me rally, haul myself up, and keep going.
Dating someone with kids is a mixed bag. There's what's happening on the surface, but then there's all the churning complicated currents reaching for miles and miles down below. It’s complicated for us, and we’re adults already. It’s that much more complicated for kids, who have far less life experience.
Building this relationship will take years, not months. I’ll just say again that blending a family takes 5 to 7 years on average. On average. In a high-conflict situation, up to a decade or more. If you are in this, you are in for the long haul, so remember to pace yourself.
Don't take every small rejection to heart. Your presence matters. Your contributions matter. Even if it takes years for your stepkids to see that.
5. Stepparenting rules apply while you’re still dating
Only after I'd been dating Dan for somewhere like 2 or 3 years (feeling like I was failing at this stepparenting thing pretty much 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 wrong.
I hit the library and found a WHOLE ENTIRE BOOK on dating a guy with kids. Hallelujah! There were a couple books on being a stepmom sitting next to that, and I grabbed those too, even though I wasn’t an “official” stepmom yet.
I read all of them within the week, called my mom all excited that omg omg omg everything I was going through was normal and I wasn't the worst human on the planet for having such mixed feelings about being a stepmom (well, pre-stepmom). Reassuring books explaining that me not getting along with my future stepdaughter was typical, that my bio kid and my stepkid not getting along was also typical, that all the incredibly complex and contradictory emotions I cycled through roughly every 12 seconds was totally standard.
My mom’s response? "Well, I'm glad you feel encouraged, honey. But remember, you're NOT a stepmom."
She said it to be supportive, as in "Gosh, I hate to see you taking all this on when you don't have to." And I took what she said as an epiphany: "She's right! I'm NOT a stepmom! I'm not married to this guy or his kid or his problems with his ex. I don't have to put in the time or effort to figure out this whole mess! Whee!!"
Sometimes I wonder just how much that set me back. Because it was one of those moments where you get what seems like good advice from the outside — don't get more involved than you need to be (as in: until you have to be, aka you're married) — but when you're on the inside, it's not that simple.
I couldn't spend time with Dan without spending time with his daughter. I mean I could, but what would be the point? I was dating a guy who had a kid. She was part of his life, so if I also wanted to be part of his life, then our lives — my future stepkid’s and mine — would intertwine.
Plus, what was the alternative? Wait until we were officially married before putting in the effort to truly connect with my boyfriend's daughter? When we first met, Dan didn't believe in marriage; I might never technically be a stepmom, so that left me… where, exactly?
Plus, I also had a kid. Weren't we working together toward building a family? Was I supposed to wait until legal marriage before we started that process? That seemed nonsensical. We couldn’t just leave these issues on hold indefinitely.
There is no halfway when you’re dating someone with kids. You're in or you're out. Sure, some logistics (household rules, finances, etc.) are different when just dating someone with kids as opposed to living together or married, but the stepkid-stepparent dynamic? It's the same. The emotional obstacles, the challenges, the guilt, the frustration, the wondering where you fit in? Yep, all the same.
Whatever title you give yourself — pre-stepparent, stepparent-in-training — if you're feeling lost, start looking at resources for stepparents. At least 90% of what you read will apply to you. Or at least it'll apply well enough to help you feel less alone, and that's all that matters if you're hitting the overwhelm point.
6. You can't become a stepparent alone
In kid-free relationships, there's you and there's your new partner and that's it. But when you're dating someone with kids, you’re getting to know that someone and getting to know their kids. That’s a whole separate relationship you have to work out — one for each stepkid, in fact.
Just like starting a relationship with another adult, becoming a stepparent means two people feeling each other out, learning likes and dislikes, learning where you click vs clash, and figuring out how to make all that work together.
Only in the case of a stepparent/stepkid relationship, one of those people is a kid. Kids don't understand your role in their life (you probably don't know yourself yet what your stepparenting role is), they don't want their life to change and they worry you might change it, and they don't want you taking any of their parent's attention away from them.
And they likely can't articulate any of this; they just know it all adds up to not feeling real thrilled there's a prospective stepparent in the picture. Which is where your partner's advocacy can go a long way toward smoothing things over.
Your partner might not understand (or agree with) all your mixed feelings as a stepparent or their kid’s mixed feelings as a stepkid. However, as parents, it's our job to help our kids figure out the world, even when faced with questions we don't know the answers to ourselves
Your partner needs to take an active role in blending your family by reaching out to their kid and reassuring them: I love you no matter what; this person does not take away from my love for you; this person is important to me; this person is sticking around; it's okay if you're confused/don't like them/have mixed feelings but it's not okay to treat them disrespectfully; I know this is hard but you can always talk to me.
Without consistent reassurance and guidance from your partner, your stepkid will be left to navigate their emotions alone. Emotions they don't understand, emotions more complex than they can probably even identify, let alone process. In a high-conflict situation, your future stepkids' emotions may also be manipulated by their other parent, further muddying the waters.
Your partner acts as the bridge between you and their kid. If they're not facilitating your ability to connect with your stepkids, then the process of connecting becomes that much harder.
Needing your partner’s support is SUCH a critical component of successfully blending a family, yet it’s practically never discussed in a format that’s easily digestible to our partners. And they’re the ones who need to hear it the most! Which is why we put together a comprehensive guide for our paid Substack subscribers — you can get started with the intro for free right here: ➡️ HOW TO ACTUALLY BLEND: THE MISSING INSTRUCTION MANUAL FOR STEPCOUPLES 👀
7. You gotta pick your battles
Becoming a stepparent is like renting a house. A cute, friendly-looking house that at first you were super excited to move into, but after living there for a while you realize maybe isn't quite what it seemed in photos. Also, the landlord left a ton of furniture you're not allowed to remove — you can only rearrange.
It’s normal to feel overwhelmed by all the things you wish you could change about stepfamily life. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend many nights curled up in a ball feeling miserable. It’s also normal to try and change less-than-ideal aspects of the existing family dynamics, only to be met with a giant wall of resistance — which can feel both infuriating and demoralizing.
Emotions run strong when you’re trying to blend a family, and it’s to your credit that you want to make improvements for the better. But no matter how well-meaning your intentions, there’s so much about our partner’s life that we as stepparents have no say over. Especially while still in the dating stages.
So take a deep breath. Survey your surroundings. Take note of what you can live with, what you absolutely cannot live with, and what just might work with a bit of creativity on your part. There are some fights you’ll never be able to win, so choose your stepparenting battles wisely.
Sometimes it’s better to take a step back (hopefully temporarily) rather than force the issue. Remember, the process of becoming a stepfamily will take several years — there’s plenty of time to get the specifics worked out later on; you don’t need to figure every nuance out all at once.
8. Stepparenting might get harder before it gets easier
I spent years moderating the stepparenting subreddit, and noticed a distinct pattern of the times when stepparents tended to seek out help — a pattern that’s echoed by my own experience as well.
It’s common to see a dip where dating someone with kids gets harder around the 6-month mark, when your future stepkid realizes you're probably sticking around. Then there's often a second dip around the 2-year mark, when your future stepkid realizes you're almost for sure sticking around. For us, we had another dip at 4ish years in, which is right when we moved in together then got married — which, again, is very normal.
Within any blended family, setbacks commonly show up right alongside milestones: getting serious, moving in together, getting engaged or married, the arrival of a new sibling. It's one of the most exasperating parts of becoming a stepparent — you make some kind of relationship breakthrough that's worth celebrating, and your stepkid responds by turning into the worst version of themselves. 😱
This is especially true if your partner’s ex is high conflict. The natural process of blending your family gets set back over and over again with each battle between households; gaining ground is that much harder. In a low-conflict stepparenting situation, the timeline from dating someone with kids to feeling like a functional blended family is usually shorter.
In either case, it can be really hard to see how far you've come — and how close you are to breaking through!— when you're down in the trenches. So do try to occasionally take a 30,000 foot view and remind yourself what you've achieved. Think about your new blended family in terms of years, think about how you've grown into the stepparent role and all the positive changes you've seen so far. Stepparenting getting harder just when you thought it'd be getting easier is a very normal pattern for blended families, and doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. Nor does it mean you’ll never feel blended.
9. Trying harder can make things worse
If your stepkid consistently rejects you just for being yourself, it's only natural to 1) freak out a bit and 2) decide you should up your game and try that much harder. But I swear, kids can smell that fear on a pre-stepparent like they're great whites and you're thrashing around in open water with a bleeding head wound.
Any kid who's determined not to like you will only like you less if you’re acting inauthentically. Because then not only are you ruining their lives, you're also a total Fakey McFakerton. You don't really like your stepkids; you're just being nice to them to get to their parent. You're just trying to buy their love. (Or whatever stories they're telling themselves about you.)
The more your stepkid rejects you, the more pressured you feel to work that much harder — the kids have to fall in love with you, dammit! That's the only way this blended family thing will work!! So you dump more energy into winning them over, really getting creative with different ways you can connect. Surely there's something you could try that you haven't tried that will be the magic key.
The whole time you're setting up this super elaborate dog and pony show, your stepkid feels increasingly overwhelmed and withdraws further. Why? Because they aren't ready for a relationship with you yet.
Which is totally normal, and totally okay.
So take a step back, stop channeling the super-stepparent you think you're supposed to be, and just be yourself. The sooner you return to a not-on-steroids level of authentic you-ness, the sooner your stepkid will feel like it's safe to emerge from their cave of sulk. (BTW, this is what’s known as “disengaging from your stepkid.”)
Successfully blending a family takes years, so think of becoming a stepparent like you're competing in a triathlon. You gotta pace yourself. Don't give yourself empty in the first leg.
10. Disengaging the Wrong Way can also make things worse
All that said, when I say it’s okay to take a step back, I don't mean going all martyr like "Welp, no one wants me around anyway, I'll just let my partner hang out solo with the kids again this weekend." 🤷🏻♀️
I mean, sure, yes, definitely all parents need 1-on-1 time with their kids without their partner around. But don't let the sting of your stepkid's current (probably temporary!) rejection distract you from your ultimate goal: to build a blended family with this person and that kid. A family that includes you. Just checking out isn’t gonna help you get there.
So by all means, encourage plenty of 1:1 time between your partner and their kid. But also, make sure you’re getting some family time in there for all of you, too — and, if you’re feeling brave, some 1:1 time between you and your stepkid(s) as well. Which might feel awkward at first but I promise will get easier with practice… for all of you.
11. GUILT-BASED PARENTING CAN BRING OUT THE WORST IN KIDS
In a traditional family, we know exactly what happens to the kids whose parents bend over backwards, hand them everything on a silver platter and never enforce rules or consequences: they grow up into spoiled brats. Yet somehow — incomprehensibly — our partners seem to think that parenting their own children this way won't have the exact same result. 🤦🏻♀️
Guilt is a major component in post-divorce parenting. The fear that their kids will be permanently damaged by growing up in single-parent households can cause single parents to make absolutely absurd parenting decisions. A LOT.
Single parents can coddle their kids to pieces for many reasons, including being afraid that if they come down too hard, their kids might choose the other parent over them. Which is a legit concern, but doesn’t change the fact that kids still need parenting. Our partners can be so scared of actually parenting that they’re not giving their kids the basic guidelines necessary for healthy growth and development — like eating veggies and going to bed at a reasonable hour. They don’t understand that kids need rules and structures to feel safe.
Or maybe, like my husband Dan, your partner wasn’t the “in charge” parent pre-divorce. So post-divorce, Dan never quite connected the dots that the role of disciplinarian and general fun-buster fell to him on his custody time.
All these dynamics can lead to dysfunctional parent-child relationships, such as mini-wife syndrome. Guilt-based parenting can also take the form of putting the kids first always, even to the detriment of your relationship. This does way more harm to your stepkids than good — here’s an entire blog post on that: ➡️ WHY YOUR RELATIONSHIP (NOT THE KIDS) SHOULD COME FIRST IN A STEPFAMILY 👀
Kids who end up with all the power, who learn that rules don’t apply to them and they can wrap their parent around their little finger, end up losing respect for those parents. And probably don’t show a ton of respect for the other adults in their lives, either — the adults who are supposed to be in charge and taking care of them. Such as a stepparent.
It's not hard to see how that kind of kid is not the easiest kid to love just because you're dating that kid's parent. So if you’re not feeling overly fond of a particularly rude or disrespectful stepkid, give yourself a break. That’s a pretty normal reaction.
Hopefully over time, your partner will learn that they do need to parent their kid, Guilty Parent Complex will correct itself and your stepkid’s attitude will improve as a result. 🤞🏼
12. It's NORMAL for your future stepkids not to like you
Your stepkids aren't likely to become your number one fans out of the gate. They may view you with emotions ranging from excitement to resentment to outright hatred. Or oscillate wildly among all of those. At any given time. Maybe simultaneously.
This too is very very normal.
As confusing as the blended family dynamic is for the grownups, it's exponentially more so for kids. Not only is everything happening over their heads and above their pay grade, kids lack the emotional capacity to process the incredibly complex emotions associated with one of their parents dating someone new. They might also struggle with feeling caught in a loyalty bind — believing that liking you is a direct betrayal of their other parent, your partner’s ex.
Over time, your future stepkids' emotional barometer will mature enough to figure out their conflicted feelings, which can manifest in different ways.
Some future stepparents are welcomed with open arms — right up till your future stepkids realize you're in this for the long haul, that is. Then they'll pull a Jekyll-Hyde move so sudden it'll drop your jaw. Other kids immediately reject anyone their parent is dating and determinedly keep their stepparent at arms' length. This rejection could go on for years.
It's super important for your partner to talk openly and honestly with their kids about their feelings, but equally important not to harp on heavy emotional subject matter to the point where everyone dreads being in the same room together. Your partner can explain to your stepkids that it's completely normal and expected for them to have mixed feelings about you being in their lives — and that it's also normal for them to have a laser-focused burning desire to get you out of their lives.
However, your partner also needs to stress that you're not going anywhere and that you're important to them, and insist the kids treat you with respect if nothing else.
If you’re comfortable doing so, you can also address this concern directly with the kids yourself. Giving your stepkids permission to not like you can remove a surprising amount of resistance. Let them be distant for now if that’s what they need. All you need to do is keep right on being yourself, and try not to take their rejection personally. (I know everyone says that and I know it’s easier said than done. But for real — it isn’t personal.)
13. It's NORMAL for you to not like your future stepkids
Any adult dating someone with kids can expect to zip from mood to mood like a manic hummingbird with zero warning of what emotion is coming next. And one (or several) of those moods might involve some not-so-nice thoughts aimed toward your partner's kids. Which, just like the not-so-nice feelings your partner's kids' have toward you, is totally normal and very common.
Maybe you want to like your partner's kids but your partner spoils them so obnoxiously you can hardly stand to be around them. Or maybe you're not really a kid person and can't quite figure out how you're supposed to relate to your future stepkids. Or maybe your partner's ex is high-conflict, and you've started viewing — and resenting — the kids as an extension of their opposite parent.
All completely normal.
You're still in the dating stages of becoming a stepparent, and blending a family takes years. Over time, your feelings will change approximately 86 bajillion times as you find your groove. And maybe you'll end up really enjoying time with the kids, maybe love will take root and grow.
Or maybe you won’t love your stepkids. And that's okay too. Because just showing up every day and continuing to work on building that relationship is an act of love in and of itself; let that be enough for right now.
14. You only need one person's approval: your partner's
Dating someone with kids can feel a lot like dating by committee. You're not only trying to win over a new partner, you're also trying to win over their kid(s). You might also feel like you should have the ex’s blessing since you're going to be involved in their child's life and all.
If you have your own kids, you of course want them to approve of your relationship with this new person, too. Maybe your own ex is also sitting in the ever-growing peanut gallery. And then of course, just like any other relationship, you've both got various friends and relatives and coworkers all casting their votes on the viability of your relationship.
Ignore those people.
The only two people who determine the future of this relationship are you and your partner.
If you're waiting around for your future stepkid's stamp of approval before getting serious about their parent, you could be waiting years. (Or forever!)
You don't need the ex’s permission to be in your stepkid’s life, either. It seems like the respectful thing to do, but really it's giving an outside adult inappropriate power in your relationship. The kids already have a parent — your partner — who has full authority to decide who is or is not an appropriate person to introduce into their child's life.
Keep being yourself. Keep dating your partner. Keep getting to know each other and deciding whether this is something that's gonna work long-term. The rest will fall into place.
15. Don't get sucked into drama
When you're holding hands with someone who regularly gets buckets of drama tossed their way, you can't keep some from splashing over onto you once in a while. But what you can do is take big, wide steps around the overflow to minimize drama in your own path.
If there's conflict with the kids, let your partner handle it.
If there's conflict with the ex, especially let your partner handle that.
Dating someone with kids can bring up a lot of intense emotions — not just for you, but also for your partner, the kids, and your partner’s ex. This can spark conflict, especially in the early days when everyone is finding their place and all emotional barometers are way out of whack.
Sometimes the conflict turns out to be normal growing pains and the drama settles down on its own. Other times, the addition of a new partner causes existing tensions and dysfunction to flare up worse than ever. You won’t know which of these applies in your situation until later on down the road, so for now it’s better to assess and observe and evaluate rather than jumping straight into damage control.
Your job, as a future stepparent, is not to immediately clean up the mess you entered into. That mess was already there. You don’t need to be in charge of fixing or improving. You don’t need to be a rule enforcer in a home that isn't yours with kids who aren't yours. You don’t need to act as the diplomatic bridge between your partner and their ex.
You are just dating someone who has a kid. That's all.
As your relationship becomes more serious, then absolutely, you and your partner will need to have more serious conversations about expectations, parenting, boundaries, and/or dysfunction. In the meantime, you are a tourist. You're only visiting.
This is a great time to set firm boundaries for yourself… especially if your partner’s ex seems particularly difficult.
Here’s a blog post to help: ➡️ 4 WAYS STEPPARENTS CAN PROTECT THEIR OWN MENTAL HEALTH IN HIGH CONFLICT 👀
16. Don't take blended family life so damned seriously
When you’re dating someone with kids, you’ll hear "Oh just don’t take it personally!" advised over and over again till you want to scream and punch things. First of all, it’s not that easy. Secondly, this is your future family so um yes, it's extremely personal. Also, no one explains how the hell you're not supposed take rejection personally.
“Don’t take it personally” is a shorthand code for “Hey listen, your future stepkids would treat any adult in your position the exact same way they're treating you.” Problem is, knowing that in your logical mind doesn’t take the sting out. So instead of saying not to take things so personally (which is another way to describe disengaging, btw), I would say instead: try to not take stepparenting so seriously.
Big emotions feel scary whether you're a kid or an adult, and sometimes the only way to deflate them down into a more manageable size is to poke some fun at them.
Many things about stepparenting are straight-up ridiculous; learn to appreciate the absurdity of it all. Make room for fun. Crack more jokes. Tease your partner a bit. Tease the kids a bit.
I mean, don't invalidate anyone; there's a line between teasing and mean that should not be crossed. But don't get so wound about making everyone happy — about making sure everything is perfect and everyone gets along at every moment — that you end up feeling stiff, stifled, and resentful.
Stepparenting can feel overwhelming a surprising percentage of the time. No matter how committed you are to building your blended family, you cannot be all in, all the time without some kind of pressure relief valve. Humor can help tip the scales away from negativity and toward regaining a balanced perspective.
17. Every win feels like a million bucks
Here's a little secret that no one tells you: every single good stepparenting thing that happens, no matter how fleeting, makes you feel 10 feet tall. And it's amazing.
No matter how resistant your future stepkids might be to your presence at first, eventually some of the stuff you're trying so hard to contribute to their live sinks in. Seeing even the vaguest echoes of your own beliefs or values or traditions start peeking out here and there in these kids over the years — these kids you met by chance, who you are completely unrelated to, who sometimes act like they're whatever the next step removed is beyond strangers — feels flat-out miraculous.
Long-term, seeing the positive effects of your stepparenting is rewarding in a way that's utterly different from seeing your own children grow into functional adults. You expect that you're passing your legacy down to your actual kids; that's the definition of being a parent. But to find you're impacting your stepkids is a pleasant surprise, especially when it can so often feel like no one really wants your input… including (and maybe especially) your stepkids.
My stepdaughter used to leave the room when I walked in. For years. She threw away presents I gave her. She would not eat her lunches if she knew I was the one who packed them. She refused to greet me when she walked in the door, would not speak to me when I attended piano recitals or school plays. She spent the entirety of her formative years rejecting me as thoroughly as she could, in every way she could, and making sure I damn well knew it.
And yet, a dozen years later, that same stepkid moved to my hometown to enroll in the college I graduated from and pursue a career that I encouraged. No one is more stoked — or more surprised! — about all this than me. And it wasn’t because my SD had some sudden epiphany about how fabulous I am or something. We just kinda accidentally became family to each other over time without either of us quite realizing it.
You’re choosing to step into this role voluntarily, making this commitment with no guarantee of a net positive outcome. And indeed, the rewards of stepparenting are typically way too few and way too far between; the bullshit outnumbers the wins by at least 10 to 1. But even though this whole journey might be way more intense than you expected, know that the wins you’ll find along the way will taste all the sweeter for their unexpectedness.