The love/hate of stepparenting
There’s an intense pressure put on stepparents to feel insta-happy with their insta-family. Like just because we willingly chose to date and/or marry someone with a kid, we should also be insta-thrilled with all the insta-baggage we didn’t realize we were also signing on for.
Like life is either/or. Either we chose to become stepparents and therefore are not allowed to complain, or we shouldn’t have become stepparents.
The reality of stepparenting — and really, life in general — is not either/or, but both/and.
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Newsflash: stepparenting is hard
I both chose to be a stepparent and it’s been the hardest choice of my life. I both feel completely committed to contributing to my stepdaughter’s life in meaningful ways, and also recognize that me disengaging is the only way to have a positive relationship with her at this time. I both love the exasperating chaos of our haphazard, thrown-together foursome, and also can’t stand how complicated blended family life is.
There’s a real unwillingness to accept the dichotomy of stepparenting — not only from others, but even within ourselves. As if contradictions are allowed to exist everywhere else, but not in our feelings about becoming stepparents.
We all know that parents of newborns are gonna be thrilled as well as exhausted. We know that running a marathon will push us painfully hard, and we also anticipate the glow of accomplishment. We’re excited to start that new job or move across the country, and we’re also terrified.
Not only do we expect these dichotomies, we’re supportive of them. The parents of newborns get free babysitting offers and casseroles. Marathon runners have those cheerful little water cup stations: “Here, take this! You’re doing great!!” And never, not once, have I moved across the country and had someone say “Well gosh, I don’t know why you’re complaining that you’re totally frazzled and haven’t had time to unpack yet. After all, you’re the one who decided to move. You knew what moving would be like.”
In virtually every other aspect of life, we understand that major milestones and massive changes are not either/or, but both/and. Yet when we become stepparents, we somehow forget that we are multi-faceted humans who are capable of having more than one emotion about the same thing — even more than one emotion at a time.
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Mixed feelings about being a stepparent
We can feel happy in our relationship with our partner and also stressed and overwhelmed by the challenges becoming a stepparent brings. We can start out the morning feeling all lovey-dovey toward the stepkids and also feel frustrated and resentful by dinnertime.
The bad does not negate the good. No matter how mixed your feelings are, you still get full points for the good.
And also: the good does not “make up for” the bad. Just because you’re fully committed to your partner and the future you’re building together doesn’t mean you’re not also allowed to grieve for the sacrifices that have been required for you take that road.
I both supported Dan in his custody battle for SD, and also resented the extreme financial and emotional costs of that battle. I both rejoiced in the relationship that grew between Dan and my BD, so sweet and healing for both of them, and also felt wildly angry and jealous that I had nothing even resembling that closeness with SD. I both decided to stay with a guy who had a vasectomy, and also grieved mightily while struggling to accept that I wouldn’t be having any more kids after all like I'd always planned.
Stepparenting is not an on/off switch; it’s a process. Becoming a stepparent is a significant life transition that requires the redefining of many deep-seated values and beliefs, like what you thought your future family might look like or how you thought your role as a parent might feel. Or maybe you never planned on having kids in your life at all, then found yourself falling for someone with a bunch of cute li'l ankle-biters anyway because that's the way life just loves to play us dirty sometimes.
Grief is part of becoming a stepmom or stepdad
It shouldn’t surprise me that when I assembled all the stages of becoming a stepparent — stages I’d observed in myself after living through them, then heard echoed again and again by hundreds of other stepparents — they ended up looking pretty darn close to the grief cycle.
Current thought suggests that the grief cycle stages — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance — are common not just to grief, but to any huge, transformative change in our lives. It's also suggested that acceptance isn’t a final stage — that really, there are no stages. Acceptance is a tiny seed at the beginning, hiding under the shock and denial, that eventually grows large enough for you to live sheltered in its shade.
There’s also a second half of the grief cycle: the upswing. As the acceptance stage of grief expands, we find new strengths. We build new patterns. We feel hope again. Acceptance isn’t really the end of the cycle. Acceptance means you’ve pulled your way back to solid ground — ground that’s capable of supporting a new foundation, a new life built on accepting the reality of what is.
Which might look nothing like what you originally hoped for.
I believe all of us in blended families need to go through a grieving process as part of the blending. We first need to mourn the loss of the future we envisioned for ourselves before we can appreciate the reality of this new family we have. We need to mourn the loss of the stepparenting role we thought we'd have that apparently ain’t gonna happen. And we need to mourn the sacrifices we had to make along the way — and in doing so, honor those sacrifices.
So, give yourself permission to grieve.
And also: find the joy in the tiny moments whenever you can.
