Angela Richburg

May 30, 2025

Blended Family: Not the Fairy Tale You Expected?

Let me start with this fact: blended families are HARD. You likely left a marriage after many years of hard, lies, lonely, and/or abuse. You have healing to do, but you long for love, friendship, and safety. You are older and wiser (you would hope!), and you know what you want and do not want. 

You meet someone, someone you want to build a life with. You are in love and happy. Either you, or both of you, have kids from prior marriages, and those kids have “other” parents. You didn’t split because you liked each other. There is a lot of baggage for everyone involved, you, the kids, your ex. All these tracks colliding is complicated at best. For my blended family, we had big dreams for a much better, happier ever after ending.

The variables at play are too many to count: The ages of the kids, the unique wiring of each kid, parenting styles, your ex’s parenting style or even counter parenting style, parental alienation, each of your individual childhood traumas and baggage, grandparents, new grandparents, financial situations, conflict styles, and the list goes on. One thing is sure, blending will prove to be harder than you ever thought. It is both such a happy time, and an extremely challenging time all intertwined together. Where do we even start?! Here are four steps to start with:

1. Get it out! In my personal situation and my coaching practice, I recommend naming all the crazy good and all the difficult emotions you are experiencing. Get them out on paper, even if you feel guilty doing so. Isn’t this supposed to be the Brady Bunch? Grieve the life you thought you would have. Accept the life you have just as it is. Yes, all the moving parts. This is the starting point to slow everything down, especially your reactions. With it all out in the open, it will be much easier to respond instead of react. 
2. Separate the parts and relationships! It’s easy for blended family to go into overdrive and each of you over functioning. Separate all the relationships (which are individual), instead of viewing them all together, like a melting pot. Don’t forget the former spouses, their individual relationships with their own kids, the stepparent relationships, and possible kids you now have with your new spouse. It is a lot! Mix in work, pets, new house rules and ways of living, and it can be a train wreck! It doesn’t have to be though. Work on the parts before the whole. 
3. Focus on safety! You are going to need grace, and lots of it, for everyone. I always recommend focusing on the new marriage. How do each of you create safety for the other one? What are each of your triggers? What do each of you need? What fills and empties your tank? What are your pet peeves? Are you asking for what you need in a healthy way? It is easy to react, demand, or otherwise confuse each other about what you need. Safety is both a now and a future framework. Anticipate the hard spots and plan for how you will you deal with those together. Don’t turn on each other! Interdependence is the goal. 
4. Celebrate successes (and get back up with grace after failures)! Both happen, but we often tend to focus on the failures. I have stepped in many potholes blending our family over the years. I wish I had support before I found the potholes, but we got the help we needed even after we mis-stepped and made them worse. Better late than never! We didn’t always celebrate the successes. Be aware of the little victories, acknowledge them, and toast them! The little moments and victories add up to a happy life. 

There is hope, no matter where you are in the blended journey. There is hope, healing, and happiness in blended families. Sometimes it’s grieving what you thought your life would be, and imagining a different, better future. Don’t do it alone. I would love to help, reach out for a discovery call.

With love,

Angela