Don’t be a wrecking ball. Pour into your marriage and learn to separate feelings from truth. Heather Hetchler is a monthly columnist at Stepmom Magazine, a thought leader, and co-founder of Learning2Step, an online educational and empowerment program for blended families. Heather shares her blended family experiences and the advice that she’s learned along the way while reminding us to always be kind to ourselves.

Three Key Points

1. Give everyone time to adjust. Just because two adults are healed, happy and healthy doesn’t mean the children are. Oftentimes, two people are dating and their kids are getting along and everything seems fine until you get married… She’s not baking snickerdoodles the way her mom did or we always had a real tree at Christmas time! A new stepmom should be understanding the grief and the loss that these kids are navigating but also give herself time to grieve the loss of the beautiful picture of the ideal blended family that she had in her head.

2. Allow your stepchildren to have those mementos in their rooms or on the Christmas tree. It can be really difficult for kids to go back and forth between two homes. And sometimes, they want the comfort of that picture of your husband and their mother with them during happier times displayed prominently in their rooms. Learn to separate your feelings from the truth. The truth is he loves you and he’s your husband.

3. Pour into your marriage. We join a family in progress. The reality is that the kids are going to grow up and move away. The waves are going to come because blending families is hard on a marriage. Make time to pour into your marriage because that’s a solid foundation. One of the greatest gifts we can give to our stepchildren, children or husband is the gift of modeling healthy habits and even the gift of modeling forgiveness.

Learning2Step.com

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