A Step Up for Stepfamilies

By Marcia Watts

Being in a stepfamily is different from other family types. It just is.

Anyone on the journey of becoming or being in a stepfamily knows that stepfamily life is complex. Members can often feel isolated, misunderstood and unrecognised.

Who do we talk to about our struggles?

Who understands the unique challenges we face and can validate our often very conflicted feelings?

Who and where do we turn to for guidance, support and encouragement and a sense of direction when everyting feels chaotic and unpredictable?

Marcia Watts - step-parent, parent, wife, relationships councellor and psychotherapist - knows the reality of being in a stepfamily from both personal and professional experience. In A Step Up for Stepfamilies, Marcia shares heartfelt, practical and reassuring research and strategies to empower you to cultivate your own thriving, resilient and loving stepfamily.  She shows that being in a stepfamily can be enjoyable and rewarding, especially when armed with constructive and helpful tools to confidently step up to challenges.

With real-life anecdotes, advice on parenting, grief, ex-factors and looking after yourself, and resources for professionals, A Step Up for Stepfamilies is the essential handbook to successfully navigate stepfamily life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Ink
• Release date: Apr 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648266358

Marcia Watts

Marcia is a relationship counsellor and psychotherapist. She is a wife, biological mother and stepmother and stepfamily researcher.  She lives in Brisbane with her husband Ian and their stepfamily. Together Ian and Marcia have created a business Transform2Lead where they provide counselling, coaching, strategy planning services to individuals, couples and business leaders to assist people in their transformation journey so they can lead in life, faith and business.

Book preview

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A Step up for Stepfamilies provides a powerful compass for navigating the complex challenges that the step parenting journey presents to modern families. As the family system changes in ways we might never have imagined 100 years ago, this book thoughtfully provides the relevant and necessary tools for stepfamilies to mindfully create the family they had hoped for, whilst paying sensitive respect to the complex feelings of loss and grief that often are part of the step parent dynamic. Although primarily directed at members of a step family, this book will no doubt also be an excellent resource for the professionals who support them, by offering timeless wisdom and the most recent theory regarding stepfamily issues. This work is a must read for those of us who seek to understand what it means to be part of a step family, and how to both survive and thrive within its complicated structures.

Leisa Stathis, author of Becoming a Mother and mental health social worker

A Step up for Stepfamilies is a must read for any single parent who is re-partnering or even thinking about re-partnering in the future. It’s also perfect for adults without children entering a relationship with someone who has children. Marcia provides guidance and advice in a very supportive and easy to read away. Marcia makes the step-family journey feel not only possible and not so overwhelming, but empowering. The book is a wonderful addition to any bookshelf to dip in and out of as you approach new challenges of the step-family journey. Well done Marcia!

Julia Hasche, break-up recovery and single parenting mentor, host of the Single Mother’s Survival Guide podcast, blogger, author

Families are growing in complexity in our modern times which can be a wonderful experience if every member is given respect, support and resources. A Step up for Stepfamilies is a fantastic source of information, personal stories and insights for what is set to become more and more common in our relationship landscape. As a therapist, I’m delighted to be able to pass on the wisdom in Marcia’s book to my clients for ideas and comfort.

Jacqui Manning, psychologist at The Friendly Psychologist

I first met Marica when she was a student in a class that I was teaching as part of her post-graduate training in counselling. At that time, she was a single mum with three sons. Since then not only has she completed her post graduate studies, she has remarried, worked hard with her husband Ian in establishing a stable and healthy step family, become an experienced counsellor with a special interest in step families, and a teaching colleague at Christian Heritage College. Over the years Marcia has been my number one go to person for parents struggling with the challenging task of establishing a step or blended family. Her depth of knowledge and experience both professionally and personally is outstanding. In ‘A Step up for Stepfamilies’ you will encounter Marica’s knowledge and experience wrapped in stories and practical insights and tools that will be invaluable to you whether you are part of a step-family or connected to a step-family or work with step-families.

Peter Janetzki, Psychotherapist, Counsellor & Educator Dip.T., Grad. Dip.Soc.Sc., M.Soc.Sc.(Counselling). CCAA (Clin), PACFA Reg, MIACN

As a former Relationship Counsellor, I know that when a couple aren’t working well, everything else is likely to fall apart, but when they are, almost like magic, everything seems to fall into place – until something happens and it falls apart again. This wonderful resource provides realistic expectations, real life stories and some creative solutions for step parents to navigate the very real challenges that come with step-family life as well as hope and the how-to’s to create a thriving family.

Elly Taylor, founder of Becoming Us

Little did I know when I marked a Master of Counselling dissertation in 2012, that a few short years later I would be asked to provide a review for the book that would grow out of that excellent research study - A Step up for Stepfamilies! Even less did I know that five years later I would be reviewing it not only as a psychologist and counselling academic who works with many ‘step’, ‘blended’, and ‘combined’ families, but more importantly as new husband of Joanna and step-dad to her two energetic, exhausting and wonderfully typical young teenage sons. A Step up for Stepfamilies is a great resource for anyone who is a part of, loves, or works with remarried families. Grounded in both solid research and Marcia’s own experience as a therapist and wife and mum within a blended family, it is full of humour, insight, practical ideas, and most of all, hope. I was left with the sense that while the road may not be an easy one, that with intention, love, perseverance and a willingness to grow and learn, that becoming a step-family can be one of life’s real gifts.

Dr John Meteyard, psychologist & psychotherapist

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First published 2018 by Independent Ink

PO Box 1638, Carindale

Queensland 4152 Australia

Copyright © Marcia Watts 2018

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. All enquiries should be made to the author.

Cover design by Jo Hunt

Edited by Kristy Bushnell

Internal design by Independent Ink

Typeset in 10/16 pt FreightText Pro by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

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ISBN 978-0-6482663-4-1 (pbk)

ISBN 978-0-6482663-5-8 (epub)

ISBN 978-0-6482663-6-5 (kindle)

Disclaimer:

Any information in the book is purely the opinion of the author based on her personal experience and should not be taken as business or legal advice. All material is provided for educational purposes only. We recommend to always seek the advice of a qualified professional before making any decision regarding personal and business needs.

For stepfamilies everywhere. I hope our experiences are validated, honoured and celebrated in these pages.

And to my own precious stepfamily. Thank you for allowing me to share our experiences – both joys and struggles. We are continuing to learn and grow so much and really value what it means to be a family. We are all in this together!

Author’s note

Having experienced being in a stepfamily, I understand both personally and professionally the tender, loving care and guardedness that is required in discussing stepfamily stories. Our stories as stepfamilies do not exist in a vacuum, but rather in a delicate and often elaborate weave of interconnecting characters and issues over time, space and place. I have undertaken every effort to protect and guard the confidentiality and privacy of the people and their circumstances in this book by using fictitious names and details while also maintaining the integrity of their stories.

Contents

Why I wrote this book

Chapter 1 Understanding stepfamilies

Chapter 2 Stepfamilies can be a solution, not a problem

Chapter 3 Shattering the myths and breaking down the statistics

Chapter 4 Grieving at every stage

Chapter 5 The impact of gender in stepfamilies

Chapter 6 Forming solid parenting partnerships and relationships

Chapter 7 The ties that bind

Chapter 8 Cultivating resilience

Chapter 9 Surviving the hurdles: ex-factors, boundaries and looking after yourself

Chapter 10 Being an intentional family

Chapter 11 Resources for professionals working with stepfamilies

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

References

Families, whether biological or chosen, are what give most people’s lives their shape . . . Most of our happiest and most tragic experiences are somehow connected with family. Families are flawed, complex, intense organic units whose members often fail each other in important ways. But family affection is the glue that holds lives together . . . and gives life meaning.

—Mary Pipher, The Shelter of Each Other

Why I wrote this book

I’m not a parenting expert. In fact, I don’t know if I even believe in the term ‘parenting expert’. I am a parent and a step-parent and I’m writing this book from the space of being a parent in a stepfamily and someone who works to support others in their relationships and families. In my work as a counsellor, I am privileged to hear many stories from other parents, individuals and couples. I learn so much from them in how they are grappling with the awesome, terrifying, rewarding and often sacrificial journey of being a parent. In particular, my ears prick up when I’m invited into conversations about step-parenting. Firstly, because I am a step-parent and, secondly, because as a counsellor I know from the research on stepfamilies and step-parenting that being in a stepfamily is different from other family types. It just is.

Step-parenting and being in a stepfamily can often feel really isolating. Who do we talk to about our struggles? Who understands the unique challenges we face and can validate our often very conflicted feelings? Who and where do we turn to for guidance, support and encouragement and a sense of direction when everything can feel so chaotic and unpredictable?

If you’re like me, you’ve probably realised and experienced the uniqueness of your stepfamily while hitting a few challenges along the way. You have probably also searched the shelves of every bookstore around town trying to find resources on how to be effective as a step-parent but haven’t found much. There’s a reason for that – there just aren’t many books, courses, or articles written on stepfamily life. While stepfamilies certainly aren’t the new kids on the family block, up until recently they haven’t been discussed unless you count The Brady Bunch . . . However, that is beginning to change as therapists, policy makers and family researchers realise that stepfamilies are a very fast-growing family form. In fact, in the next 20 years, some researchers are saying that stepfamilies will be the dominant family form!

Professionally, I have completed a bachelor’s degree in social science, completing three majors – counselling, human relations and community development. A few years later I completed a master’s degree in counselling. I have worked for the last eleven years as a family, couples and individual counsellor across a variety of settings, including private practice, multi-disciplinary group clinics, and sessional lecturing at Christian Heritage College on counselling topics. Through my professional and personal experience, I have found that the research, techniques and interventions we therapists generally use to support traditional families, parents and couples just don’t fit with stepfamilies because the whole landscape of family life is different.

As such I have conducted research in this area and am now invited to give talks and write papers on what I have discovered about stepfamily issues. In my conversations and research, I have been very privileged to hear and read the stories of other stepfamilies and how they are making their family work well. I find most stepfamilies are hungry for more information and appreciate being in a setting were stepfamily dynamics and issues can be openly discussed, explored, validated and appropriately understood. This book is designed to share not only the knowledge I’ve learned, but also the stories of others in stepfamilies so that the feelings of isolation and being misunderstood can be broken down and, in their place, a real framework for effective functioning and confidence as a stepfamily can emerge.

While stepfamily life can be very complex, it can also be very rewarding and there are responses to stepfamily challenges that can be constructive and helpful. I have found this both really intriguing at a professional level, and deeply validating, encouraging and empowering at a personal level. It has given me hope in dark times, ideas when I have been struggling and a sense of direction and purpose as I navigate stepfamily life. I want to share this knowledge with you. I want to be a part