When a stepfamily unit first moves in together, it’s pretty easy for women to clench up and try to control everything in the household, including the children. But this is a mistake, ladies. Try to breathe and sit back. Watch the kids and find out how the house was run by your husband before you came along.
You are the stranger in the house. And it’s not your place to be disciplining the children right away or demanding that they clean their rooms and make their beds every day. It’s your job to get to know them. Find out what rules they are used to living by.
“Stepfamilies are very different from biological families. People often go into a remarriage thinking that now they’ve found the perfect husband or wife and everybody is just going to blend together,” says Michele Diamond, a licensed independent clinical social worker who specializes in working with stepfamilies near Boston.
“It’s not as though you put a woman and her husband and his kids from a previous marriage into a blender, press a button and it all comes out smooth. It comes out really, really choppy. The biological dad and the stepmom have to have really clear communication between the two of them.
They must work together as a team. But the biological parent, especially at the beginning, has to be the one who sets the rules for the family.” Your husband must step up to the plate.