Looking for advice or maybe just support. We recently blended our families and I'm struggling with my boyfriend's 17 year old daughter with depression, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, and alcoholism. She graduated high school last year and has been in and out of hospitals since. Most days she barely gets out of bed. She recently got a job but calls in sick frequently. She only works 15 hours a week. If we ask her to help around the house she says she can't because she's too tired. If you press her she threatens to kill herself. She's being treated, she's on tons of meds and goes to therapy. B ..read more

I met my now husband a year after he broke up with his ex wife. They have 2 kids together, now 14 and 11. My husband and I have been together for 4 years and have a 2 year old. We have my step kids 5 days a fortnight. I love my stepkids and we have a great relationship. I don't want my son to have a relationship with the ex wife for many reasons. We don't get along. I tried in the beginning but she'd call me a whore in front of her kids and talked bad about me to anyone she could. I can take it, and still tried to make it work to make it easier on the kids. It got to the point where we could ..read more

Are chores a point of contention in your blended homes? I just need to vent: My SS14 is quite responsible and does age appropriate chores. Like most teenagers, sometimes he needs a reminder to get it done but one reminder and he’s on it. Never any attitude. My SD12 pushes back on anything I ask her to do, and when her BD asks her, she’ll oftentimes just do the bare minimum. Their responsibilities include keeping their rooms clean and tidy and to take care of their laundry and load their own dishes. I’ve stopped asking SD12 to do things because I don’t have the mental energy for pushback/attit ..read more

Wondering what experiences and if any advice can be given for dating when both people have children of the same age but of opposite genders. Example: Man with a 9yo daughter, is dating a woman with a 9yo son. Recently started discussing living together but it's hard to imagine navigating the boundaries, and doing everything possible to prevent their curiosity from getting the better of them as puberty hits. Is it possible? Has anyone done this with success? Advice is greatly appreciated. submitted by /u/EdLeedskalnin [visit reddit] [comments ..read more

Something I should mention is that the "her" in the title is a typo, and was meant to be another "your." Ironically, I previously deleted the previous version of this post to fix grammatical errors in the title, but ended up making new ones without paying attention. Funny how that happens. With that out of the way, I'm not directly part of any blended families, but my mom grew up in one. It was a very messy family situation, as her late dad had a habit of quickly remarrying after his wives (more specifically, my mom's bio mother and her first stepmom) passed away. Her first stepmom came into ..read more

Just want to ask everyone what I should do in the situation. We’ve been dating for the past two years. She has two kids 11 years old and eight years old. I have two kids seven years old and four years old. She’s blending families together. And now she’s giving me an ultimatum saying that if we don’t plan together, she’s gonna leave. I have a house that I own and she is living with her parents. She’s asking me to sell my house to rent with her. Should I sell my house? And secondly, find out her son is kind of rough with my son at this age. Not sure if it will get worse as they grow up together ..read more

Just to clarify I’m talking about my daughter’s cousin from her dads side. Which I saw grow up. She is graduating high school and I don’t want to miss this big event in her life. She does live in a different state so he’s worried that I’ll spent too much time with them. I’m only planning to go for the weekend and out of respect stay in a hotel. I used to just stay at their place but I understand things are different now. So I’ve been with my fiancé for about two years now. When we first got together he knew I had a close relationship with my daughter’s father as well as his family. I would go ..read more

First, I want to say thank you to everyone that took the time to respond to my original post called, "would you listed to a podcast about blended families?" The feedback was great and really helped us get the confidence we needed to finally post our first episode. We have been talking about this podcast, brainstorming idea's and working on this project for over 2 years. It's about time we finally put something out there as a starting point and build from here! Please listen and follow and let us know what you think. We would love to hear your idea's on topics you would like to hear more about ..read more

I’ve been having trouble lately with my feelings towards marriage. Backstory, I got married when I was 20, divorce was final early 2021. When I met my current partner I was separated and he helped me get through the divorce process. He had recently divorced as well (2yrs before me)and was able to show me what I needed to do and was super supportive and helpful. My ex and I had been coparenting in a toxic marriage since 2016, so we knew our marriage was over but we were trying to stick it out for the kids, even though we should have just divorced then. Anyway fast forward, I’m still with my pa ..read more

Hey. My BF (31) and I (35) have been together for a little over a year now. We both have children, I was with my ex husband for 16 years. married 8 of them. 2 kids. Now 11 and 8. He has an ex fiancé he was with for almost 2 years. My ex husband and I have a good, structured co parenting relationship. Him and his ex do not. She’s constantly texting him, no matter if it’s about their son or not. She married last September. This morning she asked him for a picture of him, because her friend wanted to see what he looked like. He sent one. I seen the text when he had me look up something on his ph ..read more