How to Improve Relationships in an LDS Blended Family: Adult Perception of the Other Home (Part Two)
- Kiersten Wilson
- Jul 7
- 10 min read
Updated: Jul 22
This is Part 2 of a 2-part series on the effect of adult perceptions on blended family functioning. Learn how a shift in the way parents and stepparents view their family as multi-household can improve relationships both with those who live in and outside their home.
How Do You Define Your LDS Blended Family?
Consider for a moment how you would respond if asked who was in your family. It might be helpful for you to draw an illustration or make a list of who you would include.
Now consider how your child or stepchild would answer the same question. Who would they think of when describing their family? You might want to add to your list or drawing or create a new list or drawing from your child’s perspective.
Why Children Often Define Stepfamilies Differently Than Adults
While many remarried couples include both their biological children and stepchildren when answering this question, relatively few consider family members who live outside their home—such as other biological parents, stepparents, and step- or half-siblings who remain meaningfully connected to the children in their home (Castrén & Wildmer, 2015)[1]. This is due, in large part, to the way remarried adults want their family to appear. As four of the five stepfamily categories discussed in Part 1 of this post convey, most remarried couples struggle to fully accept, define, and embrace their family as a stepfamily.
Children in blended families, however, often view their family through a much wider lens. If a child in your home has a parent or sibling living in another household, then your family is, by definition, multi-household. While this idea might evoke some internal resistance, there are distinct relational benefits when remarried adults adopt this broader perspective. Recognizing as family anyone their child or stepchild considers a parent or sibling unlocks understanding of the powerful influence these emotional connections have on relationships both within their home and across households.
Shifting the Common Ways Remarried Adults Perceive Their Stepfamilies
Let’s take another look at the common attitudes remarried adults define their stepfamilies and consider the value of a shift in perspective.
1. “Nuclear Family…or So it Seems”
Remember, in these families:
Adults actively and purposefully seek to look like a first marriage or nuclear family.
Stepparents assume the biological parent role and children are expected to accept them as such.
Biological ties outside the family are not acknowledged, largely ignored, or legally severed. Biological parent may be physically absent.
Challenges:
Even when a biological parent is permanently absent (e.g., through death or abandonment) their presence often endures in their child’s heart, regardless of physical involvement.
Pressuring a biological parent to exit a child’s life or taking legal measures to force this outcome is often mentally and emotionally detrimental to both the parent and the child.
Dismissing the memory of an absent parent and cutting off ties to extended family members (with the exception of real danger to the child) can exacerbate children’s grief, introduce a sense of self-shame, and negatively influence identity development.
The absence of a biological parent does not automatically open a child’s heart to a new stepparent.
Benefits of a perspective shift:
Children’s identities are tied to their biological parent. Honoring their memory by allowing your child to talk about them or keep a picture or something else that connects them emotionally, encourages healthy identity development and emotional healing.
Children yearn to know and understand who they come from. Allowing them to remain connected to extended family can help children keep the memory of an absent parent alive, which can help with both grief and identity development.
Although it might seem counterintuitive, honoring a child's emotional relationship with their absent parent actually creates safety within which a bond with their new stepparent can form.
2. “Not Really a Stepfamily”
Remember, in these families:
Stepchildren were fairly young when the stepfamily was formed.
Additional children born after the couple remarries have close relationships with their half siblings.
Contact with the other biological parent is present, but limited .
Family functions like a nuclear family most of the time.
Challenges:
Although these families tend to function like a first marriage family, the reality is they are still, by definition a stepfamily. Ignoring this reality can create resentment when the biological parent does appear.
Because parents want to function like a first marriage family, they may use their family surname, rather than the child’s surname, on church and school records. They may even pressure biological parents to sever legal ties with their child.
With rare exceptions, these behaviors do not lead to favorable outcomes for children or biological parents. Rather, they can exacerbate feelings of abandonment, grief, and loss, as well as anxiety and depression.
Benefits of a perspective shift:
Stepfamilies that embrace their identity as such tend to better manage parental expectations and roles.
They are also better equipped to navigate the emotional and logistical nuances involved with infrequent or inconsistent visits with biological parents.
Children who remained connected to a biological parent, even in a limited way, do better than children who permanently lose contact.
3. “Wish We Were a Nuclear Family”
Remember, in these families:
Children spend regular time with biological parents and siblings and other households.
Adults want to appear as a nuclear family, but it is usually obvious to others that they are a stepfamily.
Often due to value differences and disagreements over core parenting concerns, stepparents may feel they are the better suited for the child than the biological mom or dad.
Challenges:
The desire to appear as a nuclear family rather than a stepfamily can create unrealistic expectations and tension within, and between, homes.
No matter how rooted in principle they may seem, efforts to prove that the stepparent is better than the biological parent creates a loyalty bind for the child. Not only does this put significant stress on children but it often disrupts the opportunity for a healthy stepparent-stepchild bond.
Benefits of a perspective shift:
Adults who embrace their stepfamily identity tend to have more realistic expectations and are able to be more supportive of the relationships children have with family members who live in other households.
When stepparents choose not to compete with the biological parent, instead conveying sincere “no-threat” messages, both child and parent are able to lower their defenses and relationships improve.
The stepparent-stepchild bond forms more quickly when children sense that the relationship with their biological parent is safe.
4. “Looking Forward to When It’s Just Us”
Remember, in these families:
One or both remarried partners are resentful of the presence of stepchildren and former spouses.
They may have additional children together and wish they could just focus on their “own” family.
Or one of the partners may not have a spouse or children from a previous marriage or have children who are already adults.
Challenges:
It is often difficult for children in these blended families to know where they fit, or if they belong. Even children who visit their non-custodial parent’s home infrequently can feel when they are not wanted.
Strain is placed on the marriage If the stepparent is the one who feels resentment toward the stepchildren and the biological parent sees their child’s pain.
The relationship between the biological parent and their child can also become stressed or fractured if the new spouse is resentful of the child and demands their full attention.
As has been previously mentioned, it is detrimental to children when their parent and/or stepparent are resentful and critical of their other biological parent.
Benefits of a perspective shift:
Stepparents do not have to take on the role of a biological parent. However, affinity seeking, or building a friendship with a stepchild, fosters peace and harmony in the home, as well as strengthens both the marriage and the biological parent-child relationship.
Children in stepfamilies do better across all domains (physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, academic) when a good relationship exists between all their parents – biological and step.
A Gospel Perspective on LDS Stepfamilies: The Zion Tent
3 Nephi 22 and Isaiah 54 depict the establishment of Zion in the Last Days. Verse 2 reads:
Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes.
The Zion tent metaphor can be instructive when considering an expanded perspective of a stepfamily. What might be possible if we not only strove to create Zion-like unity within the walls of our own home, but between the households that make up our stepfamilies?
Why Including an Ex-Spouse in the Stepfamily System Feels Difficult
This might be an ideal worth striving for, but in many cases can feel overwhelming or even impossible. It may feel natural to include a spouse who passed away in one’s definition of family. And some people get along well with their former partners and wouldn’t balk at the idea of including them in a figurative (although not literal) expanded family tent. But when relationships with ex-spouses are strained, or even bitter and contentious, the desire to move on with one’s life and create as much distance as possible from their prior partner can be strong.
And thinking of their partner’s former spouse as part of the family can be even more difficult for new spouses who are trying to create a home of their own. The reality is that the idea of a family inclusive of an ex-spouse can evoke feelings of resentment and anger, rather than Zion-like love and unity.
How LDS Blended Families Benefit When Relationships Across Households Are Strengthened
It is not recommended that newly formed stepfamilies put on rose-colored glasses and adopt an unrealistic kumbaya mentality when it comes to relationships with former spouses. However, stepfamilies are better positioned to create Zion in their own homes when they recognize the influence of relationships outside their home, as well as value and actively support those relationships, rather than dismiss or seek to compete with them.
Those who accept an expanded family view from the beginning tend to have more realistic expectations and adopt more appropriate roles, which in turn leads to better adjustment, greater adaptability, and more harmonious relationships both within their home and across households.
When stepfamily adults acknowledge and accept a broader definition of their family, they step into their child’s world with greater awareness, compassion, and empathy. And when children sense that the people important to them outside of their home are also important to the adults in their home, emotional safety increases and “familyness” can begin.
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FAQ
Q: What if my child’s biological parent is mentally and emotionally unstable?
A: Many marriages end because of the mental or emotional instability of a spouse. And both divorce and a new marriage can lead to or exacerbate underlying tendencies. However, unless a child is in real danger of serious harm or neglect, they still tend to do best when they maintain a relationship with their biological parent. This situation requires a great deal of vigilance on the part of the stable biological parent and stepparent. Your child will need the safety and security of your healthy boundaries and behavior.
Q: What if my current spouse really is a better parent for my child than their biological parent? would like to have an “we-baby” but are worried about how it will affect our other children.
A: Then your child is very lucky to have a committed loving stepparent who can provide support and perhaps fill the gaps where the biological parent falls short. Regardless, the stepparent role is a supporting actor, not the primary star of the show. This reality can be quite painful for the stepparent who sacrifices for the child they love but doesn’t receive the benefits of that sacrifice. Acknowledging your spouse, validating their experience and sense of loss, and expressing your gratitude for their role in your child’s life are critical to their ability to stay the course when the road is rough.
Q: My former husband had an affair with his now-wife. She pursued him and destroyed our home and family. I can tolerate my ex-husband despite the betrayal, but I cannot tolerate the “home-wrecker.” How can I possibly be expected to see her as part of my family?
A: I am so sorry for the pain you have experienced as a result of your husband’s affair, and I can understand why you have such strong feelings toward his wife. Elder Neil L. Andersen speaks of what forgiveness is – and what it is not – in his book, The Divine Gift of Forgiveness[2]. This quote, in particular, stands out and may be relevant for your situation:
“Forgiveness is not excusing accountability or failing to protect ourselves, our families, and other innocent victims. Forgiveness is not continuing in a relationship with someone who is not trustworthy. Forgiveness is not dismissing the hurt or disgust we feel because of the actions of others. Forgiveness is not forgetting but remembering in peace.”
The key here is peace – your own and that of your children. You have every right and reason to be cautious in how you approach this relationship and appropriate boundaries are essential. But as you maneuver this extremely challenging and painful path, consider how your actions and responses will impact your personal peace, your children’s ability to have peace in their relationships (especially with their dad and stepmom) and the peace you will feel in your home.
How to Apply These Principles in Your LDS Stepfamily
Improving relationships in stepfamilies requires personal reflection, open dialogue, and intentional effort in applying new information in ways that meet the needs of your unique family. Here are a few ideas to get started:
Personal Reflection and Couple’s Conversations:
How did you initially describe/define your family? Did your description include people outside of your home?
Did the way you defined your family differ from how your child or stepchild would define their family? If so, what insights does that bring you?
How did you feel when the “Zion family tent” was described? How do you feel about considering people outside your household as part of your family?
What concerns you the most? Are there people connected to your children that you would prefer not to have in your “family tent?”
How might an expanded perspective of who is in your family benefit your child/ren?
How might an expanded perspective of who is in your family help you to better understand and appropriately respond to their influence on family life within your home?
For Children in Stepfamilies:
Depending on individual circumstances, these suggestions may be best between biological parent and child/ren. Remember to be open, curious, and compassionate when discussing sensitive topics with your children.
Ask your children to draw or list who is in their family. (Even for older children, drawings can be particularly illuminating. Pay attention to how the people in the family are drawn. How close together are they? Where does your child place themselves in orientation to other family members?)
Ask your children if they feel that their relationship with their biological parent is honored and respected by the adults in both households.
Discuss ways healthy relationships between households can be encouraged or enhanced.
If you’re ready to apply these principles but aren’t sure where to start, book a free 15–30 minute Discovery Call to talk through your unique challenges and explore how coaching can support your family’s journey toward unity.
References
Castrén, A.-M., & Widmer, E. D. (2015). Insiders and outsiders in stepfamilies: Adults' and children's views on family boundaries. Current Sociology, 63(1), 35–56. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392114551650
Andersen, N. L. (2019). The Divine Gift of Forgiveness, p. 225.
