Blending Your StepFamily 2: The Stages of Blending

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Blending your stepfamily can feel like you are literally in a blender:  being blended, chopped and pureed.  However, the goal is feeling a sense of unity, harmony and familial cooperation (I mean, let’s face it, no family – even non-blended famiies are perfectly peaceful)

I have discovered that there are four stages of stepfamily development.  It is a process that ALL blended families go through:

1)  The dream stage

2)  The realization stage

3)  The rally stage

4)  The acceptance stage

History shows that it takes most families four to seven years to complete all four stages and it is rarely, if ever, simple.  But it’s incredibly rewarding when you actively pursue the end result – a caring, loving, harmony-filled blended family.