Becoming a Step-parent to Adults

How Many People have Adult Stepchildren?

Realistically, how often do people marry someone who already has adult children?

It is very difficult to find data that sets this out precisely.

However, it is reasonable to assume that numbers are increasing.

First, because there is now a distinct term for the phenomenon: “second-half stepfamilies”, which recognises the growing importance of marriage in the ‘second half’ of life.

Second, because we know that the average age on remarriage is increasing.

For example, in 2016 in the UK, the average age for a remarriage after divorce was 50.4 years for men, and 47.4 years for women in heterosexual relationships, and 50.5 years for men and 45.8 years for women for same-sex marriages. Some of these people will undoubtedly have children, some of whom will be adults. Having said that, the average age for a mother to have her first child is also increasing—from just over 26 in 2000 to around 29 years old in 2018 in the UK, which may complicate the picture.

Is it common to marry someone who already has adult children? Unclear.

However—barring hideous accidents—children grow up. Young children become teenagers, and teenagers become adults. Most step-parents will eventually have adult stepchildren, even if they don’t have them immediately. And as our pages on Parenting and the Empty Nest explain, people do not magically become independent adults overnight when they turn 18. Many young people now take years to ‘launch’, because of the challenges of being able to afford a home, or indeed relationship breakdowns.

What are the Potential Problems with Adult Stepchildren?

It is worth considering what could possibly go wrong when you marry someone with adult children (or children who are about to turn adult).

Conflict may arise for several possible reasons, including because adult children:

Feel that they have been abandoned by their parent in favour of the new partner. This may be particularly pertinent for widows and widowers.
Feel torn or conflicting loyalties to their parents, and the need to support both of them.
Worry about how things might change. For example, will they still be free to “come home” when they want? How will events like Christmas work?
Feel jealous that they have been displaced in their parent’s affections. Many single parents and their children form very tight familial bonds: it is “them against the world”. Adding another person into the mix can feel very threatening.
Worry about money, especially if their parent has substantial assets. This is not unreasonable—but it is also not unreasonable for the new partner to want to understand how they might be treated financially if the children’s parent dies first.
Worry that your arrival will mean that their parent has less time for grandchildren. This can be a very real threat if that parent spent a lot of time caring for the grandchildren. Reducing that time may have huge financial implications for the family.

Parents have rights and needs too

It is important that adult children recognise that their parents have their own lives—and that includes a right to date and even get remarried if they wish.

Because of parents’ caregiving roles when children are small, this can be difficult for children to appreciate, even once they are adults. Roles become ingrained, and often are not actively considered or discussed until something changes.

It may be worth articulating this during family conversations to ensure that everyone understands and accepts it.

What Can You Do To Avoid Problems with Adult Stepchildren?

First and foremost, you need to talk to your partner long before any problems arise.

Have plenty of conversations about what you will do in various situations and circumstances. Make sure that you explore options and that you have discussed how you would both feel.

For example:

If their adult children want to move in with you, who gets to make the decision?
If their adult children need money, who will provide it? Again, who will decide?
Will you move into the house that was their family home, or will you get a new place together?
How do you expect to be treated by your adult stepchildren? What will happen if they don’t agree to that?
How will you decide about caring for grandchildren if the situation arises?
What will happen about finances if or when you get married, and then when one of you dies?

It is important to stress that there is no right or wrong answer to any of these questions.

Instead, it is a matter of working out what the two of you will do—and making sure that you do that together. For many people, this boils down to a question of priority: will you, their new partner, be the priority, or will their children continue to be the priority even though they are grown-up? Or will you jointly make decisions about how you react to the children, as you would have done if they were your biological children too?

Some men put their wives first and make the marriage a union of equal partners for life. Some always put their children, even adult children first, and the marriage is never a partnership.... If you ever discuss marriage, make sure he is the first kind. Even if he is, you will have to embrace sacrifices that he naturally makes for his kids. You will make sacrifices too just because you are his wife.

Reddit user papugapop, in a discussion about adult stepchildren

For more about how to do so, you may find it helpful to read our page on Learning to Make Joint Decisions—and the skills required are equally as important on remarriage as on first marriage.

It is essential to have these discussions before you commit to each other, and not after you are married.

You need to be confident that you are in partnership with someone who cares about your well-being as well as that of their adult children. If you are not comfortable with your partner’s views on any of these questions, or you are unable to find a shared position or compromise that works for both of you, it is better to either cut your losses completely, or simply agree that you will date but not marry.

These are not easy discussions!

However, they are extremely important. If you cannot have these discussions when they are purely hypothetical, how will you have them when these situations happen?

If your partner is not prepared to have a conversation, or recognise that their decisions about their children affect you, then this should at least make you consider your future carefully—and particularly whether marriage is a good idea.

On the plus side, these conversations will give you a good grounding for dealing with other difficult conversations over the course of your relationship (and for more, you may like to read our page on Having Challenging Conversations with your Partner).

Build a Relationship with Your Adult Stepchildren

Aim to become friends with your adult stepchildren (or potential stepchildren).

You are not, and never will be, their parent. However, you are considering marrying their parent, and you hope that you will be in their lives for many years. Take time to learn what interests them, talk to them about those interests, engage with them, and generally get to know them. Show that you are interested in them, and they will hopefully respond.

Remember that all personal relationships take time to develop.

You cannot expect to become close friends with anyone without putting in some work—and the stepchild/step-parent relationship is already fraught with difficulty for all the reasons above.

Give them opportunities to spend time with their parent without you, too, because everyone benefits from that. You don’t need to do all the work to arrange these opportunities, but you do need to make sure that they are available for the family to take up.

Ensure that your partner has a clear will setting out what happens in the event of their death

Their will should explain their wishes for their money, property and any other assets.

This is important for everyone (and for more about why, see our page on Planning for Death and Incapacity). However, it is perhaps particularly important for people embarking on remarriage, because finances can get extremely complicated. As the new partner, you want to be clear whether you are protected, and what your rights will be to their property. Their children also want to know how you and they will be situated.

Case study: Time-limited protection

When Jessica and Shirley’s father Tony died, they found that his will was clear. He had left his house and assets to them both. However, there was a proviso.

His partner Gill was to be allowed to stay in the house for 12 months.

Tony had therefore ensured that his children would inherit the value of the house, and that their position was clear. However, his partner, who had lived with him for several years before his death, had nowhere else to go—and he had given her time to decide what to do. It seemed fair to everyone.

It is, of course, also important to make your own will, especially if you are inheriting anything that your stepchildren might reasonably have expected to receive.

And Finally...

Relationships between stepchildren and step-parents are not always easy.

However, they can also be extremely rewarding—and this may be especially true when your stepchildren are adults.

Take time to develop relationships with them—but above all, make sure that you and your partner are building your own relationship. You need to be confident in your ability to make decisions together when they affect you both.

Continue to:
Top Tips for Step-Parents
Creating a Blended Family