You know that moment when someone casually asks, “So, will your stepsister be a bridesmaid at your wedding?” and you suddenly feel like you’re taking a pop quiz you didn’t study for? Yeah. Welcome to the delightfully complicated world of blended families, where the rulebook is mostly blank and everyone has an opinion.
If you’re part of a stepfamily, you’re in excellent company. According to the United States Census Bureau, about 1,300 new stepfamilies are formed every day, and research estimates that more than 114 million Americans have a step relationship of some kind. That’s a huge chunk of Americans navigating the same murky waters of “Do I have to invite them to Thanksgiving?” and “Am I a terrible person if I don’t?”
You can take comfort in this, though: “The questions people ask about stepfamilies—What do I owe? How much is enough?—are the same questions that quietly strain biological families,” says Mai Uchida, MD, a child psychiatrist affiliated with Harvard University who has done extensive research on stepfamily relationships. “Step relationships just make the invisible visible, as the expectations are not as clearly written out.”
So, essentially, blended families are forced to have the awkward conversations that “traditional” families often try to avoid entirely. Lucky us, right? Read on for Dr. Uchida’s research-backed advice on the best ways to deal with every type of stepfamily situation.
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What do you actually owe your stepfamily?
Let’s rip off the Band-Aid: “I don’t think we owe anyone anything,” Dr. Uchida says.
Go ahead and screenshot that for the next family group-chat debate, but before you use it as license to ghost your stepbrother forever, let’s talk about what you might want to bring to these relationships—because owe and choose to give are two very different things. Closeness that’s chosen feels very different from closeness that’s demanded.
Start by defining your own values. Are you someone who is kind and honest? Then extend that to your stepfamily, not because you owe them but because that’s who you are. According to Dr. Uchida, you can offer basic respect and civility (the same you’d extend to, say, a co-worker or the barista who remembers your oat milk preference) as well as honesty about your emotional, financial and logistical capacity. Above all, be consistent. Nobody likes the stepsister who’s your best friend at Christmas and then vanishes until she needs help moving.
Of course, we want to acknowledge that plenty of stepfamilies are genuinely close—the kind where stepsiblings become best friends and stepparents walk kids down the aisle. That’s beautiful, and if that’s your experience, treasure it. But if you’re reading this article, chances are you clicked on it because your feelings are a little more conflicted. The goal isn’t to minimize your stepfamily relationships but to make sure the ones you do invest in are real.
Does it depend on whether you grew up together or met as adults?
It can. Family dynamics vary considerably and shift over time, and how old you were when your family blended can play a role.
If your stepfamily formed during your childhood, there are often implicit expectations—or at least hopes—of permanence. Those emotional bonds may feel more “family-like,” even if they’re complicated in other ways. But these family boundaries can be harder to renegotiate later because the roles were set when you were too young to have a say.
Stepfamilies that form in adulthood are more accurately described as chosen relationships. Think of the obligations as closer to those you’d have with in-laws or extended family. Adults have more agency to define distance without it feeling like outright rejection—which is honestly a relief for everyone involved.
Dr. Uchida says being parented can create not only closeness but also a sense of obligation that’s not necessarily warranted. Let’s break down some real-world examples of sticky situations stepfamilies often find themselves in and how to handle them:
Do you have to stay in touch with your stepfamily after divorce or death?
Short answer: No, not automatically.
Look, I know this might feel cold, but hear me out. If your mom and stepdad divorce after 15 years, you’re not legally or morally required to keep texting your stepbrother about fantasy football. Continued contact should be based on mutual desire, not just shared history. “It’s healthy to let relationships naturally loosen if they were maintained through a marriage that no longer exists,” says Dr. Uchida.
That said, if you genuinely love your stepparent or stepsiblings and want to maintain the relationship? That’s beautiful. Just make sure you’re doing it because you want to, not because you feel obligated to preserve a family structure that’s already changed.
Do stepsiblings deserve a place in your wedding?
Weddings can turn into the “obligation Olympics” for families. Your aunt thinks your stepsister should be a bridesmaid. Your dad thinks your stepbrother should give a toast. Your fiance thinks everyone should calm down.
Here’s Dr. Uchida’s take on including your stepsiblings: “Only if they have a meaningful role in your life.” Weddings are relational statements, not fairness exercises. Including someone in your wedding party out of guilt often creates resentment later—both from you and from the people who actually earned their spots.
If your stepsibling is genuinely one of your closest people? Absolutely include them. If you’ve exchanged maybe 40 words in the past five years? A lovely invitation to attend as a guest is perfectly sufficient. Modern wedding etiquette has evolved, and so can your guest-list decisions.
Should you invite your stepfamily to holiday gatherings?
Ah, the holidays, that magical time when we voluntarily trap ourselves in houses with people who stress us out and then wonder why we need a nap by 2 p.m. Before you send that invite, Dr. Uchida suggests asking yourself two questions: Does their presence add warmth or stress? And am I inviting them out of genuine desire or fear of backlash?
“Inviting out of fear tends to reinforce unhealthy dynamics,” she says. And again, nobody owes anyone anything. If Thanksgiving with your stepfamily leaves you needing a week to recover, it might be time to rethink the tradition. You can love people and also recognize that loving them from a distance—say, via a nice text message and a gift card—works better for everyone.
Do you owe your stepsiblings financial help?
Generally speaking? No.
Money and family are a notoriously volatile combination, even in the closest relationships. Throw in the added complexity of stepfamily dynamics, and things can go south quickly.
“Financial support is appropriate when there is mutual closeness and capacity,” says Dr. Uchida. So if you’re genuinely close with your stepsister and she’s in a tough spot and you have the means to help—and she’d do the same for you—go for it. But “obligation without reciprocity or consent often leads to long-term resentment,” she adds.
The key word there is reciprocity. If you’re always the one being asked and never the one being helped, that’s not a family dynamic; that’s a charitable donation.
Are you obligated to care for your stepparent if they’re sick?
This one’s heavy, so let’s approach it with care. According to Dr. Uchida, you’re not obligated to become a caregiver unless you had a caregiving relationship already, you explicitly agreed to that role or you have the emotional and practical capacity for it. “Caregiving is a choice, not a moral default,” she says.
If your stepparent raised you from age 5 and you have a close, loving relationship, then you might genuinely want to be there for them. But if your dad married someone when you were 35 and you’ve always been cordial but distant? You’re not a bad person for not dropping everything to become their primary caregiver.
Do you need to share your inheritance with your stepsiblings?
Dr. Uchida is direct: No, no matter what soap operas and royal family dramas have led us to believe.
“Inheritance reflects legal and relational decisions, not emotional fairness,” says Dr. Uchida. If your biological parent left their estate to you, that was their choice to make. “Guilt-driven redistribution often causes regret and family conflict.” (As if there’s not enough family conflict happening around this issue!)
Will your stepsiblings potentially be upset? Maybe. But your parent made a decision, and honoring that decision isn’t selfish—it’s respecting their wishes. If you want to share, that’s generous of you. But wanting to and feeling obligated to are different things, and only one of them leads to resentment-free holidays.
Other tricky stepfamily situations worth mentioning
Here are a few more scenarios that didn’t get their own discussion but absolutely deserve attention:
- Mediating family conflicts: “You are not required to be the emotional glue holding everyone together,” Dr. Uchida says. Full stop.
- Pressure to act like “real” siblings: “Closeness cannot be forced,” she says. You can be respectful without being besties, and that’s perfectly acceptable.
- Being expected to prioritize stepfamily over biological or chosen family: This is a “false hierarchy,” Dr. Uchida says. You get to decide who gets your attention based on actual relationships, not just paperwork.
- Calling a stepparent “Mom” or “Dad”: Names carry weight, and no one gets to dictate what feels right coming out of your mouth. Using a first name doesn’t mean you don’t care—it means you’re being honest about the relationship you actually have.
- Navigating the next generation: If you have kids, you may face pressure for them to call your stepparent “Grandma” or “Grandpa,” or to treat stepcousins identically to biological ones. Again, there’s no universal rule here. Teach kindness and patience, and then let these relationships develop organically.
One final thought about what you don’t need to sign up for: “intimacy, closeness or sacrifice that exceeds the actual relationship,” says Dr. Uchida. Always remember that you don’t owe anyone loyalty at the expense of your own well-being.
How do you set boundaries without starting a family feud?
You can and should set healthy boundaries, with all your loved ones. It’s the best way to help them stay loved ones!
But here’s the uncomfortable truth people often forget: You can’t force others to respect your boundaries, and you can’t control how they react to your boundaries. Someone might be hurt. Someone might be angry. Someone might send a passive-aggressive text at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday. That’s their response to manage, not your boundary to abandon.
That said, there are ways to reduce the drama. Dr. Uchida recommends the following:
- State limits without overexplaining: “I’m not able to do that” is a complete sentence. You don’t need to provide an 18-slide PowerPoint on why you can’t host Christmas this year.
- Use consistency over persuasion: Repeating the same calm message is more effective than getting drawn into a debate. Think of it as the “broken record” technique, but make it family therapy.
- Say what you can do: Drop the people-pleasing instinct to overcommit. Instead, try something like, “I care about you, and this is what I can offer.” It’s honest and kind without leaving the door open for negotiation.
- Expect discomfort: Boundaries almost always feel weird at first, for you and the other person. But discomfort doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. It usually means you’re doing something new.
And here’s the mental reframe Dr. Uchida wants you to remember: “Other people’s disappointment is not your responsibility or evidence of your failure.” Read that again. Maybe write it on a sticky note and put it on your bathroom mirror. It applies to basically every relationship you’ll ever have.
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For over 100 years, Reader’s Digest has explored the nuances of relationships, working with such luminaries as Dr. Ruth Westheimer, John Gottman, PhD, and Leo Buscaglia (“Dr. Love”). We ran a decade-long relationships column and have published a compendium of features, Love and Marriage: The Reader’s Digest Guide to Intimate Relationships. We support this information with credentialed experts and primary sources such as government and professional organizations, peer-reviewed journals and our writers’ personal experiences where it enhances the topic. We verify all facts and data and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- Mai Uchida, MD, child psychiatrist with Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital; in-person interview, Jan. 30, 2026
- U.S. Census Bureau: “National Stepfamily Day: September 16, 2023”
- ParentData: “What Is the Data on Blended Families?”
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