A viewer asks: “I am a stepfather in his 60s. I get anxious, apprehensive, and resentful when my 27-year-old stepson comes to visit briefly or for an extended stay. A few years previously he had been skipping school, would often stay in bed and was later diagnosed with depression and ADHD. It was a difficult time. For me his return changes the household atmosphere. It reasserts the biological family unit and makes my marriage secondary. I become unsure of my authority and emotional place. I feel bad about resenting him being around but of course, he and his mother have an established strong bond, routines, private history, and expectations of each other. Is this just stepfamily dynamics or a deeper healing need?”

We would say both things are true. Each family is unique and that is true for stepfamily relations. Some will be indistinguishable from biologic parent-child relationships while others might be more strained, or at least less intense and thus having less personal involvement and interdependence. So, people who are linked biologically will feel closer and those who are not, are aware there is something missing. It may be an unstated awareness without evident negative consequences, but is simply reflecting reality. That does not mean strong bonds cannot be established when there is a loving outreach with caring and concern that is genuine on the part of the stepparent. Even with biologic offspring, being loved by the child is as much earned as built into the system. Parents who are neglectful simply from being unavailable, not necessarily a negative influence, will often be creating a gap in the depth of the bonding with their child and that might lead to lifelong missed opportunities or dissatisfaction from the relationship. So this points to the reality that you have a choice to accept and honor what is missing and let that set the pace, the tone, and the operating principles for the degree of closeness you seek. Or, you can decide that you want to do your utmost to be a loving parent, if only during visits on occasion, and at least make clear your desire to give of yourself. You cannot control what your stepson does in response, or how he regards you within his own being, given the same issues being present and representing a potential constraint. But there are many families within which it is the stepparents and stepchildren who are closest and really truly get what they need in the way of love and happiness from the arrangement, because they have given of themselves to work at developing close and intense loving bonds. In your case, there are karmic complications because being a stepparent is causing some rumbling within from prior circumstances in other lifetimes. But, like most things having such a symptom, we see it as a healing opportunity and that much can be done to help you feel more valued and included despite your status as a non-biologic parent. As usual, prayer and the protocols can be recruited to help all in the family heal any karmic barriers to closeness.