Blended Families
Advisors
Organizations
For Blended Families
Becoming a blended family is a journey. At blending.love you create a customized map of your blended family to help guide your journey.
Answer a series of questions, and visualize the complex biological, legal, and emotional bonds that make your family unique. The cost is $25 unless you use a code you received from your advisor (or in Ron Deal’s book, Preparing to Blend).
For Advisors
Blending.love helps parents visualize the complex dynamics that make their blended families unique, and empowers advisors—premarital counselors, pastors, group leaders, mentors, and coaches—to support them along their journeys.
Whether the families you serve are preparing to blend, or are already on their way, we can help you illuminate the path ahead.
Getting Started Is Easy
Create Account
Sign up to create your Advisor Account. From here you’ll access your Advisor Dashboard.
Purchase Invitations
Select how many family map invitations to start with. Receive discounted pricing based on the number of invitations you purchase.
Invite Families
Invite families to blending.love. Families log in and complete a series of guided questions and blending.love draws their map.
Review
Review family map with client to identify areas of success and weakness.
PURCHASE INVITATIONS AS YOU GO
1 Family Map
$25
2 - 10 Family Maps
$22.50/each
11 - 25 Family Maps
$21.25/each
26+ Family Maps
$20/each
Perceived Home
We often perceive our blended family the same way we think of our first time family—as the people in our home. But the reality for blended families is much more complex.
Biological Bonds
Biology matters in stepfamilies. For example, we tend to have more patience with our biological children’s shenanigans—we share genes with them after all. In stepfamilies, biological bonds start off strong and remain so, while other stepfamily bonds begin slowly and develop over time.
Legal Bonds
It’s weird to be responsible for children in our homes who we have no legal authority over. I brought him to the ER, but I can’t sign for treatment? Legal bonds follow the biological bonds and often reflect first-families (unless there has been an adoption). The primary legal bond that holds a stepfamily together is the marriage.
Relationship with Previous Partner
All stepfamilies begin with a vision of a brighter future, but we often find ourselves caught between that vision and our pasts. We’ve found co-parenting with a former partner to be one of the most challenging aspects of stepfamily life. Building the co-parenting relationship can benefit the entire stepfamily. For example, giving your children permission to love the parents in the other house can move them out of the middle.
Emotional Bonds
There are a lot of emotional bonds in a stepfamily. These emotional connections shift and evolve over time. Some become solid, strong connections filled with trust and love. It often takes more time than blended families expect for these relationships to become established.
Invite Families
We often perceive our blended family the same way we think of our first time family—as the people in our home. But the reality for blended families is much more complex.
View Families
View completed family maps, recommended resources, and suggested activities to help guide your support.
Create and Manage Groups
Organize families into groups and keep everyone’s contact information and completed family maps in one easily accessible place.
Manage and Archive Families
Rest questionnaires for families, email them reminders, or archive families you are no longer working with.
For Organizations
Churches, counselors, and social workers helping multi-household families understand the unique challenges blended families face. Integrating blending.love into an existing practice can help guide conversations and build more resilient and compassionate relationships.
Contact Us
Interested in using blending.love with the multi-household families you work with? Complete the contact form below to learn more and chat with us about tailoring a solution to fit your organization’s needs.