Bonus Kids, Bonus Heartache: Step-Kid Breakups

Click Here to Chat with Us! We're all ears (& probably wine).

What happens when you lose children who were never legally yours? Without legal rights or cultural recognition, stepparent loss exists in a painful limbo - real relationships severed with no formal acknowledgment of their significance.

Meghan shares her raw, emotional journey through one of the most overlooked forms of grief after a relationship ends - the heartbreak of saying goodbye to stepchildren & the path to healing that isn't often discussed. 

 • First meetings with stepchildren 
 • Creating memorable birthdays 
 • Making meaningful impacts on pivotal life choices (i.e. college possibilities) 
 • Navigating grief & personal identity with a stepparent breakup 
 • Healing process & finding closure

Have you experienced the unique heartbreak of stepparent loss? Share your story with us and check out our social media poll to see how many others have walked this challenging path.

🎙️[e-mail]

Episode Transcript

Meghan (00:01):
Welcome to Fearlessly Female, where two blondes make a
right.
We are Meghan and Brittany, thehosts of Fearlessly Female.
This podcast was born out ofambition, drive and a lot of
wine.
We're two powerhouse comedicwomen having uncensored
conversations about topics thataffect women.
We're airing all the dirtylaundry, so grab your favorite
drink and give us a listen.

Brittany (00:23):
In today's podcast we're on quirking bonus kids,
bonus heartaches and stepkidbreakups.
Warning calm your tits.
Offense will not be taken here.
So grab your favorite drink,burn your bra and have a good
time.
This format will be a littlebit different from our typical
formats.
It'll be more of an interviewfocused on Meghan's experience,

(00:46):
of course, with my colorfulinterjections.
It's a little heavier topiclosing stepkids but we promise
to make it light where we can.
And also the names have beenchanged, so make sure your drink
is full.

Meghan (01:00):
Boy.
Here we go.

Brittany (01:02):
Well, there's no beating around the bush, let's
start with meeting them for thefirst time kids.

Meghan (01:25):
So when I first met them I had bought a mini baseball
bat from the San FranciscoGiants and a Golden Gate Bridge
charm for a bracelet, and when Igave it to them I talked about
all the experience I wanted tohave with them to travel and
make sure they got somethingsimilar from those locations.

Brittany (01:38):
Oh, bribing them with gifts.
I like your approach.

Meghan (01:42):
I mean a little of that, yeah, but I have always been
about memories and I knew theyhadn't traveled a lot and that
was the focus of my partner atthe time.

Brittany (01:53):
You were being so generous with the term partner,
but okay, I digress, so golisten to our topic on toxic
relationships episodes to hearmore.

Meghan (02:03):
You're exactly right on that.

Brittany (02:07):
All right, so tell us favorite memories from being a
mom.

Meghan (02:10):
Man well, birthdays were super fun.
For Dylan's birthday, we werehaving a bunch of 13-year-old
boys over.
He was obsessed with Dr Pepper.
I mean, the cans upon cans Ifound around the house is just a
nightmare.
Anyways, I found a recipe tomake a chocolate cake with Dr
Pepper.
He absolutely was shocked thatanything like this was possible.

(02:33):
I also made a ranch fountain.

Brittany (02:35):
Oh my gosh, I love Dr Pepper.
Like I am obsessed with it too.
It's so good and ranch.
I'm like I'm a white girl.
It's just like I've heard ofchocolate, but ranch, ranch
fountains.

Meghan (02:50):
You bet I got wings and pizza rolls and some veggies.
I mean, there were a few adultsat the party afterward and I
got a fountain that does hot orcool, and so I had a ranch
dressing fountain.
The kids loved it, it was amassive hit.

Brittany (03:05):
I mean, can you do that for my birthday?
All right, what about Ava?
How was her birthday?

Meghan (03:12):
Okay, so she was a little older, she was turning 16
, and gave me no restrictions orideas, which I mean.
That could have been a hardfail.

Brittany (03:23):
A girl turning 16 with a new stepmom.
No restrictions or ideas, okay,no pressure at all.
I mean, I was an angel at 16.

Meghan (03:33):
Not even our listeners are going to believe that,
brittany.
So for that one I decided tomake it all spa.
I completely changed theupstairs bedrooms.
Her room was converted intolike a bohemian style space.
I bought all these colorfulsheets and pinned them to the
ceiling, got extra mattressesand every pillow in the house
and just made this a really coolspace so that all the girls

(03:55):
could sleep in one room and havea sitting area.

Brittany (03:59):
Okay, so Ranch Fountain and Bohemian Room is on
my list for my party now I dida bunch of other things too.

Meghan (04:04):
There was a nail room, spa water, and then I got every
little pastry appetizer,everything across the county for
the girls.
They were up all night.

Brittany (04:14):
Gosh what a success.
That's amazing, being afirst-time parent learning as
you went baptism by firinggasoline.
With teenagers, I mean arguablythe most unreasonable people on
earth.
My dad always said raising ateenager was like trying to nail
Jell-O to the wall.

Meghan (04:31):
I think that's the truth .
I think we can all look back onour teenage days and think all
parents have to learn, butstarting with a whole-ass human
with lots of opinions andthoughts certainly is a
different bag of chaos.

Brittany (04:45):
Oh, I believe it.
Clearly you had some fun withthese kids.
Let's talk about the impactthat you made.
What do you consider yourbiggest accomplishment with them
?

Meghan (04:55):
Well, I will start with Ava.
So neither of her biologicalparents went to college.
Now, mind you, that's noteverything you can listen to in
earlier podcasts where I talkabout this, but I was speaking
at Mississippi State and had herskip school to come with me.
She got to see her firstcollege campus.
A boy flirted with her, she gotto see a lecture and college

(05:16):
students interacting in thatlecture.
Oh boy, that's all you tookfrom that.
But really I was just excitedto give her that experience,
give her another option than thevery few that kids in that
county are exposed to.
And I found out after I leftthat she actually did go to
college.
So I took that as a small winfor the impact I had.

Brittany (05:39):
That's super awesome, especially being able to show
someone that there's a differentpath or option, so they're not
a product of their environment.
And that's super sweet that youwere able to get an update
afterwards too.

Meghan (05:51):
Yeah, a few laws may have been broken on that one but
mom's the word.

Brittany (05:54):
I didn't hear anything .
How's Dylan?
What impact do you feel thatyou made there?

Meghan (06:00):
Man he was my little bestie, so he was standoffish at
first and I really just tookthe approach of letting the kids
lead the relationship and whatthey wanted it to look like.
They needed to be in thedriver's seat.
I was there, I was available,but I wasn't forcing a certain
look of what it needed to be, Ithink that's smart.

Brittany (06:18):
I mean you see all the time with babies and little
kids, adults pushing for hugsand the kids like shying away,
especially if you're the thirdparent coming into the picture.
I can't imagine how difficultthat is.

Meghan (06:31):
Exactly so.
For the first Christmas I wasthere.
We flew to Tahoe.
It was their first time on aplane, certainly their first
time this far away from home.
I think they had only been tothe States touching Alabama at
that point, which is like four,and we all went skiing.
Dylan was in the lessons firsthalf of the day, but he had a
natural ability and so I tookhim on the mountain the last

(06:53):
half of the day and I think thiswas his first experience seeing
a woman in an athletic way.
After that he would not leavemy side.
It was Meghan this, Meghan that.

Brittany (07:03):
He watched you tumble down the Black Diamond Runs.
I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
I bet that felt good from goingfrom standoffish to besties.

Meghan (07:14):
Tumbling, which may be why he was impressed, and I
sucked it up until he turned 13.
We were still really close, butof course, the relationship
changed when he became ateenager.
I just had to grow with it.

Brittany (07:25):
So let's get into the hard part, as if having
teenagers isn't hard enough.
You had to say goodbye to thesekids you'd been raising for
five years.
Step kids added majorcomplications to you being able
to heal and move on, because itwasn't just one person you had
to.

Meghan (07:42):
You know, I look back at the process and it is an
amazing process.
As I sit here doing thispodcast now, thinking about how
I've healed, how I've grown andhow I was able to find closure,
it's amazing to think aboutthose first six months that I
left.
Anytime someone asked me if Ihad kids when I was meeting new
people, it was gut-wrenching tosay no.

(08:04):
Several times I had to excusemyself and go to the bathroom
after that question just torecover in private.

Brittany (08:10):
Private pain is why we're doing this episode.
But, yeah, bring the lightsomething that isn't talked
about much recovering fromlosing step kids.
I know from just my own circleof friends.
You're not the only one that'sexperienced this.

Meghan (08:24):
You know I've never been pregnant, but I wonder if
having a miscarriage issomething of a similar feeling I
used to play in my head.
Do I say, yeah, I used to havetwo kids but I lost them?
I never did.
These are just my real rawthoughts.
I'm being quite vulnerable here.
I certainly don't want tocompare people's experiences
that aren't my own and offendanyone.

Brittany (08:45):
I know it's so weird, right, like how do you respond
to a complete stranger askingyou that question without you
know being like, well, how muchtime do you have?
And then divulge your wholelife story and scare them away.
But thanks for being vulnerableand remember, no offense will
be taken here.
So tell us, after this wholething happened, how did you heal
from that?

Meghan (09:07):
Well, it was a long process.
It took over a year for me tonot drive by their house just to
check on them.
Mind you, I wasn't seeing them,just the house, but that gave
me a little bit of comfort.
I think why I really wanted todo this episode is because it's
not talked about.
I went to some pretty intensivetherapy to get over the person
that caused this, but thereisn't a book or information

(09:28):
about healing from losingstepkids.
Well, heck, maybe there is, butI was not brave enough to do
that internet search.

Brittany (09:35):
Well, and I remember you at the time.
You had a lot to heal from, soI can imagine that was probably
on your back burner.
I mean, you lost a partner, twokids moved across the country,
bought a house.
I mean, that's just a fewthings going on.
Did I miss anything?

Meghan (09:49):
Well, thanks for being fair.
I certainly can appreciate that, but from a healing perspective
, all of the normal things oftime and support system are
necessary.
There was also some correlationbetween healing from the
partner that got me there withthe kids.
But I would also say I havebuilt future plans.
I know why I went through allof it and, as hard as it is to
say, it was worth it to get meto what I have now.

Brittany (10:13):
So cliche.
But time heals all so cliche,oh, but so oh, do we get details
about the now?

Meghan (10:21):
No ma'am To be announced later.

Brittany (10:23):
Love a good mystery.
Um, okay, so afterwards wasthere any contact with the kids?

Meghan (10:29):
after you left.
Well, they did reach out abouttwo years after the situation,
just saying hi, and that theywere reminiscing and had such
good memories Both atear-jerking moment and warming
of the heart.
And then one of them contactedme for advice on a job.
So that was really cool.

Brittany (10:43):
That's super sweet.
I love that and I'm sure youdefinitely made you feel more
validated.

Meghan (10:47):
I also helped with the healing process, knowing that I
had made the impact I set out tomake.

Brittany (10:53):
Well, thanks for sharing the story.
I think it was reallyinsightful, especially from your
experience.
I think maybe it's time for usto have a drink.

Meghan (11:02):
Yes, drink please.

Brittany (11:04):
All right, If this episode resonated with you,
check out our poll on socialmedia so we can post the results
to see how many other womenhave gone through something
similar.