Eckler - Blissfully blended bullshit: the uncomfortable truth of blending families

Praise for Blissfully Blended Bullshit

Rebecca Ecklers direct and honest approach to storytelling makes for a refreshing and often hilarious read. Eckler has an undeniable talent for weaving in touching stories of relationships, motherhood, and the reality of blended families that gives her writing real humanity.

Heather Dixon, editor-in-chief of SavvyMom

A touching and telling modern love story between husband and wife and mother and daughter and the balance of all the relationships in between. Eckler weaves her story of vulnerability and painful truths to reveal the unfiltered reality of blending families. With her raw sense of honesty and self-awareness, Rebecca Eckler provides an invaluable human approach. This is a valuable and eye-opening read for anyone contemplating a life of blended and splendid.

Daniella English, founder of The Not So Single Life

Inspiring, touching, and raw. What a great read by Rebecca! Once again she continues to help all those going through inventional blending.

Marni Sky, co-founder of Divorce Angels

Another totally entertaining and relatable read by Rebecca Eckler. As a blended family survivor, I had a visceral reaction to so many of the anecdotes. It is real and it is uncomfortable. This book is a must read for anyone considering (or living through) blending worlds.

Joanna Track, founder and executive publisher of Bullet

Copyright Rececca Eckler, 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Cover image: stock.com/Robert Daly
Printer: Webcom, a division of Marquis Printing Inc.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Blissfully blended bullshit : the uncomfortable truth of blending families / Rebecca Eckler.
Names: Eckler, Rebecca, author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190054476 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190054484 | ISBN 9781459743939 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459743946 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459743953 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Eckler, Rebecca. | LCSH: Eckler, RebeccaFamily. | LCSH: StepmothersBiography. | LCSH: Stepfamilies. | LCGFT: Autobiographies.
Classification: LCC HQ759.92 .E25 2019 | DDC 306.874/7dc23

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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country, and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. Lan dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de lart dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

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For everyone out there reinventing what family means, whether its the one you start out with, the one you end up with, or the family you gained along the way.

Come home! Your kids and my kids are picking on our kid!

Where the fuck is my confetti? Where is my celebratory dinner? Oh, right. Ive forgotten about the less-than-thrilled response I received from some members of my blended family when I told them Id signed a book deal. I suppose breaking the news that it was about them might have had something to do with that. They didnt seem overjoyed that I was going to write about the cold, hard, uncomfortable truth of what really happens behind the closed doors of blended families. Welcome to my life. Even before I sat at my computer to compose my thoughts on what this book would look like, certain members of my blended family already had their backs up, wondering what the hell I would be writing about and, of course, how they would be perceived. Its not that they werent happy that Id got a book deal. They just werent exactly enamoured with what they thought, or assumed, I was going to share. They were anxious. And, honestly, they should be.

I was gently advised by my partner to be cautious when writing about all of us all of us being myself, my partner and his two biological children, the son we have together, and my daughter from my first common-law marriage. One big happyish family! I felt like a child being told to think before I speak. I gently reminded him that Im a grown woman. So, no, there was no dinner, no champagne toast, not even dying roses from a gas station in my honour when I got the go-ahead to tell my story about what its like to be in a blended family.

Its a story worth telling. Holy shit, have my experiences opened my eyes, not just to the gargantuan reality of adjusting to life in a blended family, but also because of what Ive learned about myself and relationships while blending. You kind of get a crash course in reality when trying to manage all the bullshit that comes along with this rapidly growing family dynamic.

Sometimes what happens in a blended family really is stranger than fiction. The fights and slights can be so ridiculous, Im not sure anyone would actually believe me. Which is why Ive never truly shared, nor have I found any book out there that can commiserate with me about what a shit show it is to be in a blended family.

This is not a memoir about being a step-parent or having stepchildren or the step-parentstepchild relationship. Not that I dont touch on it. But this is more my account of how blending families affects everyone, including people youd never consider, like our exes, or our ex-in-laws, our new in-laws, and even the dog.

The truth about blending families can be fucking harsh. Those who havent gone through it and are dating others with children, are thinking about blending, are embarking on blending, or are just curious about what its like to blend families probably just figure its an adjustment? Perhaps a process to learn, a path to travel, a mountain to climb, a field to plant, a knot to unravel, a Coen brothers movie to fully understand. In other words, a difficult but seemingly surmountable challenge.