About Stepfamily Network
Built out of the years nobody warned us about.
Steve & Charlee Roberts, founders
Who we are
“We started this because we lived it. A marriage that almost didn’t make it out of year two. Then we figured out the patterns and built our way back. Now we make what we wish we’d had.”
- 5kids between us
- 2ex-spouses still in the picture
- 1marriage that made it
Why we made the Conflict Map
Stepfamily Network exists because almost every blended couple we know, including us, hit the same wall in the first two years and had no idea what they were looking at. We thought love would be enough. We thought time would smooth it out. Then month 14 happened, and we were one fight from the wheels coming off.
What pulled us out wasn’t another book. It was the slow, hard-won discovery that the problems we were having weren’t unique. They were predictable patterns researchers had been mapping for decades. The loyalty bind. The insider-outsider seat. The discipline trap. The ex-spouse triangle. All of it had names. All of it had research. Almost none of it had ever been handed to us.
So we built the resource we wish we’d had. Stepfamily Network turns that research (Patricia Papernow, Ron Deal, Karen Bonnell, Henry Cloud, the Parrotts) into something a couple can actually use on a Tuesday at 9pm when a stepkid won’t come out of their room. Real tools. Real scripts. Real timelines.
We’re not done building. Start with the free Conflict Map: it shows where your stepfamily stands today and the first stretch to work on.