Rating: 
Summary: Excellent resource for stepcouples
Review: I read this book in 48 hours and now use it to refer to whenever a crisis hits our stepcoupling relationship. Susan Wisdom dares to tell the straight facts about being a stepcouple while affirming that you can feel all the difficulties and still be considered normal. My children are all grown and at 50 I never expected to raise small children again but here I am in a love relationship that includes five year old twins and I need help. This book clarified the feelings that are associated with forming a stepcouple and allowed me to understand how it all takes time. An excellent book that I highly reccomend!
Rating:
Summary: Hopeful, yet realistic!
Review: If you want Dr.Phil, feel-good sound bites, look elsewhere. But if you are serious about wanting to have a successful step-family, this book offers both a realistic and hopeful guide for creating a strong step couple relationship. The core premise bucks the trend of all those step-parenting manuals by persuasively arguing that the step COUPLE is the real key to creating a step family that works. The chapters are peppered with anecdotes from real step-couples, and Wisdom's combination of clinical expertise and first-hand experience comes through - a hopeful, yet honest and realistic guide to surviving and even thriving amidst the challenges of the step family.
Rating:
Summary: Practical Advice for Building a Blended Family Marriage
Review: In "Stepcoupling: Creating and Sustaining a Strong Marriage in Today's Blended Family," Susan Wisdom and Jennifer Green focus on strengthening the bond between spouses after the newlywed reverie has worn off and they wake up after the honeymoon to find themselves in a stepfamily. They encourage newly-married couples to focus on their relationship and carve out couple time. They also urge couples to draw boundaries and find one-on-one time to spend with the kids. Real stepfamily situations are considered and discussed by the authors and provide practical advice to thorny situations. Unlike a lot of self-help books, the authors realize that one standard answer doesn't always work in every situation and they recommend a variety of options for some situations. Questions guide the reader to ponder his/her own situation but without forcing you to stop turning pages for too long.
Rating:
Summary: Practical Advice for Building a Blended Family Marriage
Review: In "Stepcoupling: Creating and Sustaining a Strong Marriage in Today's Blended Family," Susan Wisdom and Jennifer Green focus on strengthening the bond between spouses after the newlywed reverie has worn off and they wake up after the honeymoon to find themselves in a stepfamily. They encourage newly-married couples to focus on their relationship and carve out couple time. They also urge couples to draw boundaries and find one-on-one time to spend with the kids. Real stepfamily situations are considered and discussed by the authors and provide practical advice to thorny situations. Unlike a lot of self-help books, the authors realize that one standard answer doesn't always work in every situation and they recommend a variety of options for some situations. Questions guide the reader to ponder his/her own situation but without forcing you to stop turning pages for too long.
Rating: 
Summary: A comfort and a help..
Review: In this straightforward book, the authors coin the term stepcoupling to mean the "ongoing process of forming and maintaining a marriage when children are involved." We all know that we have to pay attention to our marriages to sustain our stepfamilies, and the authors tell us that our success "hinges on the willingness and ability of the partners to grapple with personal and family issues." Then they offer help.
The entire book discusses various personal and family issues that can threaten a stepfamily marriage. Instead of a lot of hard to understand theory, you'll find accessible advice that hits home with so many common problems. Gray boxes throughout provide questions for yourself and for discussions to have with your spouse. Autonomous questions pepper the text, and the authors follow them with practical solutions. Real stepparents, too, contribute their stories and feelings. You'll probably see yourself in several places in these comforting pages.The book discusses a stepparent's expections of herself and her family. And in the very helpful section on boundaries, the authors discuss not only physical boundaries but also boundaries on relationships, including the need to sever the ties with former spouses and how to expand your boundaries to include your stepchildren. The section on "family acrobatics" tackles the issue of finding everyone's place in the family. You'll also learn how to strike a balance when your styles and values on parenting, money or anything else differ from your spouse's. The final chapter is one stepcouple's story in their words, how they've survived twenty-nine years to become the close family they are. You'll find encouragement, advice and compassion in this book that truly understands stepfamilies.
Rating:
Summary: Finally an honest and refreshing approach
Review: Susan Wisdom, with the help of Jennifer Green, nail the truth on the head of this most confusing and potentially conflicting family dynamic around! Clear, concise and I get it. Everything I've been through and thought "I must be crazy" is laid out in understandable language--and finally puts the ownness where it belongs--on the couple. Good tips on how to keep the marriage intact and create intimacy. Coining the term stepcoupling Wisdom shows that the couple imperative is essential for the family to remain together through thick and thin. Thank You. From, Diane Dennis-Crosland Family Columnist for the Portland Tribune and Radio Show Host of Family Survival on KPAM 860AM Portland, Oregon.
Rating:
Summary: An Important Reminder About A Stepfamily's Balancing Act
Review: The authors identify the many issues that stand in the way of a couple's happiness in blended families--intrusive ex-spouses, difficult stepchildren, a parent's close relationship to his or her biological children, to name just a few. Wisdom and Green constantly encourage readers to nurture the "stepcouple" relationship in the face of these challenges, and provide practical advice about how to do it. The tone is authoritative and hopeful, and the book includes interesting anecdotes from anonymous stepfamily members. "Stepcoupling" is a very useful and well-organized book that will help stepparents and their spouses grapple with many stepfamily challenges. As a parent in a family with "his," "hers" and "ours" kids, I personally found the book both inspiring and overwhelming. It's an important reminder about how hard we must all work in blended families to balance everyone's interests and needs.
Rating:
Summary: Thorough, Nonblaming, Affirming and Constructive
Review: This book is a soothing and practical guide for those of us in stepcouples, yet it faces head on some of the more difficult challenges faced by stepcouples, in a caring and constructive way. I would love to have had this book when we first started out more than 10 years ago! I can't think of any situation covered in this book that we haven't experienced at some point or in some form or another in our remarriage. It is a comfort to see that a lot of what we learned the hard way is right there in "Stepcoupling." I would recommend it very highly to anyone in a remarriage, contemplating remarriage or supporting remarried couples. Maybe even older stepchildren and children born into blended families should read this for some insights as to what their parents and stepparents are struggling with. Marriage takes effort no matter what, but stepcouples face so many surprising issues that usually have no pat answers. This book is a tremendous help to anyone navigating "step" territory.
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