During and after divorce/separation, parents find that they fit into one of three types of parenting arrangements: relatively friendly co-parenting, conflicted yet fairly respectful co-parenting, and parallel parenting. These arrangements can shift as parents recover from the restructuring of their family, grieve the separation and move on into their new lives, let go of old feelings left from the relationship and learn to deal with one another in new ways.

It is common for people who are accomplished in many areas of their lives to state they have never felt as challenged or frustrated as when attempting to build a stepfamily. There are many reasons for this phenomenon, not the least of which is stepfamilies tend to be difficult to build.