A substantial number of adults at one time or another become stepparents, or enter into second (or subsequent) marriages with support obligations from their own previous failed marriage(s).

A stepparent has not legal obligation to support a spouse’s children.

When a subsequent marriage goes on the rocks, courts disagree whether it is appropriate, in the equitable support may not be considered in the equitable distribution of property.

In a similar way, courts are about the use of marital funds to pay assets, these expenditures can be considered, as Virginia court ruled, "a negative monetary contribution" bearing on the distribution of marital assets from the subsequent marriage.

See also Stepparent(ing).