Stepparents can play a major role in a child’s life and often like to formalize the relationship through legal adoption. In situations where a child’s mother and father are both living but no longer married, it is possible that the new spouse of one of the parents could adopt the child.
However, this can be a complex process because the other parent must give up their parental rights to the child or have their rights terminated. After the complete termination of the other party’s parental rights, the stepparent could move forward with the adoption.