Are blended families healthy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good blended family is not as good as a good intact family

I wouldn't put it this way. What I'd say is the odds of having a stable, connected family unit are higher with an intact family.

Another thing I've seen happen is that kids of divorce sometimes really suck it up and power through the divorce. They seem fine and everyone is really impressed by how well they are "handling" the divorce. But when the dust settles, they start to have issues -- or really, their issues with the divorce (and the often negative family life that precipitated the divorce) start to emerge. But if you've already met and married someone new when this happens, you are really making it maximally hard on the kids who are trying to be strong for you.

100% this.

There's so much social pressure to seem fine and say you're fine and pretend to be fine, otherwise you're a weakling with emotional problems. God forbid anyone's less than 100% "resilient" after the first few months. But the truth is, divorce and stepfamily is a PITA forever and people resent it.

Yes to this. Also, depending on the age of kids when the divorce happens, they may simply not realize they are allowed to have feelings about it, that they are allowed to be mad at their parents or unhappy with their living situation. Kids who are 4, 5, 6, 7 are just so used to doing what adults tell them to do and dealing with it. And especially those early elementary kids are often getting daily messages about needing to suck it up and deal with their relatively powerless position. "You get what you get and you don't get upset." Kids are pressured to stop crying when they are sad or disappointed, by both peers and authority figures. The overwhelming message is that if you want to be a "big kid" you should have fewer emotions, or at least learn not to express them.

I think teens actually deal with divorce better than kids this age because assuming they're developing some emotional separation from parents and gaining independence on a developmentally appropriate level, a teen is much more likely to feel like they can just tell you "this sucks, and I'm mad at you for making it this way." That might sound worse from the parents' perspective but it's actually way healthier, because if your kid is going to have to deal with divorce, they should be allowed to feel all the feels about it and express their opinion. A 16 yr old is much more likely to be able to do this than a 6 year old, and thus probably a bit less likely to be traumatized by the divorce. Or at least better able to deal with the trauma of the divorce.

So many people deal with really upsetting events in their families at young ages but are told "you're okay" and just feel intense pressure to pretend that's true. These are the people who wind up in therapy at 25 and 35 and 45, struggling with people pleasing and feeling like they don't really know themselves, because they've been trained from a young age to betray themselves on behalf of other people.

This is me. The “we’re ok!” Kool-aid was poured down our throat and we really weren’t given any other options. Cue me having kids and when they reached the age I was when my Dad left for his AP I was like wtaf. Who just walks away from a kid at this age? I’m pretty furious with my Dad in mid-life now, and he’s like “the past is the past!”. Ugh.

Totally. My parents think it's in the past and they have gone on their merry way with their new partners. But I'm still coordinating every holiday schedule and schlepping my kids from house to house in the present. It's not in the past for me.

Who is forcing you to do that? You're grown. It's a choice you're making.

This is the kind of thing people say when they're defensive about how their divorce burdens others. The fact that I even have to make this choice at all is a burden regardless of what I choose.

I do it because I feel a moral obligation to my children that they spend time with their grandmother and their grandfather both. The best interests of children, imagine that.

So it's a choice you're making. No one is forcing you to do that. Stop playing the perpetual victim.

PS We all put the best interests of our children first. You're not special.

No, they don’t. The best interests of the children would have been to have a strong marriage, not run off with an AP instead of being a present dad. To give only one example from this thread.

Anyway, no one has really talked about the long term impacts at end of life. I deal with this all the time at work. Blended families almost always have resentments about end of life issues/inheritances/etc and very often end up in court over it. It’s a nightmare even if it does pay my bills.

I’ve seen enough that I would deal with a LOT from a spouse before putting my kids through a divorce. An intact family can end up with issues too of course, but the blended family issues occur more often than not, where intact families it’s a small minority that implode.

I LOVE how every sanctimonious post, such as yours, automatically assumes that we ALSO didn't put up with a lot before deciding to divorce. You just assume that we (and your parents) just woke up on the wrong side of the bed one day and decided to screw up everyone's life. You assume that we are all selfish and don't put our kids first or that we didn't fight hard enough for our own marriages. Somehow, despite your parents' divorce, you managed to still think you're the main character and that everyone was done to you. In reality, your life is a lot more fragile than you think and can fall apart in an instant despite your best attempts to make it work. Humble yourself or life might.

Read the post. My perspective has nothing to do with my own family, it is about the thousands of families I have assisted with end of life issues.

I am not sanctimonious at all, I help people in terrible situations all the time with care and compassion. You are the one telling them to stop playing the victim because they are grown! That is harsh.

It’s probably because you have unresolved issues from a lifetime of dysfunctional relationships. I am sorry you have gone through that. It’s hard to build a strong marriage when you didn’t have good examples of that in your life growing up. Marriage is hard enough to begin with.

[Anonymous]

"Anonymous wrote:


It does help if they are amicable, but you can't amicable your way out of the logistics. It's a fantasy of divorced people that "amicable" makes it all okay. Things like:

I can't spend a lot of time with both my parents simultaneously, because they don't live near each other. So in order to get a decent amount of time with them, it takes me twice as much of my annual leave plus a travel day to get from one to the other. But I don't get extra annual leave just because my parents are divorced. I can't tell my boss "Oh, but they're so amicable" and get extra days off. So my parents each get less grandchild time. My mom didn't think about this when divorcing but she's unhappy about it now.

There's not enough room at my mom's house for us to visit and her partner's kids to visit at the same time. Not enough beds and also very crowded in the daytime now that there are grandkids. So we have to coordinate schedules. We also have to coordinate our schedule with my dad and his new wife. And her partner's kids have their mom too. So any sort of decision about who's visiting at what time, or when the grandparents travel to see anyone, has to go through multiple households for approval. This isn't the end of the world, but it's a level of hassle I wish I didn't have to go through. I wish things were simple.

At one point my dad's wife's son was doing a failure to launch thing, living with them and secretly drinking. My dad was super unhappy about it, he and his wife and her son had all these yelling fights, he fought with his wife and blamed her parenting, etc. etc. You couldn't be in that house at all without this tension hanging over everything and the kid moping around hung over. It went on for about two years. It was very hard for me to see my dad so unhappy. No amount of "amicable" from my mom would have changed anything. Yes, intact families can have this kind of problem too, but blending families adds more people and gives them more stress to cope with, so it increases the chance of problems. More people, more problems. If it were a bio brother, I would probably have had a more loving relationship and been more patient with it, but since we didn't grow up together at all, he felt like an interloper and a burden and I just wished the whole thing wasn't happening.

Eventually I'll need to find two assisted livings instead of one, and it'll be harder because all of that will have to be coordinated with my sibling and stepsiblings if both are alive and we're trying to keep them together. I'll need to sell two homes instead of just one, again coordinating with sibling and stepsiblings. It's very difficult to make these big decisions with a big group of people who have different cultures and financial circumstances. No matter how amicable my mom is to my dad and vice versa, that doesn't change the complexity here. There's no Amicable Divorce Retirement Home where they hand you two units for the price of one because they're just oh so very amicable.

The worst part is that my mom's partner hasn't made good choices (nor have his adult children) so he can't retire, not ever. So my mom subsidizes him and will have to pick up the tab entirely whenever he becomes unable to work. Leaving me wondering if my mom will run out of money for herself and how that will impact myself and my sibling. This is not at all an inheritance battle-- there isn't going to be an inheritance. It's just me not wanting to have to effectively subsidize my mom's partner and his lifetime of dumb decisions. My mom refuses to discuss this with me and my sibling at all. They have remained unmarried so that he can qualify for Medicaid and food stamps etc. I don't want my mom to be single but I wish she had chosen someone who doesn't bring these problems with him. No matter how "amicable" my dad is, my mom's partner is still a broke, mooching loser. See what I mean? Amicable doesn't fix it.

These examples will no doubt cause people to tell me I need therapy. Because people don't want to face up to what divorce can mean in the long term. I think it's very, very important to be financially and mentally prepared for the difficulties to come. Divorce and "blending" can be very hard in the last years of a person's life."


THIS THIS THIS!!!!!! Thank you, PP, for writing all of this down in one succinct message. It really encapsulates what kids of divorce have to deal with. I'm divorced, but neither I nor my ex-husband are children of divorce. I did everything possible to make him see what the consequences of divorce would be, to no avail. I hate witnessing my kids dealing with the burden that's resulted from their dad's weakness and apathy. I am one of those people who divorced an entirely different person than I married. So, don't blame me for choosing poorly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good blended family is not as good as a good intact family

I wouldn't put it this way. What I'd say is the odds of having a stable, connected family unit are higher with an intact family.

Another thing I've seen happen is that kids of divorce sometimes really suck it up and power through the divorce. They seem fine and everyone is really impressed by how well they are "handling" the divorce. But when the dust settles, they start to have issues -- or really, their issues with the divorce (and the often negative family life that precipitated the divorce) start to emerge. But if you've already met and married someone new when this happens, you are really making it maximally hard on the kids who are trying to be strong for you.

100% this.

There's so much social pressure to seem fine and say you're fine and pretend to be fine, otherwise you're a weakling with emotional problems. God forbid anyone's less than 100% "resilient" after the first few months. But the truth is, divorce and stepfamily is a PITA forever and people resent it.

Yes to this. Also, depending on the age of kids when the divorce happens, they may simply not realize they are allowed to have feelings about it, that they are allowed to be mad at their parents or unhappy with their living situation. Kids who are 4, 5, 6, 7 are just so used to doing what adults tell them to do and dealing with it. And especially those early elementary kids are often getting daily messages about needing to suck it up and deal with their relatively powerless position. "You get what you get and you don't get upset." Kids are pressured to stop crying when they are sad or disappointed, by both peers and authority figures. The overwhelming message is that if you want to be a "big kid" you should have fewer emotions, or at least learn not to express them.

I think teens actually deal with divorce better than kids this age because assuming they're developing some emotional separation from parents and gaining independence on a developmentally appropriate level, a teen is much more likely to feel like they can just tell you "this sucks, and I'm mad at you for making it this way." That might sound worse from the parents' perspective but it's actually way healthier, because if your kid is going to have to deal with divorce, they should be allowed to feel all the feels about it and express their opinion. A 16 yr old is much more likely to be able to do this than a 6 year old, and thus probably a bit less likely to be traumatized by the divorce. Or at least better able to deal with the trauma of the divorce.

So many people deal with really upsetting events in their families at young ages but are told "you're okay" and just feel intense pressure to pretend that's true. These are the people who wind up in therapy at 25 and 35 and 45, struggling with people pleasing and feeling like they don't really know themselves, because they've been trained from a young age to betray themselves on behalf of other people.

This is me. The “we’re ok!” Kool-aid was poured down our throat and we really weren’t given any other options. Cue me having kids and when they reached the age I was when my Dad left for his AP I was like wtaf. Who just walks away from a kid at this age? I’m pretty furious with my Dad in mid-life now, and he’s like “the past is the past!”. Ugh.

Totally. My parents think it's in the past and they have gone on their merry way with their new partners. But I'm still coordinating every holiday schedule and schlepping my kids from house to house in the present. It's not in the past for me.

Who is forcing you to do that? You're grown. It's a choice you're making.

This is the kind of thing people say when they're defensive about how their divorce burdens others. The fact that I even have to make this choice at all is a burden regardless of what I choose.

I do it because I feel a moral obligation to my children that they spend time with their grandmother and their grandfather both. The best interests of children, imagine that.

So it's a choice you're making. No one is forcing you to do that. Stop playing the perpetual victim.

PS We all put the best interests of our children first. You're not special.

No, they don’t. The best interests of the children would have been to have a strong marriage, not run off with an AP instead of being a present dad. To give only one example from this thread.

Anyway, no one has really talked about the long term impacts at end of life. I deal with this all the time at work. Blended families almost always have resentments about end of life issues/inheritances/etc and very often end up in court over it. It’s a nightmare even if it does pay my bills.

I’ve seen enough that I would deal with a LOT from a spouse before putting my kids through a divorce. An intact family can end up with issues too of course, but the blended family issues occur more often than not, where intact families it’s a small minority that implode.

I LOVE how every sanctimonious post, such as yours, automatically assumes that we ALSO didn't put up with a lot before deciding to divorce. You just assume that we (and your parents) just woke up on the wrong side of the bed one day and decided to screw up everyone's life. You assume that we are all selfish and don't put our kids first or that we didn't fight hard enough for our own marriages. Somehow, despite your parents' divorce, you managed to still think you're the main character and that everyone was done to you. In reality, your life is a lot more fragile than you think and can fall apart in an instant despite your best attempts to make it work. Humble yourself or life might.

Read the post. My perspective has nothing to do with my own family, it is about the thousands of families I have assisted with end of life issues.

I am not sanctimonious at all, I help people in terrible situations all the time with care and compassion. You are the one telling them to stop playing the victim because they are grown! That is harsh.

It’s probably because you have unresolved issues from a lifetime of dysfunctional relationships. I am sorry you have gone through that. It’s hard to build a strong marriage when you didn’t have good examples of that in your life growing up. Marriage is hard enough to begin with.

If this is how you "compassionately" help others at the end of life, I'd look for a different career if I were you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good blended family is not as good as a good intact family

I wouldn't put it this way. What I'd say is the odds of having a stable, connected family unit are higher with an intact family.

Another thing I've seen happen is that kids of divorce sometimes really suck it up and power through the divorce. They seem fine and everyone is really impressed by how well they are "handling" the divorce. But when the dust settles, they start to have issues -- or really, their issues with the divorce (and the often negative family life that precipitated the divorce) start to emerge. But if you've already met and married someone new when this happens, you are really making it maximally hard on the kids who are trying to be strong for you.

100% this.

There's so much social pressure to seem fine and say you're fine and pretend to be fine, otherwise you're a weakling with emotional problems. God forbid anyone's less than 100% "resilient" after the first few months. But the truth is, divorce and stepfamily is a PITA forever and people resent it.

Yes to this. Also, depending on the age of kids when the divorce happens, they may simply not realize they are allowed to have feelings about it, that they are allowed to be mad at their parents or unhappy with their living situation. Kids who are 4, 5, 6, 7 are just so used to doing what adults tell them to do and dealing with it. And especially those early elementary kids are often getting daily messages about needing to suck it up and deal with their relatively powerless position. "You get what you get and you don't get upset." Kids are pressured to stop crying when they are sad or disappointed, by both peers and authority figures. The overwhelming message is that if you want to be a "big kid" you should have fewer emotions, or at least learn not to express them.

I think teens actually deal with divorce better than kids this age because assuming they're developing some emotional separation from parents and gaining independence on a developmentally appropriate level, a teen is much more likely to feel like they can just tell you "this sucks, and I'm mad at you for making it this way." That might sound worse from the parents' perspective but it's actually way healthier, because if your kid is going to have to deal with divorce, they should be allowed to feel all the feels about it and express their opinion. A 16 yr old is much more likely to be able to do this than a 6 year old, and thus probably a bit less likely to be traumatized by the divorce. Or at least better able to deal with the trauma of the divorce.

So many people deal with really upsetting events in their families at young ages but are told "you're okay" and just feel intense pressure to pretend that's true. These are the people who wind up in therapy at 25 and 35 and 45, struggling with people pleasing and feeling like they don't really know themselves, because they've been trained from a young age to betray themselves on behalf of other people.

This is me. The “we’re ok!” Kool-aid was poured down our throat and we really weren’t given any other options. Cue me having kids and when they reached the age I was when my Dad left for his AP I was like wtaf. Who just walks away from a kid at this age? I’m pretty furious with my Dad in mid-life now, and he’s like “the past is the past!”. Ugh.

Totally. My parents think it's in the past and they have gone on their merry way with their new partners. But I'm still coordinating every holiday schedule and schlepping my kids from house to house in the present. It's not in the past for me.

Who is forcing you to do that? You're grown. It's a choice you're making.

This is the kind of thing people say when they're defensive about how their divorce burdens others. The fact that I even have to make this choice at all is a burden regardless of what I choose.

I do it because I feel a moral obligation to my children that they spend time with their grandmother and their grandfather both. The best interests of children, imagine that.

So it's a choice you're making. No one is forcing you to do that. Stop playing the perpetual victim.

PS We all put the best interests of our children first. You're not special.

No, they don’t. The best interests of the children would have been to have a strong marriage, not run off with an AP instead of being a present dad. To give only one example from this thread.

Anyway, no one has really talked about the long term impacts at end of life. I deal with this all the time at work. Blended families almost always have resentments about end of life issues/inheritances/etc and very often end up in court over it. It’s a nightmare even if it does pay my bills.

I’ve seen enough that I would deal with a LOT from a spouse before putting my kids through a divorce. An intact family can end up with issues too of course, but the blended family issues occur more often than not, where intact families it’s a small minority that implode.

Is there an issue if they mostly keep their money separate? Like, if my widowed mom remarries, her new stepkids wouldn't have a claim against her separate estate? The only thing they would blend if they remarry is buying a house together, which is fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good blended family is not as good as a good intact family

I wouldn't put it this way. What I'd say is the odds of having a stable, connected family unit are higher with an intact family.

Another thing I've seen happen is that kids of divorce sometimes really suck it up and power through the divorce. They seem fine and everyone is really impressed by how well they are "handling" the divorce. But when the dust settles, they start to have issues -- or really, their issues with the divorce (and the often negative family life that precipitated the divorce) start to emerge. But if you've already met and married someone new when this happens, you are really making it maximally hard on the kids who are trying to be strong for you.

100% this.

There's so much social pressure to seem fine and say you're fine and pretend to be fine, otherwise you're a weakling with emotional problems. God forbid anyone's less than 100% "resilient" after the first few months. But the truth is, divorce and stepfamily is a PITA forever and people resent it.

Yes to this. Also, depending on the age of kids when the divorce happens, they may simply not realize they are allowed to have feelings about it, that they are allowed to be mad at their parents or unhappy with their living situation. Kids who are 4, 5, 6, 7 are just so used to doing what adults tell them to do and dealing with it. And especially those early elementary kids are often getting daily messages about needing to suck it up and deal with their relatively powerless position. "You get what you get and you don't get upset." Kids are pressured to stop crying when they are sad or disappointed, by both peers and authority figures. The overwhelming message is that if you want to be a "big kid" you should have fewer emotions, or at least learn not to express them.

I think teens actually deal with divorce better than kids this age because assuming they're developing some emotional separation from parents and gaining independence on a developmentally appropriate level, a teen is much more likely to feel like they can just tell you "this sucks, and I'm mad at you for making it this way." That might sound worse from the parents' perspective but it's actually way healthier, because if your kid is going to have to deal with divorce, they should be allowed to feel all the feels about it and express their opinion. A 16 yr old is much more likely to be able to do this than a 6 year old, and thus probably a bit less likely to be traumatized by the divorce. Or at least better able to deal with the trauma of the divorce.

So many people deal with really upsetting events in their families at young ages but are told "you're okay" and just feel intense pressure to pretend that's true. These are the people who wind up in therapy at 25 and 35 and 45, struggling with people pleasing and feeling like they don't really know themselves, because they've been trained from a young age to betray themselves on behalf of other people.

This is me. The “we’re ok!” Kool-aid was poured down our throat and we really weren’t given any other options. Cue me having kids and when they reached the age I was when my Dad left for his AP I was like wtaf. Who just walks away from a kid at this age? I’m pretty furious with my Dad in mid-life now, and he’s like “the past is the past!”. Ugh.

Totally. My parents think it's in the past and they have gone on their merry way with their new partners. But I'm still coordinating every holiday schedule and schlepping my kids from house to house in the present. It's not in the past for me.

Who is forcing you to do that? You're grown. It's a choice you're making.

This is the kind of thing people say when they're defensive about how their divorce burdens others. The fact that I even have to make this choice at all is a burden regardless of what I choose.

I do it because I feel a moral obligation to my children that they spend time with their grandmother and their grandfather both. The best interests of children, imagine that.

So it's a choice you're making. No one is forcing you to do that. Stop playing the perpetual victim.

PS We all put the best interests of our children first. You're not special.

No, they don’t. The best interests of the children would have been to have a strong marriage, not run off with an AP instead of being a present dad. To give only one example from this thread.

Anyway, no one has really talked about the long term impacts at end of life. I deal with this all the time at work. Blended families almost always have resentments about end of life issues/inheritances/etc and very often end up in court over it. It’s a nightmare even if it does pay my bills.

I’ve seen enough that I would deal with a LOT from a spouse before putting my kids through a divorce. An intact family can end up with issues too of course, but the blended family issues occur more often than not, where intact families it’s a small minority that implode.

I LOVE how every sanctimonious post, such as yours, automatically assumes that we ALSO didn't put up with a lot before deciding to divorce. You just assume that we (and your parents) just woke up on the wrong side of the bed one day and decided to screw up everyone's life. You assume that we are all selfish and don't put our kids first or that we didn't fight hard enough for our own marriages. Somehow, despite your parents' divorce, you managed to still think you're the main character and that everyone was done to you. In reality, your life is a lot more fragile than you think and can fall apart in an instant despite your best attempts to make it work. Humble yourself or life might.

Read the post. My perspective has nothing to do with my own family, it is about the thousands of families I have assisted with end of life issues.

I am not sanctimonious at all, I help people in terrible situations all the time with care and compassion. You are the one telling them to stop playing the victim because they are grown! That is harsh.

It’s probably because you have unresolved issues from a lifetime of dysfunctional relationships. I am sorry you have gone through that. It’s hard to build a strong marriage when you didn’t have good examples of that in your life growing up. Marriage is hard enough to begin with.

If this is how you "compassionately" help others at the end of life, I'd look for a different career if I were you.

You aren’t my client, just some AH on DCUM with a chip on their shoulder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Anonymous wrote:


It does help if they are amicable, but you can't amicable your way out of the logistics. It's a fantasy of divorced people that "amicable" makes it all okay. Things like:

I can't spend a lot of time with both my parents simultaneously, because they don't live near each other. So in order to get a decent amount of time with them, it takes me twice as much of my annual leave plus a travel day to get from one to the other. But I don't get extra annual leave just because my parents are divorced. I can't tell my boss "Oh, but they're so amicable" and get extra days off. So my parents each get less grandchild time. My mom didn't think about this when divorcing but she's unhappy about it now.

There's not enough room at my mom's house for us to visit and her partner's kids to visit at the same time. Not enough beds and also very crowded in the daytime now that there are grandkids. So we have to coordinate schedules. We also have to coordinate our schedule with my dad and his new wife. And her partner's kids have their mom too. So any sort of decision about who's visiting at what time, or when the grandparents travel to see anyone, has to go through multiple households for approval. This isn't the end of the world, but it's a level of hassle I wish I didn't have to go through. I wish things were simple.

At one point my dad's wife's son was doing a failure to launch thing, living with them and secretly drinking. My dad was super unhappy about it, he and his wife and her son had all these yelling fights, he fought with his wife and blamed her parenting, etc. etc. You couldn't be in that house at all without this tension hanging over everything and the kid moping around hung over. It went on for about two years. It was very hard for me to see my dad so unhappy. No amount of "amicable" from my mom would have changed anything. Yes, intact families can have this kind of problem too, but blending families adds more people and gives them more stress to cope with, so it increases the chance of problems. More people, more problems. If it were a bio brother, I would probably have had a more loving relationship and been more patient with it, but since we didn't grow up together at all, he felt like an interloper and a burden and I just wished the whole thing wasn't happening.

Eventually I'll need to find two assisted livings instead of one, and it'll be harder because all of that will have to be coordinated with my sibling and stepsiblings if both are alive and we're trying to keep them together. I'll need to sell two homes instead of just one, again coordinating with sibling and stepsiblings. It's very difficult to make these big decisions with a big group of people who have different cultures and financial circumstances. No matter how amicable my mom is to my dad and vice versa, that doesn't change the complexity here. There's no Amicable Divorce Retirement Home where they hand you two units for the price of one because they're just oh so very amicable.

The worst part is that my mom's partner hasn't made good choices (nor have his adult children) so he can't retire, not ever. So my mom subsidizes him and will have to pick up the tab entirely whenever he becomes unable to work. Leaving me wondering if my mom will run out of money for herself and how that will impact myself and my sibling. This is not at all an inheritance battle-- there isn't going to be an inheritance. It's just me not wanting to have to effectively subsidize my mom's partner and his lifetime of dumb decisions. My mom refuses to discuss this with me and my sibling at all. They have remained unmarried so that he can qualify for Medicaid and food stamps etc. I don't want my mom to be single but I wish she had chosen someone who doesn't bring these problems with him. No matter how "amicable" my dad is, my mom's partner is still a broke, mooching loser. See what I mean? Amicable doesn't fix it.

These examples will no doubt cause people to tell me I need therapy. Because people don't want to face up to what divorce can mean in the long term. I think it's very, very important to be financially and mentally prepared for the difficulties to come. Divorce and "blending" can be very hard in the last years of a person's life."


THIS THIS THIS!!!!!! Thank you, PP, for writing all of this down in one succinct message. It really encapsulates what kids of divorce have to deal with. I'm divorced, but neither I nor my ex-husband are children of divorce. I did everything possible to make him see what the consequences of divorce would be, to no avail. I hate witnessing my kids dealing with the burden that's resulted from their dad's weakness and apathy. I am one of those people who divorced an entirely different person than I married. So, don't blame me for choosing poorly.

Oh brother. Another one who is perfect and without fault. Also, zero introspection.

I am divorced too. We are both flawed human beings who brought into the marriage our own issues, and left it with even more. Anyone who says that they divorced a complately different person or that it was 100% on their spouse, why they divorced is super delusional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good blended family is not as good as a good intact family

I wouldn't put it this way. What I'd say is the odds of having a stable, connected family unit are higher with an intact family.

Another thing I've seen happen is that kids of divorce sometimes really suck it up and power through the divorce. They seem fine and everyone is really impressed by how well they are "handling" the divorce. But when the dust settles, they start to have issues -- or really, their issues with the divorce (and the often negative family life that precipitated the divorce) start to emerge. But if you've already met and married someone new when this happens, you are really making it maximally hard on the kids who are trying to be strong for you.

100% this.

There's so much social pressure to seem fine and say you're fine and pretend to be fine, otherwise you're a weakling with emotional problems. God forbid anyone's less than 100% "resilient" after the first few months. But the truth is, divorce and stepfamily is a PITA forever and people resent it.

Yes to this. Also, depending on the age of kids when the divorce happens, they may simply not realize they are allowed to have feelings about it, that they are allowed to be mad at their parents or unhappy with their living situation. Kids who are 4, 5, 6, 7 are just so used to doing what adults tell them to do and dealing with it. And especially those early elementary kids are often getting daily messages about needing to suck it up and deal with their relatively powerless position. "You get what you get and you don't get upset." Kids are pressured to stop crying when they are sad or disappointed, by both peers and authority figures. The overwhelming message is that if you want to be a "big kid" you should have fewer emotions, or at least learn not to express them.

I think teens actually deal with divorce better than kids this age because assuming they're developing some emotional separation from parents and gaining independence on a developmentally appropriate level, a teen is much more likely to feel like they can just tell you "this sucks, and I'm mad at you for making it this way." That might sound worse from the parents' perspective but it's actually way healthier, because if your kid is going to have to deal with divorce, they should be allowed to feel all the feels about it and express their opinion. A 16 yr old is much more likely to be able to do this than a 6 year old, and thus probably a bit less likely to be traumatized by the divorce. Or at least better able to deal with the trauma of the divorce.

So many people deal with really upsetting events in their families at young ages but are told "you're okay" and just feel intense pressure to pretend that's true. These are the people who wind up in therapy at 25 and 35 and 45, struggling with people pleasing and feeling like they don't really know themselves, because they've been trained from a young age to betray themselves on behalf of other people.

This is me. The “we’re ok!” Kool-aid was poured down our throat and we really weren’t given any other options. Cue me having kids and when they reached the age I was when my Dad left for his AP I was like wtaf. Who just walks away from a kid at this age? I’m pretty furious with my Dad in mid-life now, and he’s like “the past is the past!”. Ugh.

Totally. My parents think it's in the past and they have gone on their merry way with their new partners. But I'm still coordinating every holiday schedule and schlepping my kids from house to house in the present. It's not in the past for me.

Who is forcing you to do that? You're grown. It's a choice you're making.

This is the kind of thing people say when they're defensive about how their divorce burdens others. The fact that I even have to make this choice at all is a burden regardless of what I choose.

I do it because I feel a moral obligation to my children that they spend time with their grandmother and their grandfather both. The best interests of children, imagine that.

So it's a choice you're making. No one is forcing you to do that. Stop playing the perpetual victim.

PS We all put the best interests of our children first. You're not special.

No, they don’t. The best interests of the children would have been to have a strong marriage, not run off with an AP instead of being a present dad. To give only one example from this thread.

Anyway, no one has really talked about the long term impacts at end of life. I deal with this all the time at work. Blended families almost always have resentments about end of life issues/inheritances/etc and very often end up in court over it. It’s a nightmare even if it does pay my bills.

I’ve seen enough that I would deal with a LOT from a spouse before putting my kids through a divorce. An intact family can end up with issues too of course, but the blended family issues occur more often than not, where intact families it’s a small minority that implode.

I LOVE how every sanctimonious post, such as yours, automatically assumes that we ALSO didn't put up with a lot before deciding to divorce. You just assume that we (and your parents) just woke up on the wrong side of the bed one day and decided to screw up everyone's life. You assume that we are all selfish and don't put our kids first or that we didn't fight hard enough for our own marriages. Somehow, despite your parents' divorce, you managed to still think you're the main character and that everyone was done to you. In reality, your life is a lot more fragile than you think and can fall apart in an instant despite your best attempts to make it work. Humble yourself or life might.

Read the post. My perspective has nothing to do with my own family, it is about the thousands of families I have assisted with end of life issues.

I am not sanctimonious at all, I help people in terrible situations all the time with care and compassion. You are the one telling them to stop playing the victim because they are grown! That is harsh.

It’s probably because you have unresolved issues from a lifetime of dysfunctional relationships. I am sorry you have gone through that. It’s hard to build a strong marriage when you didn’t have good examples of that in your life growing up. Marriage is hard enough to begin with.

If this is how you "compassionately" help others at the end of life, I'd look for a different career if I were you.

You aren’t my client, just some AH on DCUM with a chip on their shoulder.

It's funny how you think you're not the AH with a chip on her shoulder. Love that for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good blended family is not as good as a good intact family

I wouldn't put it this way. What I'd say is the odds of having a stable, connected family unit are higher with an intact family.

Another thing I've seen happen is that kids of divorce sometimes really suck it up and power through the divorce. They seem fine and everyone is really impressed by how well they are "handling" the divorce. But when the dust settles, they start to have issues -- or really, their issues with the divorce (and the often negative family life that precipitated the divorce) start to emerge. But if you've already met and married someone new when this happens, you are really making it maximally hard on the kids who are trying to be strong for you.

100% this.

There's so much social pressure to seem fine and say you're fine and pretend to be fine, otherwise you're a weakling with emotional problems. God forbid anyone's less than 100% "resilient" after the first few months. But the truth is, divorce and stepfamily is a PITA forever and people resent it.

Yes to this. Also, depending on the age of kids when the divorce happens, they may simply not realize they are allowed to have feelings about it, that they are allowed to be mad at their parents or unhappy with their living situation. Kids who are 4, 5, 6, 7 are just so used to doing what adults tell them to do and dealing with it. And especially those early elementary kids are often getting daily messages about needing to suck it up and deal with their relatively powerless position. "You get what you get and you don't get upset." Kids are pressured to stop crying when they are sad or disappointed, by both peers and authority figures. The overwhelming message is that if you want to be a "big kid" you should have fewer emotions, or at least learn not to express them.

I think teens actually deal with divorce better than kids this age because assuming they're developing some emotional separation from parents and gaining independence on a developmentally appropriate level, a teen is much more likely to feel like they can just tell you "this sucks, and I'm mad at you for making it this way." That might sound worse from the parents' perspective but it's actually way healthier, because if your kid is going to have to deal with divorce, they should be allowed to feel all the feels about it and express their opinion. A 16 yr old is much more likely to be able to do this than a 6 year old, and thus probably a bit less likely to be traumatized by the divorce. Or at least better able to deal with the trauma of the divorce.

So many people deal with really upsetting events in their families at young ages but are told "you're okay" and just feel intense pressure to pretend that's true. These are the people who wind up in therapy at 25 and 35 and 45, struggling with people pleasing and feeling like they don't really know themselves, because they've been trained from a young age to betray themselves on behalf of other people.

This is me. The “we’re ok!” Kool-aid was poured down our throat and we really weren’t given any other options. Cue me having kids and when they reached the age I was when my Dad left for his AP I was like wtaf. Who just walks away from a kid at this age? I’m pretty furious with my Dad in mid-life now, and he’s like “the past is the past!”. Ugh.

Totally. My parents think it's in the past and they have gone on their merry way with their new partners. But I'm still coordinating every holiday schedule and schlepping my kids from house to house in the present. It's not in the past for me.

Who is forcing you to do that? You're grown. It's a choice you're making.

This is the kind of thing people say when they're defensive about how their divorce burdens others. The fact that I even have to make this choice at all is a burden regardless of what I choose.

I do it because I feel a moral obligation to my children that they spend time with their grandmother and their grandfather both. The best interests of children, imagine that.

So it's a choice you're making. No one is forcing you to do that. Stop playing the perpetual victim.

PS We all put the best interests of our children first. You're not special.

No, they don’t. The best interests of the children would have been to have a strong marriage, not run off with an AP instead of being a present dad. To give only one example from this thread.

Anyway, no one has really talked about the long term impacts at end of life. I deal with this all the time at work. Blended families almost always have resentments about end of life issues/inheritances/etc and very often end up in court over it. It’s a nightmare even if it does pay my bills.

I’ve seen enough that I would deal with a LOT from a spouse before putting my kids through a divorce. An intact family can end up with issues too of course, but the blended family issues occur more often than not, where intact families it’s a small minority that implode.

Is there an issue if they mostly keep their money separate? Like, if my widowed mom remarries, her new stepkids wouldn't have a claim against her separate estate? The only thing they would blend if they remarry is buying a house together, which is fine.

There are a number of ways for this to go south.

-If she dies first, the husband would get her money and then the steps have more of a right to it than you do when he dies, unless the estate is set up specifically to avoid this. —Plus you will likely be arguing with the husband about her medical decisions in the hospital/whether he calls the shots or you do.
—if assisted living/etc is necessary, is she going to have to pay for him? Is he going to siphon off her money toward things that are more for him/his kids? (Very common.)
— Keep them together? Near you or his kids? Do you have to care for him because she wants you to? What if he runs out of money or has a deadbeat kid, will she be supporting them in their house together?
-he will have the right to make all the funeral decisions

There are more but those are the most common resentments/problems. It’s better for you if they don’t marry (and don’t live in a common law marriage state). Whether it is better for her depends on how she feels about all these things. It certainly gets more complicated if they marry. Sometimes it works out fine.

Encourage her to see an elder law attorney to figure out what is best before getting remarried. Go along with her so you can ask questions too. Best of luck to you both.

(FWIW, I am not in the area so I have nothing to gain from this suggestion!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good blended family is not as good as a good intact family

I wouldn't put it this way. What I'd say is the odds of having a stable, connected family unit are higher with an intact family.

Another thing I've seen happen is that kids of divorce sometimes really suck it up and power through the divorce. They seem fine and everyone is really impressed by how well they are "handling" the divorce. But when the dust settles, they start to have issues -- or really, their issues with the divorce (and the often negative family life that precipitated the divorce) start to emerge. But if you've already met and married someone new when this happens, you are really making it maximally hard on the kids who are trying to be strong for you.

100% this.

There's so much social pressure to seem fine and say you're fine and pretend to be fine, otherwise you're a weakling with emotional problems. God forbid anyone's less than 100% "resilient" after the first few months. But the truth is, divorce and stepfamily is a PITA forever and people resent it.

Yes to this. Also, depending on the age of kids when the divorce happens, they may simply not realize they are allowed to have feelings about it, that they are allowed to be mad at their parents or unhappy with their living situation. Kids who are 4, 5, 6, 7 are just so used to doing what adults tell them to do and dealing with it. And especially those early elementary kids are often getting daily messages about needing to suck it up and deal with their relatively powerless position. "You get what you get and you don't get upset." Kids are pressured to stop crying when they are sad or disappointed, by both peers and authority figures. The overwhelming message is that if you want to be a "big kid" you should have fewer emotions, or at least learn not to express them.

I think teens actually deal with divorce better than kids this age because assuming they're developing some emotional separation from parents and gaining independence on a developmentally appropriate level, a teen is much more likely to feel like they can just tell you "this sucks, and I'm mad at you for making it this way." That might sound worse from the parents' perspective but it's actually way healthier, because if your kid is going to have to deal with divorce, they should be allowed to feel all the feels about it and express their opinion. A 16 yr old is much more likely to be able to do this than a 6 year old, and thus probably a bit less likely to be traumatized by the divorce. Or at least better able to deal with the trauma of the divorce.

So many people deal with really upsetting events in their families at young ages but are told "you're okay" and just feel intense pressure to pretend that's true. These are the people who wind up in therapy at 25 and 35 and 45, struggling with people pleasing and feeling like they don't really know themselves, because they've been trained from a young age to betray themselves on behalf of other people.

This is me. The “we’re ok!” Kool-aid was poured down our throat and we really weren’t given any other options. Cue me having kids and when they reached the age I was when my Dad left for his AP I was like wtaf. Who just walks away from a kid at this age? I’m pretty furious with my Dad in mid-life now, and he’s like “the past is the past!”. Ugh.

Totally. My parents think it's in the past and they have gone on their merry way with their new partners. But I'm still coordinating every holiday schedule and schlepping my kids from house to house in the present. It's not in the past for me.

Who is forcing you to do that? You're grown. It's a choice you're making.

This is the kind of thing people say when they're defensive about how their divorce burdens others. The fact that I even have to make this choice at all is a burden regardless of what I choose.

I do it because I feel a moral obligation to my children that they spend time with their grandmother and their grandfather both. The best interests of children, imagine that.

So it's a choice you're making. No one is forcing you to do that. Stop playing the perpetual victim.

PS We all put the best interests of our children first. You're not special.

No, they don’t. The best interests of the children would have been to have a strong marriage, not run off with an AP instead of being a present dad. To give only one example from this thread.

Anyway, no one has really talked about the long term impacts at end of life. I deal with this all the time at work. Blended families almost always have resentments about end of life issues/inheritances/etc and very often end up in court over it. It’s a nightmare even if it does pay my bills.

I’ve seen enough that I would deal with a LOT from a spouse before putting my kids through a divorce. An intact family can end up with issues too of course, but the blended family issues occur more often than not, where intact families it’s a small minority that implode.

I LOVE how every sanctimonious post, such as yours, automatically assumes that we ALSO didn't put up with a lot before deciding to divorce. You just assume that we (and your parents) just woke up on the wrong side of the bed one day and decided to screw up everyone's life. You assume that we are all selfish and don't put our kids first or that we didn't fight hard enough for our own marriages. Somehow, despite your parents' divorce, you managed to still think you're the main character and that everyone was done to you. In reality, your life is a lot more fragile than you think and can fall apart in an instant despite your best attempts to make it work. Humble yourself or life might.

Read the post. My perspective has nothing to do with my own family, it is about the thousands of families I have assisted with end of life issues.

I am not sanctimonious at all, I help people in terrible situations all the time with care and compassion. You are the one telling them to stop playing the victim because they are grown! That is harsh.

It’s probably because you have unresolved issues from a lifetime of dysfunctional relationships. I am sorry you have gone through that. It’s hard to build a strong marriage when you didn’t have good examples of that in your life growing up. Marriage is hard enough to begin with.

If this is how you "compassionately" help others at the end of life, I'd look for a different career if I were you.

You aren’t my client, just some AH on DCUM with a chip on their shoulder.

It's funny how you think you're not the AH with a chip on her shoulder. Love that for you.

I’m definitely an AH on DCUM, it’s how we roll here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good blended family is not as good as a good intact family

I wouldn't put it this way. What I'd say is the odds of having a stable, connected family unit are higher with an intact family.

Another thing I've seen happen is that kids of divorce sometimes really suck it up and power through the divorce. They seem fine and everyone is really impressed by how well they are "handling" the divorce. But when the dust settles, they start to have issues -- or really, their issues with the divorce (and the often negative family life that precipitated the divorce) start to emerge. But if you've already met and married someone new when this happens, you are really making it maximally hard on the kids who are trying to be strong for you.

100% this.

There's so much social pressure to seem fine and say you're fine and pretend to be fine, otherwise you're a weakling with emotional problems. God forbid anyone's less than 100% "resilient" after the first few months. But the truth is, divorce and stepfamily is a PITA forever and people resent it.

Yes to this. Also, depending on the age of kids when the divorce happens, they may simply not realize they are allowed to have feelings about it, that they are allowed to be mad at their parents or unhappy with their living situation. Kids who are 4, 5, 6, 7 are just so used to doing what adults tell them to do and dealing with it. And especially those early elementary kids are often getting daily messages about needing to suck it up and deal with their relatively powerless position. "You get what you get and you don't get upset." Kids are pressured to stop crying when they are sad or disappointed, by both peers and authority figures. The overwhelming message is that if you want to be a "big kid" you should have fewer emotions, or at least learn not to express them.

I think teens actually deal with divorce better than kids this age because assuming they're developing some emotional separation from parents and gaining independence on a developmentally appropriate level, a teen is much more likely to feel like they can just tell you "this sucks, and I'm mad at you for making it this way." That might sound worse from the parents' perspective but it's actually way healthier, because if your kid is going to have to deal with divorce, they should be allowed to feel all the feels about it and express their opinion. A 16 yr old is much more likely to be able to do this than a 6 year old, and thus probably a bit less likely to be traumatized by the divorce. Or at least better able to deal with the trauma of the divorce.

So many people deal with really upsetting events in their families at young ages but are told "you're okay" and just feel intense pressure to pretend that's true. These are the people who wind up in therapy at 25 and 35 and 45, struggling with people pleasing and feeling like they don't really know themselves, because they've been trained from a young age to betray themselves on behalf of other people.

This is me. The “we’re ok!” Kool-aid was poured down our throat and we really weren’t given any other options. Cue me having kids and when they reached the age I was when my Dad left for his AP I was like wtaf. Who just walks away from a kid at this age? I’m pretty furious with my Dad in mid-life now, and he’s like “the past is the past!”. Ugh.

Totally. My parents think it's in the past and they have gone on their merry way with their new partners. But I'm still coordinating every holiday schedule and schlepping my kids from house to house in the present. It's not in the past for me.

Who is forcing you to do that? You're grown. It's a choice you're making.

This is the kind of thing people say when they're defensive about how their divorce burdens others. The fact that I even have to make this choice at all is a burden regardless of what I choose.

I do it because I feel a moral obligation to my children that they spend time with their grandmother and their grandfather both. The best interests of children, imagine that.

So it's a choice you're making. No one is forcing you to do that. Stop playing the perpetual victim.

PS We all put the best interests of our children first. You're not special.

No, they don’t. The best interests of the children would have been to have a strong marriage, not run off with an AP instead of being a present dad. To give only one example from this thread.

Anyway, no one has really talked about the long term impacts at end of life. I deal with this all the time at work. Blended families almost always have resentments about end of life issues/inheritances/etc and very often end up in court over it. It’s a nightmare even if it does pay my bills.

I’ve seen enough that I would deal with a LOT from a spouse before putting my kids through a divorce. An intact family can end up with issues too of course, but the blended family issues occur more often than not, where intact families it’s a small minority that implode.

Is there an issue if they mostly keep their money separate? Like, if my widowed mom remarries, her new stepkids wouldn't have a claim against her separate estate? The only thing they would blend if they remarry is buying a house together, which is fine.

There are a number of ways for this to go south.

-If she dies first, the husband would get her money and then the steps have more of a right to it than you do when he dies, unless the estate is set up specifically to avoid this. —Plus you will likely be arguing with the husband about her medical decisions in the hospital/whether he calls the shots or you do.
—if assisted living/etc is necessary, is she going to have to pay for him? Is he going to siphon off her money toward things that are more for him/his kids? (Very common.)
— Keep them together? Near you or his kids? Do you have to care for him because she wants you to? What if he runs out of money or has a deadbeat kid, will she be supporting them in their house together?
-he will have the right to make all the funeral decisions

There are more but those are the most common resentments/problems. It’s better for you if they don’t marry (and don’t live in a common law marriage state). Whether it is better for her depends on how she feels about all these things. It certainly gets more complicated if they marry. Sometimes it works out fine.

Encourage her to see an elder law attorney to figure out what is best before getting remarried. Go along with her so you can ask questions too. Best of luck to you both.

(FWIW, I am not in the area so I have nothing to gain from this suggestion!)

All good advice.

Staying unmarried can be really helpful if one person needs to qualify for Medicaid to afford assisted living. This is very common among non-wealthy people who live a long life, more common than people realize. It's not just for low-income people.

It can get really sticky if the couple wants to be in the same place (same assisted living or just like, what town to live in) but one of them can't afford it. Does the other one pay for both? What if the wealthier partner isn't wealthy enough to cover both? That is my mom's situation so she believes his adult children and his siblings will help cover it. I'm not so sure that will happen but believing it is how she copes.

Having to make important decisions with a group of stepsiblings or whatever they are, especially if they have different financial circumstances or different cultures or just don't get along, is a nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good blended family is not as good as a good intact family

I wouldn't put it this way. What I'd say is the odds of having a stable, connected family unit are higher with an intact family.

Another thing I've seen happen is that kids of divorce sometimes really suck it up and power through the divorce. They seem fine and everyone is really impressed by how well they are "handling" the divorce. But when the dust settles, they start to have issues -- or really, their issues with the divorce (and the often negative family life that precipitated the divorce) start to emerge. But if you've already met and married someone new when this happens, you are really making it maximally hard on the kids who are trying to be strong for you.

100% this.

There's so much social pressure to seem fine and say you're fine and pretend to be fine, otherwise you're a weakling with emotional problems. God forbid anyone's less than 100% "resilient" after the first few months. But the truth is, divorce and stepfamily is a PITA forever and people resent it.

Yes to this. Also, depending on the age of kids when the divorce happens, they may simply not realize they are allowed to have feelings about it, that they are allowed to be mad at their parents or unhappy with their living situation. Kids who are 4, 5, 6, 7 are just so used to doing what adults tell them to do and dealing with it. And especially those early elementary kids are often getting daily messages about needing to suck it up and deal with their relatively powerless position. "You get what you get and you don't get upset." Kids are pressured to stop crying when they are sad or disappointed, by both peers and authority figures. The overwhelming message is that if you want to be a "big kid" you should have fewer emotions, or at least learn not to express them.

I think teens actually deal with divorce better than kids this age because assuming they're developing some emotional separation from parents and gaining independence on a developmentally appropriate level, a teen is much more likely to feel like they can just tell you "this sucks, and I'm mad at you for making it this way." That might sound worse from the parents' perspective but it's actually way healthier, because if your kid is going to have to deal with divorce, they should be allowed to feel all the feels about it and express their opinion. A 16 yr old is much more likely to be able to do this than a 6 year old, and thus probably a bit less likely to be traumatized by the divorce. Or at least better able to deal with the trauma of the divorce.

So many people deal with really upsetting events in their families at young ages but are told "you're okay" and just feel intense pressure to pretend that's true. These are the people who wind up in therapy at 25 and 35 and 45, struggling with people pleasing and feeling like they don't really know themselves, because they've been trained from a young age to betray themselves on behalf of other people.

This is me. The “we’re ok!” Kool-aid was poured down our throat and we really weren’t given any other options. Cue me having kids and when they reached the age I was when my Dad left for his AP I was like wtaf. Who just walks away from a kid at this age? I’m pretty furious with my Dad in mid-life now, and he’s like “the past is the past!”. Ugh.

Totally. My parents think it's in the past and they have gone on their merry way with their new partners. But I'm still coordinating every holiday schedule and schlepping my kids from house to house in the present. It's not in the past for me.

Who is forcing you to do that? You're grown. It's a choice you're making.

This is the kind of thing people say when they're defensive about how their divorce burdens others. The fact that I even have to make this choice at all is a burden regardless of what I choose.

I do it because I feel a moral obligation to my children that they spend time with their grandmother and their grandfather both. The best interests of children, imagine that.

So it's a choice you're making. No one is forcing you to do that. Stop playing the perpetual victim.

PS We all put the best interests of our children first. You're not special.

No, they don’t. The best interests of the children would have been to have a strong marriage, not run off with an AP instead of being a present dad. To give only one example from this thread.

Anyway, no one has really talked about the long term impacts at end of life. I deal with this all the time at work. Blended families almost always have resentments about end of life issues/inheritances/etc and very often end up in court over it. It’s a nightmare even if it does pay my bills.

I’ve seen enough that I would deal with a LOT from a spouse before putting my kids through a divorce. An intact family can end up with issues too of course, but the blended family issues occur more often than not, where intact families it’s a small minority that implode.

Is there an issue if they mostly keep their money separate? Like, if my widowed mom remarries, her new stepkids wouldn't have a claim against her separate estate? The only thing they would blend if they remarry is buying a house together, which is fine.

There are a number of ways for this to go south.

-If she dies first, the husband would get her money and then the steps have more of a right to it than you do when he dies, unless the estate is set up specifically to avoid this. —Plus you will likely be arguing with the husband about her medical decisions in the hospital/whether he calls the shots or you do.
—if assisted living/etc is necessary, is she going to have to pay for him? Is he going to siphon off her money toward things that are more for him/his kids? (Very common.)
— Keep them together? Near you or his kids? Do you have to care for him because she wants you to? What if he runs out of money or has a deadbeat kid, will she be supporting them in their house together?
-he will have the right to make all the funeral decisions

There are more but those are the most common resentments/problems. It’s better for you if they don’t marry (and don’t live in a common law marriage state). Whether it is better for her depends on how she feels about all these things. It certainly gets more complicated if they marry. Sometimes it works out fine.

Encourage her to see an elder law attorney to figure out what is best before getting remarried. Go along with her so you can ask questions too. Best of luck to you both.

(FWIW, I am not in the area so I have nothing to gain from this suggestion!)

Thank you. Most of her money is already in a trust that my dad set up with my siblings and me as the beneficiaries, so I'm hopeful that if she does remarry, her new husband and his family wouldn't have a claim against the trust, even if he eventually needs long-term care and can't afford it. I think my dad planned for this possibility, but if their relationship gets any more serious, I may ask if she'd be willing to see their estate attorney together to go over these possibilities.

[Anonymous]

I know end of life issues can be complicated as PPs have stated, but I think it’s really really nearly impossible to have a blended family where the kids aren’t much worse off than before. You might not know it until they’re adults, or ever, but it certainly causes trauma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know end of life issues can be complicated as PPs have stated, but I think it’s really really nearly impossible to have a blended family where the kids aren’t much worse off than before. You might not know it until they’re adults, or ever, but it certainly causes trauma.

Yes, The Brady Bunch lied to a whole generation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know end of life issues can be complicated as PPs have stated, but I think it’s really really nearly impossible to have a blended family where the kids aren’t much worse off than before. You might not know it until they’re adults, or ever, but it certainly causes trauma.

Yes, The Brady Bunch lied to a whole generation.

It sure did!

[Anonymous]

No.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/step-sibling-cheerleader-found-dead-232243401.html