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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Look, Wife #2 (or however many) is likely to feel like she's compromising quite a bit just by entering this situation, and she might not want to compromise any more. She's accepting an older guy, which means skipping her thirties in a weird way, a higher chance of prolonged widowhood, going straight from parenting to eldercare, etc. And it's a little embarrassing if she feels like she failed to attract a same-age partner and her kids don't have the kind of energetic dad that other kids do. She's accepting stepkids-- their presence, but also planning stepkids into EVERY decision she and her husband make-- and an ex and all the logistical and financial complexity that comes with. And she might be accepting having less kids of her own than she wanted to-- and the risk of having no kids at all or having to use donor sperm. It's really a rare woman in her 30s who sees this situation as her first choice, because it's disadvantageous to her and her bio children, and there's a lot of tension and resource competition built in. This is likely to feel overwhelming and difficult to OP, and to his wife once she starts parenting, and they'll give the older kids less and less until the older kids disengage. This is how this goes-- it's not because the dad intends it to be this way, but this is how the cookie crumbles.[/quote]

Just as this is short shrift for all the reasons described above for wife #2, it is similarly disadvantageous for wife #1. Again for all of these reasons. Fewer resources for the first kids, Dad is older, tired, and less available, second wife has her own feelings about Dad's attention. The poster upthread who "can't help but notice how older women" don't support OP is overly invested in painting women as shrews, and not spending a nanosecond thinking out how "the cookie crumbles", as PP said. Of course the first wives don't support this! There is literally no upside from their perspective. [/quote]

Upside can be that their kids get a half sibling, but that's only desirable if they want it and if they don't already have a sibling.

It can be positive if the new wife compels the DH to be a better parent *to the older kids* but that's unusual. It's possible she'll pick up some of his slack though, at least at first. New wives are dumb like that.[/quote]

In all of my years talking to people about their lives, I've never met someone who is close to their half-sibling if that half-sibling is 15+ years younger than them. At best, they end up like the "cool aunt" to those kids, but most often it's not even that. [/quote]

I still feel like that's better than no sibling at all. [/quote]

That is ridiculous. They won't be like siblings.[/quote]

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