Reply to For those of you whose parents divorced when you were 20+, if one of your parents started a second

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My MIL lives in a retirement community and most 1st wives care for their husbands until they die.

Most 2nd wives don’t. Some leave, some drop him off at adult homes.

Obviously, some stay and care for their husbands because they actually married for love, but it’s not the rule, it’s the exception.[/quote]

Probably most people who end up divorced marry for love and things didn’t work out as they’d hoped. [/quote]

Clearly from many posts above many marry for resources… time/money/energy that shall not be shared with adult children (they say 50/50 but you know if he  was gone half of the time she’d freak out).

When he is more of a burden than a companion they are gone.[/quote]

If he was gone half the time they’d be coparents not husband and wife. They could just agree to give each other one weekend a month and x amount of spending money, then spend the rest of the time as a family.  [/quote]

now 50/50 isn’t enough … goal post moving![/quote]

But 50/50 is the same as divorce? He spends 50 percent with his adult children (unusual but okay for discussion) and 50 percent with his new children. That leaves zero with his new wife. That’s fine but that’s obviously not a marriage, which seems to be the goal of at least some ACOD on here.  And if the second marriage is as this poster wants it to be, a divorce would likely be a relief to the second wife. She would get 50% of her time to parent and 50% of her time to sleep with someone her own age now, or have fun with girlfriends her own age.  A second marriage simply doesn’t work if he’s running off to spend his time and money with his adult children and not showing up to his current marriage and young children. But again, maybe that’s all for the best, other than for the new kids who now also have a broken home, and the old dad who loses a big portion of his money and gets saddled with a new round of child support. [/quote]

I think the idea was they parent the minor children 50/50, not that the DH spends 50% of his time parenting adults.

When you marry a man who has children, you're choosing for your children to have a big family. You're choosing for them to be his 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th children as the case many be. And do you know what happens in families with that many children? Each individual gets a lot less time and attention. The parents manage, but they get a lot less time for their own activities and relaxation, and a lot less time with each other, and kinda burnt out on parenting. The little kids get less attention than they would in a smaller family, unless they get attention from their older siblings. The adult children also get less attention than they would in a smaller family. That's the way this goes. If you marry into this, go in with eyes wide open. You're not gonna have the intact nuclear family, similar-age marriage experience, and neither are any of the kids.[/quote]

How is this different from a family with two married parents?  It isn't.  So you are advocating small families which is a different issue.

Reality is that often Dad's get cut out of the kids lives and it's only recently that they get 50-50.  Mom's want full custody and no visits as visits impact their child support.

However, OP is talking about being an adult when Dad has more kids so in that situation most 20 year olds are not spending that much time with Dad and just visiting, summers/holidays or an occasional meal.[/quote]

I'm not advocating for small families. I'm advocating about being realistic about whether or not you do in fact have a large or small family.[/quote]

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