Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It can go so, so badly. The new person and their children can bring all kinds of problems into the family, and having an additional baby means the family has much less bandwidth to cope with the stress.

Remarrying adults tend to have rose-colored glasses on and dismiss their children's objections as being due to trauma, emotion, alienation, jealousy, etc. But sometimes the first batch of children is correct to raise these concerns. In my case, for example, my mom's partner is broke, depressive, has a poor employment history, and his adult children have money and drug problems. My mom sees these as blameless misfortunes and thinks we should all sympathize. But I think my mom could do a lot better than this guy, and that a lot of his problems are self-created and our family should not have to deal with it. Does she love him? I guess. But even though the retirees' dating scene isn't great I think she could do better than someone she has to financially support and basically parent. (And before you criticize me for wanting inheritance-- I know there won't be any, I'm just hoping he doesn't mooch so much that my mom runs out of money for herself.) Second marriages/long-term relationships are FRAUGHT. They can bring major major problems. Of course, his family loves my mom because she pays for him and takes care of him as if he's an additional child. So I guess they kinda do have another baby, unfortunately it was born a grown man.

I find it fascinating nobody would criticize a woman if she was jealous her man ran off and had a second family, but if a woman has a second family the first batch of kids had better buck up.

It used to literally be illegal to have a second family, it was called bigamy. Now if you are a kid and your rear end is chapped about it your mom will put you in $150/hr therapy as if there is something wrong with you

The social rights has done alot of good things but it definitely has gone too far in this aspect. It has caused an immense amount of pain

Well, the mom doesn't usually ghost the first set of kids or visit them a few times a year. She continues as the primary parent, she just forces them to live with her new husband and new kids. It can be bad (or it can be good), but it's not the same kind of thing.

Interesting dad can walk away, may or may not pay child support, sees his kids every other weekend, that makes him dead average.
If mom walks away, lets her kids live with dad and step mom, she is a terrible human being

Guess this gets to the heart of why mom should not remarry and pump out a new set of kids. Everybody knows she is doing 80% of the domestic labor. If she has more kids there is less for her first batch and step dad is definitely not doing it

I guess re-marry if you can find the unicorn step dad who will 50/50 all the work including his step kid's work. Most dads won't 50/50 for their own biokids

Oh, and you won't know if he will actually hold up to 50/50 until it is too late

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It can go so, so badly. The new person and their children can bring all kinds of problems into the family, and having an additional baby means the family has much less bandwidth to cope with the stress.

Remarrying adults tend to have rose-colored glasses on and dismiss their children's objections as being due to trauma, emotion, alienation, jealousy, etc. But sometimes the first batch of children is correct to raise these concerns. In my case, for example, my mom's partner is broke, depressive, has a poor employment history, and his adult children have money and drug problems. My mom sees these as blameless misfortunes and thinks we should all sympathize. But I think my mom could do a lot better than this guy, and that a lot of his problems are self-created and our family should not have to deal with it. Does she love him? I guess. But even though the retirees' dating scene isn't great I think she could do better than someone she has to financially support and basically parent. (And before you criticize me for wanting inheritance-- I know there won't be any, I'm just hoping he doesn't mooch so much that my mom runs out of money for herself.) Second marriages/long-term relationships are FRAUGHT. They can bring major major problems. Of course, his family loves my mom because she pays for him and takes care of him as if he's an additional child. So I guess they kinda do have another baby, unfortunately it was born a grown man.

I find it fascinating nobody would criticize a woman if she was jealous her man ran off and had a second family, but if a woman has a second family the first batch of kids had better buck up.

It used to literally be illegal to have a second family, it was called bigamy. Now if you are a kid and your rear end is chapped about it your mom will put you in $150/hr therapy as if there is something wrong with you

The social rights has done alot of good things but it definitely has gone too far in this aspect. It has caused an immense amount of pain

Well, the mom doesn't usually ghost the first set of kids or visit them a few times a year. She continues as the primary parent, she just forces them to live with her new husband and new kids. It can be bad (or it can be good), but it's not the same kind of thing.

Anonymous wrote:It can go so, so badly. The new person and their children can bring all kinds of problems into the family, and having an additional baby means the family has much less bandwidth to cope with the stress.

Remarrying adults tend to have rose-colored glasses on and dismiss their children's objections as being due to trauma, emotion, alienation, jealousy, etc. But sometimes the first batch of children is correct to raise these concerns. In my case, for example, my mom's partner is broke, depressive, has a poor employment history, and his adult children have money and drug problems. My mom sees these as blameless misfortunes and thinks we should all sympathize. But I think my mom could do a lot better than this guy, and that a lot of his problems are self-created and our family should not have to deal with it. Does she love him? I guess. But even though the retirees' dating scene isn't great I think she could do better than someone she has to financially support and basically parent. (And before you criticize me for wanting inheritance-- I know there won't be any, I'm just hoping he doesn't mooch so much that my mom runs out of money for herself.) Second marriages/long-term relationships are FRAUGHT. They can bring major major problems. Of course, his family loves my mom because she pays for him and takes care of him as if he's an additional child. So I guess they kinda do have another baby, unfortunately it was born a grown man.

I find it fascinating nobody would criticize a woman if she was jealous her man ran off and had a second family, but if a woman has a second family the first batch of kids had better buck up.

It used to literally be illegal to have a second family, it was called bigamy. Now if you are a kid and your rear end is chapped about it your mom will put you in $150/hr therapy as if there is something wrong with you

The social rights has done alot of good things but it definitely has gone too far in this aspect. It has caused an immense amount of pain

It can go so, so badly. The new person and their children can bring all kinds of problems into the family, and having an additional baby means the family has much less bandwidth to cope with the stress.

Remarrying adults tend to have rose-colored glasses on and dismiss their children's objections as being due to trauma, emotion, alienation, jealousy, etc. But sometimes the first batch of children is correct to raise these concerns. In my case, for example, my mom's partner is broke, depressive, has a poor employment history, and his adult children have money and drug problems. My mom sees these as blameless misfortunes and thinks we should all sympathize. But I think my mom could do a lot better than this guy, and that a lot of his problems are self-created and our family should not have to deal with it. Does she love him? I guess. But even though the retirees' dating scene isn't great I think she could do better than someone she has to financially support and basically parent. (And before you criticize me for wanting inheritance-- I know there won't be any, I'm just hoping he doesn't mooch so much that my mom runs out of money for herself.) Second marriages/long-term relationships are FRAUGHT. They can bring major major problems. Of course, his family loves my mom because she pays for him and takes care of him as if he's an additional child. So I guess they kinda do have another baby, unfortunately it was born a grown man.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically the question is: "My teen has already experienced the loss of their intact family. How can I withdraw a lot of my time, energy, and resources, and also make them live with a new partner and a baby, and have them be happy with it?"

How would it be different than an "intact" family having more kids. With every kid a parent has it takes away attention and resources.

Because the remarriage effectively disinherits the kid. Sorry, but it's true.

No, it doesn't, less the kids don't have a relationship with one parent and that parent appropriatly chooses not to leave them anything. No one is entitled to inherit anything. My sister convinced my parents to leave her everything. We are equally comfortable. It was just pure greed and selfish behavior on all three of them. My parents put all their effort into her. After I realized what they were all doing and stopped contact, my life was much better.

If a parent remarries, anything before marriage should be split among all the kids. Anything post marriage - between the husband and wife, it should be split in half and each adult decide who gets the inheritance from their half.

If you choose to not allow your kids to have a relationship with their other parent, you should not expect any inhertance.

1. Alot of people would say you're the evil step mom if you don't put cinderella in the pot as an equal partner
2. What happens when the second wife is the one to care for the man as he ages, changes his diapers, takes him to all the Dr. appointments? Yet the man has adult children and grandchildren? How do you split the inheritance? What if she is living in a family house he inherited from his family? Do her kids get a part of the house? This woman could have been care giving for 20 years.

Re-marriage complicates things immensely

What if the second wife has fun with him and his money while he's retired and then dumps him on the adult kids when he's old and sick, walking off with half the assets?

Theoretically she could spend down all his assets then walk! He shouldn't remarry and simply use his money to pay for professional care. The second marriage just makes a huge mess out of things. Have a weekend partner or whatever just don't re-marry and dont have more kids

Divorce rate
1st marriage - 56%
2nd marriage - 67%
3rd marriage - 74%

Nope. Never works.
I’m an only child for my father and last for my mother.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically the question is: "My teen has already experienced the loss of their intact family. How can I withdraw a lot of my time, energy, and resources, and also make them live with a new partner and a baby, and have them be happy with it?"

How would it be different than an "intact" family having more kids. With every kid a parent has it takes away attention and resources.

Because the remarriage effectively disinherits the kid. Sorry, but it's true.

No, it doesn't, less the kids don't have a relationship with one parent and that parent appropriatly chooses not to leave them anything. No one is entitled to inherit anything. My sister convinced my parents to leave her everything. We are equally comfortable. It was just pure greed and selfish behavior on all three of them. My parents put all their effort into her. After I realized what they were all doing and stopped contact, my life was much better.

If a parent remarries, anything before marriage should be split among all the kids. Anything post marriage - between the husband and wife, it should be split in half and each adult decide who gets the inheritance from their half.

If you choose to not allow your kids to have a relationship with their other parent, you should not expect any inhertance.

1. Alot of people would say you're the evil step mom if you don't put cinderella in the pot as an equal partner
2. What happens when the second wife is the one to care for the man as he ages, changes his diapers, takes him to all the Dr. appointments? Yet the man has adult children and grandchildren? How do you split the inheritance? What if she is living in a family house he inherited from his family? Do her kids get a part of the house? This woman could have been care giving for 20 years.

Re-marriage complicates things immensely

What if the second wife has fun with him and his money while he's retired and then dumps him on the adult kids when he's old and sick, walking off with half the assets?

Control freaks. You can't control how well families get along no matter the circumstances.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically the question is: "My teen has already experienced the loss of their intact family. How can I withdraw a lot of my time, energy, and resources, and also make them live with a new partner and a baby, and have them be happy with it?"

How would it be different than an "intact" family having more kids. With every kid a parent has it takes away attention and resources.

Because the remarriage effectively disinherits the kid. Sorry, but it's true.

No, it doesn't, less the kids don't have a relationship with one parent and that parent appropriatly chooses not to leave them anything. No one is entitled to inherit anything. My sister convinced my parents to leave her everything. We are equally comfortable. It was just pure greed and selfish behavior on all three of them. My parents put all their effort into her. After I realized what they were all doing and stopped contact, my life was much better.

If a parent remarries, anything before marriage should be split among all the kids. Anything post marriage - between the husband and wife, it should be split in half and each adult decide who gets the inheritance from their half.

If you choose to not allow your kids to have a relationship with their other parent, you should not expect any inhertance.

1. Alot of people would say you're the evil step mom if you don't put cinderella in the pot as an equal partner
2. What happens when the second wife is the one to care for the man as he ages, changes his diapers, takes him to all the Dr. appointments? Yet the man has adult children and grandchildren? How do you split the inheritance? What if she is living in a family house he inherited from his family? Do her kids get a part of the house? This woman could have been care giving for 20 years.

Re-marriage complicates things immensely

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically the question is: "My teen has already experienced the loss of their intact family. How can I withdraw a lot of my time, energy, and resources, and also make them live with a new partner and a baby, and have them be happy with it?"

How would it be different than an "intact" family having more kids. With every kid a parent has it takes away attention and resources.

The kids don't have the same two parents
There is either a large age gap or the new parent is the affair partner
The step parent and step siblings make family gathers weird and difficult. It is not a given who goes to which Christmas

It can be damaging to keep adding kids to the mix, even in an intact families, if the parents are burnt out and parentify the elder children (usually the oldest girl)
Blended families seem to usually be under more financial duress so it is common the older half sister is roped into free childcare. I have a childhood friend who had to get her half brothers off the bus. She ended up not having her own kids

The new partner can be very dangerous. Women neglect and men abuse kids who are not biologically their's.

Anonymous wrote:You should ask the grown kids, not the parent. You’d probably get a very different answer.
Most of the adult children of divorce I know (with younger stepsiblings from a 2nd marriage) have some sad memories of childhood, trust issues, feelings of inferiority/not being good enough. And also future relationship issues. But their parents thought everything was great

I am a millennial where both my mom and my husband's mom re-married. We are deeply resentful they were too busy with their second families to help us. I had post partum depression, 2 Csecs, etc and got zero help. If we had a medically needy kid or a nicu baby or something like that, it would push us right to the edge. It is pretty much adultery and I am really not happy it became normalized to have a second family. IMO if you have an unhappy marriage, go ahead and leave it, but reserve your resources for the first batch of kids you already have.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically the question is: "My teen has already experienced the loss of their intact family. How can I withdraw a lot of my time, energy, and resources, and also make them live with a new partner and a baby, and have them be happy with it?"

How would it be different than an "intact" family having more kids. With every kid a parent has it takes away attention and resources.

Because the remarriage effectively disinherits the kid. Sorry but it's true.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids are all well into adulthood now. My two sons from my first marriage have said to me, of their own initiative, "We completely understand why you and Dad divorced, and you are both much happier now. We just don't understand why you got married in the first place." They have always had a close, loving relationship with their sister from my second marriage (with a 9 and 11 year age gap from my sons). They have a very close relationship with their stepdad.

This is a great example of a parent telling, and maybe believing, that everything is fine. But I don't believe it-- it's just too perfect.

Yeah, it's bs. Even if that PP doesn't know it.

My mother used to brag about our perfectly blended family and how she and my step dad didn't even see the difference between their own kids and their step kids. Just one big happy family, same as an intact one with no divorce.

Meanwhile the step dad was abusing me to a level that would shock people on here, my mother knew about it and did nothing, and my mother tried undermining my stepsister every chance she got because she was jealous of her and hated her. I'm sure she babbled on about the "success story" our family was until the day she died, even though when my step father attacked me when I was 25 I told her I'd never set foot in her house again as long as he was there. And I didn't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically the question is: "My teen has already experienced the loss of their intact family. How can I withdraw a lot of my time, energy, and resources, and also make them live with a new partner and a baby, and have them be happy with it?"

How would it be different than an "intact" family having more kids. With every kid a parent has it takes away attention and resources.

Really?

Lol. Ok -- I'll explain it. One scenario is an intact family. One is not. Very, very different.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically the question is: "My teen has already experienced the loss of their intact family. How can I withdraw a lot of my time, energy, and resources, and also make them live with a new partner and a baby, and have them be happy with it?"

How would it be different than an "intact" family having more kids. With every kid a parent has it takes away attention and resources.

Well, I think in an intact familly the teens are often not that happy about a new baby either.

But it's different because the older child still gets to live with both their parents. They don't have to do joint custody or experience a loss of parent-child interaction time, and they don't have to deal with a new adult being forced into their home whether they like it or not. They also don't have to deal with stepsiblings if there are any (as distinct from half siblings). A remarriage and a baby after a divorce is a disruption after a disruption after a disruption. It's three disruptions rather than one.

So, by your logic no adult should have more than one kid. As, any 2-3-4th kid regardless of the age difference, takes up parents' time and resources. My husband's ex put all her energy into the AP/boyfriend not the kids so even if they had more kids, none would have been the priority.

No, I think the benefit of a full sibling *that you grow up with* is different from a half sibling that realistically you don't really know well at all, and that has a different set of loyalties. And I think divorced parents who are already dealing with the after-effects of divorce (joint custody hassle, financial, disruptions and new adults and siblings from the kid's other parent) would do well to very carefully consider their money, time and energy before adding more kids. That's why I say this works well if you have plenty of money, not so well if you don't.

Even when you know the half sibling, the "different set of loyalties" part is key. Bottom line, half siblings do not share the same family.

The one thing my dad got right after my parents' divorce was that when his longtime girlfriend pressured him to marry and have more kids he said no. It would have devastated us if he'd had another family.