"Baggage" is shorthand for "a huge, multi-year emotional and financial burden that you should think very carefully before you assume and needn't feel bad if you'd rather not do so".

Calling them "children" in an effort to sugar-coat this fact and to make people feel bad if they don't want to assume that burden is stupid and mendacious.

Calling them "children" in an effort to sugar-coat this fact and to make people feel bad if they don't want to assume that burden is stupid and mendacious.

"Baggage" is shorthand for "a huge, multi-year emotional and financial burden that you should think very carefully before you assume and needn't feel bad if you'd rather not do so".

Calling them "children" in an effort to sugar-coat this fact and to make people feel bad if they don't want to assume that burden is stupid and mendacious.

taketothebank wrote:

Exactly my thoughts. What a horrible way to label children. They are people, with hearts and feelings. How dare you call them baggage!!!! What a jerk.

Call them whatever you want,

How about calling them children? The other posters are correct. Calling children baggage is horrible.

Exactly my thoughts. What a horrible way to label children. They are people, with hearts and feelings. How dare you call them baggage!!!! What a jerk.

Call them whatever you want,

Anonymous wrote:That's all true but it is equally true for men with kids. All things being equal, a divorced man with kids is less desirable than a divorced man with no kids.

Don't quite understand how one is on the hook for stepkids "legally". Unless you adopt, you aren't.

Stepparent - Are they financially responsible post-divorce?

Stepparents can’t brush-off financial responsibilities when children would suffer financially. This happens basically under 3 conditions and these are:

The stepparent plays the role of a parent and takes care of the child’s financial needs.
The stepparent looks after the financial needs of the child.
Stepparent hampers the bond between the biological parent and the child. Plus, he/she curtails child’s ability to get financial help from that parent.

The bottom line

Stepparents can’t brush-off their responsibilities towards children just like that. If they’ve been married to the biological parents of children and have provided child support maintenance for minimum 1 year, then the court may ask them to pay child support. If the stepparent refuses and a case is filed against him/her, then the court will check the last date when he made the contribution. If it’s within a year from the date when the case has been filed with the court, then he/she has to pay child support.

Anonymous wrote:For 6 months take the view, along with your spouse, that Divorce Is Not An Option.
Get joint counseling on how to communicate together, run the household together, love each other again. Start from scratch.
The men shouldn't think by planning a dinner date they have rekindled anything - unless there is serious talking and progress made over dinner. And then women shouldn't assume bad intentions all the time, try to clear the slate.

Finally, this catch-all excuse for divorce really peeves psychologists. "Different personalities" . Duh, everyone has different personalities. You BOTH adapt, you both try to please the other person, you BOTH put your spouse and children before you and your career, and you learn how to communicate and be effective with your spouse and each child you have. You don't cop out and claim "different personalities, I quit" every time you need to work through something with someone.
Marriage is not easy, sorry if you were brought up to think that it was. It never has been. It's work, of various amounts. Go do it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Well, I'm not sure if OP should divorce based on the information she provided here. But I am a divorced person and I want to say that no step children hate me. My beau has no ex from hell. I have no money problems. My children are thriving. My life is not perfect. No one's life is perfect. But I live a wonderful life now, putting myself and my children first now.

If you divorced, then by definition you did not put your kids first, you put YOURSELF first, you narcissistic creep.

Unless, of course, your ex was actually beating them, which I doubt.

And in any case, the OP does not say her husband is doing anything abusive, so divorce would not be "putting the kids first".

I don't get it. Everyone who has kids and gets a divorce is a narcissistic creep? It seems that the hostility towards a decision that lots of couples make seems a over-the-top on this thread. My guess is it's primarily coming from the same poster since I can't imagine so many people are so unhinged. I know quite a few adults whose parents divorced when they were children and who weren't traumatized or found it to be a huge relief.

Uh huh. I am the adult child of divorce, and I haven't told anyone, except my therapist, about the lifelong pain and psychological trauma it caused me. Why do you think every child of divorce would unburden their inner demons to you?

No, "everyone" with kids who divorces is not a narcissistic creep, but the vast majority of them are. Especially the ones who divorced due to vague feelings of unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm divorced. Absent infidelity or abuse, I would rather stay married.

What if you enable each other in an unhealthy way?

I suppose it would depend on what the "unhealthy" way is. If we drive each other to screaming matches and drunken benders, that's emotionally abusive and I'd say grounds for divorce.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The possibility of a divorced woman with three school-aged children finding married bliss with a "dream lover" are pretty slim. I'd stick with the guy you like who is the father of your children.

Actually, this is a pretty stupid statement. Most women around here remarry happily. The trick is finding someone who is a match - roughly equal in terms of age, education, career and/or income. And looks, of course, like it or not.

As a male who was divorced with 2 kids and got remarried, I doubt that is true. Older, established, divorced men with kids have way more dating choices than their female counterparts. I remarried to someone 10 years younger with no kids. I would have never remarried to a women who had 3 kids. Nor would I have dated such a person. Way too much baggage.

Does your new wife think of your kids as baggage?

Exactly my thoughts. What a horrible way to label children. They are people, with hearts and feelings. How dare you call them baggage!!!! What a jerk.

Call them whatever you want, but the fact is that second marriages in which the couple has kids from the previous marriage are much more likely to fail than second marriages in which the couple has no kids from previous marriage, and you'd have to be stupid not to take this into account.

A man would also have to be stupid not to take into account the fact that if he marries a woman who already has kids, he will be on the hook for those step-kids legally, financially, and emotionally. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a man not wanting to sign up for those costs and with a man preferring a woman who has no kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm divorced. Absent infidelity or abuse, I would rather stay married.

What if you enable each other in an unhealthy way?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Well, I'm not sure if OP should divorce based on the information she provided here. But I am a divorced person and I want to say that no step children hate me. My beau has no ex from hell. I have no money problems. My children are thriving. My life is not perfect. No one's life is perfect. But I live a wonderful life now, putting myself and my children first now.

If you divorced, then by definition you did not put your kids first, you put YOURSELF first, you narcissistic creep.

Unless, of course, your ex was actually beating them, which I doubt.

And in any case, the OP does not say her husband is doing anything abusive, so divorce would not be "putting the kids first".

I don't get it. Everyone who has kids and gets a divorce is a narcissistic creep? It seems that the hostility towards a decision that lots of couples make seems a over-the-top on this thread. My guess is it's primarily coming from the same poster since I can't imagine so many people are so unhinged. I know quite a few adults whose parents divorced when they were children and who weren't traumatized or found it to be a huge relief.

Uh huh. I am the adult child of divorce, and I haven't told anyone, except my therapist, about the lifelong pain and psychological trauma it caused me. Why do you think every child of divorce would unburden their inner demons to you?

No, "everyone" with kids who divorces is not a narcissistic creep, but the vast majority of them are. Especially the ones who divorced due to vague feelings of unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The possibility of a divorced woman with three school-aged children finding married bliss with a "dream lover" are pretty slim. I'd stick with the guy you like who is the father of your children.

Actually, this is a pretty stupid statement. Most women around here remarry happily. The trick is finding someone who is a match - roughly equal in terms of age, education, career and/or income. And looks, of course, like it or not.

As a male who was divorced with 2 kids and got remarried, I doubt that is true. Older, established, divorced men with kids have way more dating choices than their female counterparts. I remarried to someone 10 years younger with no kids. I would have never remarried to a women who had 3 kids. Nor would I have dated such a person. Way too much baggage.

Does your new wife think of your kids as baggage?

Exactly my thoughts. What a horrible way to label children. They are people, with hearts and feelings. How dare you call them baggage!!!! What a jerk.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Well, I'm not sure if OP should divorce based on the information she provided here. But I am a divorced person and I want to say that no step children hate me. My beau has no ex from hell. I have no money problems. My children are thriving. My life is not perfect. No one's life is perfect. But I live a wonderful life now, putting myself and my children first now.

If you divorced, then by definition you did not put your kids first, you put YOURSELF first, you narcissistic creep.

Unless, of course, your ex was actually beating them, which I doubt.

And in any case, the OP does not say her husband is doing anything abusive, so divorce would not be "putting the kids first".

I don't get it. Everyone who has kids and gets a divorce is a narcissistic creep? It seems that the hostility towards a decision that lots of couples make seems a over-the-top on this thread. My guess is it's primarily coming from the same poster since I can't imagine so many people are so unhinged. I know quite a few adults whose parents divorced when they were children and who weren't traumatized or found it to be a huge relief.