Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The real question is, does anyone know someone who married someone with kids who is actually, legitimately happy and better off than they would have been if they remained single and/or held out to marry someone with no kids? I don't.

It's really, really hard to know because people aren't honest about this stuff, even to themselves. And because they don't know what the future will hold. They might have been fine with it when the children were minors but then when the children need substantial support as adults they aren't fine with it, for example. They might be thinking their stepchildren will care for them in old age and then it doesn't turn out that way. Marrying with an age difference is all fun and games at first, the hard part is back-loaded and you're doing elder-care while the second batch of kids is still teens. People don't really know how they feel about their choices until they see how it plays out.

No one in their right mind expects stepchildren to care for them in old age. Have You read the threads on this board by bio adult kids complaining about the burden of their bio parents? If bio kids resent their own parents, you can only imagine how they’d feel about the stepparent.

Don’t do it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom married my dad, who had two prior children. They hate her. Hate for no reason whatsoever - my dad was a widower when he met my mom, so it's not like she broke his first marriage. She's 80 years old now, they are in their 50s and still hate her, although she tried her hardest. One of them came over the other day and told me that my dad married down and she was never as beautiful as their mom; never mind that my parents have been married for 45 years now. Don't do it unless the kids are out of college.

They sound strange and bitter. The kids.

If it's true, it's still a reason marrying someone with kids is a bad plan. This mom tried and tried and did nothing wrong and still they hate her. Fun times! I wonder why she chose to marry into a family of people who hate her.

Well, she’ll inherit from their dad and then she’ll have the last laugh.

Anonymous wrote:I'm in my early 40s and don't like my mom's husband. They've been together several years and get along ok. He and I don't see eye to eye on almost anything and it causes a lot of stress for my mom.

I say that because the adult step relationship can be fraught even WITHOUT the major problems cited in this thread, (child support, addiction, ex spouses, travel soccer, orthodontia, etc.).

I’m the younger wife poster above. One of DH’s sons is an alcoholic and while he’s been in an out of treatment, DH doesn’t provide any financial support since his response would be “stop drinking and get a job”. When his son visits, he’s friendly and we just make small talk. I’m not a drama llama and I think that also helps keep everything cordial.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom married my dad, who had two prior children. They hate her. Hate for no reason whatsoever - my dad was a widower when he met my mom, so it's not like she broke his first marriage. She's 80 years old now, they are in their 50s and still hate her, although she tried her hardest. One of them came over the other day and told me that my dad married down and she was never as beautiful as their mom; never mind that my parents have been married for 45 years now. Don't do it unless the kids are out of college.

They sound strange and bitter. The kids.

If it's true, it's still a reason marrying someone with kids is a bad plan. This mom tried and tried and did nothing wrong and still they hate her. Fun times! I wonder why she chose to marry into a family of people who hate her.

Anonymous wrote:My mom married my dad, who had two prior children. They hate her. Hate for no reason whatsoever - my dad was a widower when he met my mom, so it's not like she broke his first marriage. She's 80 years old now, they are in their 50s and still hate her, although she tried her hardest. One of them came over the other day and told me that my dad married down and she was never as beautiful as their mom; never mind that my parents have been married for 45 years now. Don't do it unless the kids are out of college.

They sound strange and bitter. The kids.

Anonymous wrote:My mom married my dad, who had two prior children. They hate her. Hate for no reason whatsoever - my dad was a widower when he met my mom, so it's not like she broke his first marriage. She's 80 years old now, they are in their 50s and still hate her, although she tried her hardest. One of them came over the other day and told me that my dad married down and she was never as beautiful as their mom; never mind that my parents have been married for 45 years now. Don't do it unless the kids are out of college.

See, you think it's for no reason, but is it? Maybe they aren't telling you the reason. I dislike my father's wife because of the way she (and he) treated us, but I wouldn't tell her children about it. It would only make them sad and cause drama for everyone. Let them have their illusion. Maybe your family is like that too.

I'm in my early 40s and don't like my mom's husband. They've been together several years and get along ok. He and I don't see eye to eye on almost anything and it causes a lot of stress for my mom.

I say that because the adult step relationship can be fraught even WITHOUT the major problems cited in this thread, (child support, addiction, ex spouses, travel soccer, orthodontia, etc.).

My mom married my dad, who had two prior children. They hate her. Hate for no reason whatsoever - my dad was a widower when he met my mom, so it's not like she broke his first marriage. She's 80 years old now, they are in their 50s and still hate her, although she tried her hardest. One of them came over the other day and told me that my dad married down and she was never as beautiful as their mom; never mind that my parents have been married for 45 years now. Don't do it unless the kids are out of college.

Anonymous wrote:Sure, not everyone regrets it. But here's the thing, OP and defensive divorced people, that you need to understand. Divorced and remarried parents are not reliable narrators. And in these kinds of families, people actively deceive themselves and each other about their true feelings. People don't like to admit, even to themselves, that their choices haven't worked out or that their children and their partner don't get along. And if I were a step-parent (which I hope never to do) I'd probably pretend to be happier than I actually was because the alternative would be a lot of drama. I'm an ACOD and I pretend to be fine with my parents' new partners because that's easiest for me. But I actually think they both are a pain and bring lots of problems into the family, and I don't think they feel any better about me. We're all pretending for the sake of the person we love, who wants to have all of us in their lives.

So, OP and others, listen to us ACOD. We've had a front-row seat in all of this. Yes it sometimes works out okay if everyone tries really hard and the family has some money and some good luck. But these kinds of families are a higher level of difficulty and they are fragile. When they're hard, they're really hard-- and hardship can pop up at anytime even when the stepchildren are adults. Listen to us ACOD who tell you that even in the best-case scenario, when everyone genuinely tries and is kind, is still pretty unappealing after you've seen it up close.

But the same is true about biological families. Many people chose their spouse poorly and their kids grow up with toxic dynamics. The parents tell themselves they are fine and hiding that toxicity from the kids for their sake but they aren’t. Research shows that the kids who do the worst are those from in tact but high conflict marriages. Just don’t act like what you describe above is limited to biological families.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, don’t most divorced people have kids? And don’t most divorced people go on to remarry at least once? Not saying it is good idea, but nearly everyone that divorces goes on and remarried at some point

No, that was true 10-20 years ago. Plenty of divorced people do not marry now. The odds of remarriage are very low once you hit 40.

Not true at all. I know many people that marry after 40. Most of them are financially stable, so money isn’t an issue. They just found someone they love and want to spend the rest of their days together.

"Over nearly six decades, the remarriage rate for both men and women has decreased. Remarriage rates for men have dropped by more than half, from 90.9 remarriages in 1950 to 38.8 remarriages per 1,000 previously married men in 2017. Men’s remarriage rate peaked at 116.5 remarriages per 1,000 previously married men in 1970."

See charts:

https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/reynolds-ten-years-change-remarriage-fp-20-20.html

https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/schweizer-retreat-remarriage-fp-19-17.html#:~:text=Over%20nearly%20six%20decades%2C%20the%20remarriage%20rate%20for,remarriages%20per%201%2C000%20previously%20married%20men%20in%201970.

Remarriage Rate by Age Distribution, 1950-2017
Women’s remarriage rate steadily declined for every age group.
A consistent age gradient in remarriage rates exists. Women aged 15 to 24 had the highest remarriage rates, and those aged 45 and older had the lowest.
Figure 3. Women's Remarriage Rate by Age Group, 1950-2017


The majority of those who remarry are between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four (Kreider 2006).

Remarriage was more common 10-20 years ago and earlier when people married younger the first time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, don’t most divorced people have kids? And don’t most divorced people go on to remarry at least once? Not saying it is good idea, but nearly everyone that divorces goes on and remarried at some point

No, that was true 10-20 years ago. Plenty of divorced people do not marry now. The odds of remarriage are very low once you hit 40.

Not true at all. I know many people that marry after 40. Most of them are financially stable, so money isn’t an issue. They just found someone they love and want to spend the rest of their days together.

I’m a stepmother. It has been much harder than I ever imagined, and I went into it with very low expectations.

Read the book “Stepmonster”. Then adjust your expectations downward and decide if you can find happiness in that kind of role.

I am lucky. I got pregnant unexpectedly shortly after we married. So I cannot say that I totally regret the marriage, because my happiest thing came from it. But everything that I thought was okay pre-marriage: that my DH had been single (divorced) for years before I met him, that he was a devoted father, that he was not bitter about his ex…all of that fell apart once we were married. So much was a mirage that I had created. I soon found out all of the ways in which he was a terrible husband to me were also true of his first marriage. He reverted nearly immediately to hostility, conflict avoidance, the silent treatment…all the norm in his first marriage. And stepparenting went off the rails quickly, when my SD developed an addiction but my DH was in complete denial about it. I became the bad guy who was trashing his daughter rather than the only one who could see how much she was suffering and desperately tried yo get her help rather than enable her destruction. Even now that I was proven correct and SD has admitted that I was right all along, DH has never “forgiven” me for thinking so ooorly of his daughter. Even though she trusts and confides in me now in her late 20’s, there is a wedge between us that will never go away, because he does not and has never seen me as his ally. I don’t think he knows how to have an ally. He trusts no one.

We lost a lot of money down the rabbit hole of SD’s addiction, rehabs, tuition (for 6 semesters of dropping out…but don’t get me started)…nobody likes a Cassandra.

Anonymous wrote:Well, don’t most divorced people have kids? And don’t most divorced people go on to remarry at least once? Not saying it is good idea, but nearly everyone that divorces goes on and remarried at some point

No, that was true 10-20 years ago. Plenty of divorced people do not marry now. The odds of remarriage are very low once you hit 40.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m the second younger wife and DH’s sons are actually older than me although no one knows exactly what the age difference is 😀 I think I feel fine about it because DH has very good boundaries and doesn’t gift any money to anyone, not even me. I don’t have to work because DH is wealthy enough but we both decided that it would be better for me to have a professional identity. I work a hybrid telecommuting schedule and DH is retired and we spend a lot of time together. I will agree with the poster that says no one really cares for the second spouse…and for that reason, I am not emotionally invested in any of his children or grandchildren. I suppose they will be sucking up to me when I eventually become a widow and take over DH’s trust but I don’t think they’re thinking that far right now.

Wow with that age difference! However if you don't have kids of your own (ie your DH doesn't have 2 sets of kids) your situation is less complicated than most of the other blended families with a mix of step kids so I guess that situation works out in your favor too.

Yep. And if you don't have kids, you can be distant from the people who would otherwise be your child's only siblings.