I have been reading a couple of websites for stepparents, and have become increasing horrified at the high percentage who come right out and admit that they hate their stepchildren. Many have forced their spouses (usually husbands, as most of the posters are women) to push their (the spouse's) children out of their homes and lives.

This is not limited to OW's. Yes, there was one women who whined about not being accepted by her husband's family, just because he left his wife for her when his wife was pregnant with her fourth child, but many of these women at least claim not to have come into their now husbands' lives until years after the divorce. Some married widowers, yet still feel threatened by a picture of the wife hanging in the living room. It is not like he is going to go back to her.

I was my H's second wife, as he had been married briefly, with no kids, at 21. They had only been together a couple of months before his wife left him. I never asked or encouraged him to give away their wedding presents, a couple of which we still had until he left our family, a quarter of a century later. When he wanted to give away a piece of furniture that he never really liked that she built for him, I felt really bad for her, because I knew how it felt to give him something that he was disappointed in - although he never rejected such gifts outright, it was obvious how he felt about them.

Why are these women so threatened by any reminders of his previous life, especially his kids? Why did they even marry (many apparently would not do again so if they had to do it over). What is wrong with him still loving his first wife, especially if he is widowed? I never doubted that my husband continued to love his first wife, at least to some degree. She was part of his life, part of who he was.

as long as i knew my husband was totally 100% dedicated to and in love with me, i would not feel threatened by an ex. and, if he had children from a previous marriage i would not feel threatened if the ex wife's pic was say, in the hchild's bedroom. it is the child's mother and they should be able to have pix of her or the 2 of them (the child and mother) together in their room. do i think pix of the ex should be hanging all over the house? heck no. but in the child's room for the child, yes.

as far as love and feelings for an ex.... well... i had feelings for mine at one point or i would not have married him. i am grateful for the 2 children he gave me but that is about all i feel for him. i have no feelings of love or anything like that for him whatsoever. i would not think my new husband would feel any love or feelings for his ex either. if he does he should not be getting married. feelings of "thank you" for this beautiful child? yes, that i get. i would be sure the person i married loved my kids and could think of them as an extension of me. not be their father, they have a father. but love and care for them. and i would do the same with their children. i am not thier mother, they have one. but i would care for them when they were with us and treat them as my own when they were in our care.

i think some children resent a parent remarrying and give the new stepparent a very hard time. i know i did when i was a teenager. i gave my step dad a run for his money! i regret doing it now, but a lot of kids get angry and do that. i think that is where some of the problems come in.

just my opinion.
mlhb

Hey Nellie,

I guess my question would be are they teens? Like mlhb I can see (and have seen) how teens and pre-teens make a step's life miserable. I think Harley even recommends that parents don't remarry when the children are between the ages of 10 and 16. It puts a lot of stress on the relationship for both partners.

As far as pictures, etc., my fiance has a whole box full of wedding photos from his first marriage and I don't know - I have mixed feelings. To him they might just be memorabilia of when he was younger and a lot of his friends might be in those photos as well...

I helped him with his move and found a drawer full of postcards and stuff. There were probably half a dozen post cards from his ex (WW) and they were signed "love ex". They went in the trash and unless he went trash picking they are history. I'm sorry but I can't stand the thought of him hanging on to "love ex" post cards from after they were divorced. It took me a year and a half to get him to throw out champagne glasses etched with their names that he had on display out in his dining room.

It's not the fact that he still cares for his ex - it's the degree. He cares so much that he still talks to her frequently and hangs on to memorabilia that she and her husband (OM) send from their travels. I guess I feel somewhat threatened because I worry that he asks her for advice.

In order for our relationship to work, this 40-something year old man must for the first time start being a family man and independent behaviors are his worst LB (IMHO). She tells him that he is changing and it plays on his insecurities about losing his identity.

I was never a jealous person but I was cheated on and reading Harley's stuff has made me super sensitive to "secret" relationships with the opposite sex. Since I'm not around when he talks to the ex and because I know that he does, it seems that it is a big secret and that bugs me.

V.

Until very recently, I thought I wanted to get remarried. But now, I think probably not. At least for awhile. Too complicated. My kids are 12 and 15 and I can see now how it just makes it too difficult.

Although the problems get worse when the kids are teens, some of these poor hated children are preschoolers. Some rarely see their father, yet are still resented.

Take a look at these sites:

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/step/

http://www.steptalk.org/tracker


Well, it's a good thing I wasn't planning on remarrying anyway. During the seven years since my H left until 5 years from now, I have always had/will have at least one child in that age range.

Why? Maybe you love the other person and want to spend your life with them??? LOL.....seriously, there are cases of the family not all getting along, but there are also cases where it works out fine. Im remarried.....my wife and I both have kids from our previous marriage. We just had a lil one last week.....everyone is happy, excited, and love one another. A stable household can be better than a child witnessing his parents fighting, and hating one another. A child seeing love in a home is what's needed.

As you know, the "parents fighting, and hating one another" is a stereotype of marriages that end in divore that does not reflect the norm. In most families where the parents divorce, the frequency/intensity of fighting is about the same as that in families that stay together. It is far more common for the infidelity and sometimes subsequent desertion to come out of the blue to the other spouse and to the kids.

From what I have read everywhere, the "everyone is happy, excited and love one another" stereotype also rarely reflects reality.

well, it is called life and learning how to adjust to change. in a perfect world all marriages would stay together, there would be no infidelity, etc... my marriage ended for a number of reasons, one of them being infidelity. i would love to remarry in the next few years and if they had children that is fine. children need to learn to adjust as well to change. change happens all throughout life whether we like it or not.

i don't know the stats on how marriages go with step families involved and don't really care. if my sitch ends up having children who are resentful, etc, i would do anything i could to help. as a family you resolve these issues. i would never NOT remarry because children might be resentful. i love my kids but they do not rule and control my life. i am the adult and i make the decisions. if i marry a good man who is good to my children then there should be no problem. more problems will probably stem from my kids having to deal with the fact that their father was an unfaithful pig then they will have problems with me remarrying.

bottom line is, it is not a perfect world. my marriage did not work out. i will most likely remarry in the next few years and my children will be in their preteen years. if they don't like it, i will do what i can, we will do what we can as a family to get through out. counseling, whatever they need. but they do not control my actions and would not ever prevent me from remarrying. they will adjust, life is full of change, and they must learn to adjust with it.

mlhb

Actually, many psychologists and therapists say that preteen and early adolescence is the worst time to enter a stepfamily. Young children can adjust and older teens are emotionally and physically distancing from the family anyway, but early adolesence is a period of tumoil, sexual confusion, social awkwardness, etc. Throwing a blended family into the mix just adds trauma and confusion to an already tumultuous period.

I know you said you don't care what stats say on blended families, but you might want to take a look. You might also want to read some writings from children of divorce who talk about how much resentment and anger they felt toward parents who did what was best for themselves and said "oh, the kids will adjust."

The statistics I have seen indicate that about two-thirds of second marriages fail, often within 5 years. For example:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=258889

hoopsie, i am a child of divorce. i was 15 when my parents divorced and both remarried within the year. was i a complete brat to the stepparents? yes i was. just me being a teen and wanting to control things. i was not upset by my parents divorce, i wanted them to. both have been happily remarried for 20 years now. i would not have wanted them to miss out on this happiness just because i was being a rebellious teen and telling them not to remarry. i was being selfish and trying to be controlling. i was the child, they were the adults. i had not right to say they could not remarry and be happy.

nellie, why are you focussing on so much negative? anything is possible in any relationship. you could remarry someone with children and it could be terrible, or it could be great. you could marry someone with no children and the marriage could fail. good lord, no one would ever marry or remarry if they just sat around reading stats all day long. no thank you. i will fall in love, remarry at some point, they may or may not have children (my current R does have a child) and i will work had at a marriage and take my chances. how depressing to just sit around reading stats all day. get out there and enjoy life!
mlhb

Hmmm....Ok, well in my case......my EX and I were like oil and water. Anyhow, I can count on my one hand how many times my 2nd wife and I have gotten into it. Sometimes the more stable relationship IS better for the kids than parents going at one another constantly.

This is my HO, and it has been my case. Have a good one.

I agree with Dr. Laura on this issue--if you have children under the age of 18, there is no way you should be marrying ANYONE....

I've seen too many women attempt to put their H's before their children in this situation. I realize that you must meet your H's emotional needs, but too many times it becomes a power struggle between the kids and the H. In many cases, it's the stepparent that initiates all the drama with the kids.

I say absolutely NOT on this one. Whether or not the marriage failed, you have children to tend to...wait until they grow up to start a new romantic relationship!

That is the most stupid thing that ever drooled out of Dr. Lauras mouth. LOL.....Dr. Laura. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

That is utterly unrealistic.......so, you get divorced when your kids are 2. You are supposed to wait 16yrs to have any kind of relationship??? Heck, your kids will have a relationship before you do. Humans are not built that way.....you can just shut down the intimacy part of your life like a light switch for over a decade. LOL.....I guess.

startin over, i could not agree with you more!
the marriage my children saw between my ex and i was NOT what i wanted them to grow up believing a marriage was supposed to be. i believe, that when/if i remarry i will be sure it is a healthy relationship with lots of affection (one of my EN's) etc... they will live in an atmosphere and see what a marriage should really look like. if i stay alone and have no relationship or marriage until they are grown and gone, what example do they have to learn from? hopefully not the one their father has set for them, shacking up with the OW. it is one thing to explain to them what a marriage should be, but it is better for them to actually see it and live it.

don't know who dr. laura is, but she sounds like a quack to me.

mlhb

StartinOver and mlhb....She absolutely sounds like a quack and most anyone WITH children would agree with you on this one.

I don't think people sit around reading stats all day. But good parents ARE aware of issues that affect their children's development, education, health, etc. We use car seats because stats tell us that children are safer in them. We limit TV use because research tells us that heavy tv is linked to low grades, obesity, etc. We try to salvage marriages because many researchers tell us that children of divorce are more suspectible to at-risk behaviors.

Why wouldn't you pay attention to the opinion of family therapists, researchers and psychologists and use the information to help inform your parenting decisions? I don't call that depressing; I call it educated parenting.

i do feel i am a very good parent. i stayed in a marriage that was full of adultery far too long and worked at it using mb principles and all. but he was a serial cheater, a true narcissist and that was not changing. i agree, divorce can be terrible for children. mine are in counseling now and have been for the past year to help them deal with the divorce. we will continue with this counselor as long as necessary. and reuse her if we need to when the time comes that either one of us remarry. if the kids have problems adjusting to that they can see her again.

there is nothing wrong with reading stats but i am not going to NOT remarry just because some stats tell me it may or may not work out. pooh on that! i have been very open and honest with my children. they understand that mommy or daddy may remarry in the next year or 2. there may or may not be children from previous marriages involved. we talk about things very openly so they can start understanding now what the future quite probably holds. my children and i have very open lines of communication.

i just think it is crazy that someone be prevented from finding happiness with someone else or not remarry because a bunch of stats tell them it might not work out. again, it is called life and called change which is a part of life whether we like it or not. i would do everything in my power to make the transition smooth for my kids just as i did with the divorce sitch. i am their mother and i love them fiercely. but i am not going to not remarry just because maybe they won't like it. we would work on it together. and like i said, this topic already gets discussed at length between us and with their counselor. i am young, i want a chance at a happy marriage. i would even like another child. those are my plans and goals.

mlhb

And why not? My youngest was 3 when her father left - it has been going on 8 years now. I do not date and do not intend to, at least not until they are all adults. Why is that such a big deal? People expect teenagers to remain celibate for years, and adults should, in theory, have a lot more control over their hormones and emotions.


The moment a mother gets pregnant, the welfare of her children does, or at least should, control her actions. Parents do all manner of things that they would not otherwise do when it is in the best interests of their kids. Avoidance of remarriage is just one of them.

I honestly think at this point in my kids lives, it is better for me to wait to date/remarry. I am only 2 years away from having all 3 kids in college, so it is very easy for me to say this. I can't answer whether or not people with younger children should remarry: I think that each case is different, and it would depend on the situation. I think God is in control of this, and he can bring about the right person/situation to complement the family, if it is his will. Some may do better by waiting. I know in my case, it is best to wait.