To think men often 'do better' for their 2nd family?

Maybe gained the wisdom to get with a better partner for them, so they’re happier with life overall and enjoy it, rather than waking up every day full of regret, leading to resentment.

I mean…he was also on heroin and never left the bedroom, Sean was basically raised by nannies.

I noticed this trend was I was younger- I witnessed my parents get divorced and my dad was with his second wife much longer (still together decades later!) and they have double the children and he seems pretty involved in their lives.

A few of my friends also have parents that remarried and they have found that their dads relationships have been much better the second time - they seem to really “love” the second wife and their second pair of kids - BUT with the fiends that I share this experience with (yes it’s a small sample size) we have also admitted that our mums are pretty toxic and in hindsight, when our mums have remarried, they have found men that better suite their personalities.

I think being married young before you really know yourself is hard - and I think it takes a lot to sustain a marriage as you both change and grow - I know people who have been together at a young age and they’ve all had this make or break period where they make a choice to stay together and make things work.

I don’t know that many people who are on their second marriage, but….one guy I do know has married again after his first marriage ended in divorce, mainly due to his addiction problems.

His ex wife is also happily married again but I often wonder if she wonders why he couldn’t do better for her and their child. He is the model husband and father now, very present and supportive.

My father made more effort second time around, and I think he feels that absolved all his wrongdoings but it certainly didn't in my eyes.

In the case of my ex - my DC's father - he's just as awful as a parent second time round as far as I can tell.

They're more likely to really want their second family as well ime

Yanbu x

I don’t think that you can generalise.
For every man that is nice to his new partner’s kids because it makes the relationship with new partner easier, there will be others who enjoy living with the kids but not having to pay financially or do much practically because the mum will do most of the work.
There’s also as many men who are Disney Dad with his kids from first wife because there’s a fundamental lack of bond and he think that money and treats will solve things as men who focus on kids with second wife because focusing on the kids is a way to keep on getting sex.

With my XH (who remarried but didn't have more children after we separated), it was because his new wife was better suited to him. I was too keen to let him off while his second wife kept on to him, made him do his share of the housework and cooking. With me he would get shitty if asked to help around the house or with the kids ('I go to WORK!') but his next wife read him the riot act. She was a lot stronger woman than me and that was what he needed.

My father is a much better parent to my half sister than he ever was to me and my Dsis but that's largely to do with the fact he's happy and he's been allowed to be hands on. My own mother would hide us whenever he came and refused to let us have any relationship with him which I'll always hate her for because we shouldn't have been pawns in her revenge game. My Dsis has zero memories of him growing up because she was much younger than me when they split, it's had a terrible effect on her over the years and she's undergone therapy and takes antidepressants due to mourning what could and should have been.

When I see so many bitter women on MN it really does get to me because yes, some men are shits but all this point scoring between parents really does have a knock on effect for the children when they grow up. Both me and my Dsis have found parenting challenging because we have had nothing to take from our own childhoods.

I don't hate my half sister but sometimes I do wonder how my life could have been different, she went to uni and had the perfect upbringing and it's hard not to wonder what could have been. Me and my Dsis have done alright for ourselves career wise but we seriously lacked the parenting we needed.

I've also noticed this too. Probably a combination of being that bit older, more mature, plus knowing what will be expected of them.

I think the reasons probably variable. I think it can be true of women too, BTW.

Sometimes, it will be because the person (male or female) has matured and learned about their strengths and weaknesses, so they do a better job as a partner and parent. They may also have chosen a partner better suited to them, so fewer conflicts/problems within their relationship- I think this leads to a more harmonious home life, which is reflected in the wider family dynamic/relationship with children etc.

They may be a less anxious/distant etc parent because they feel more confident- perhaps again due to being more mature/knowing where they went wrong before, or because they have a partner with whom they work better as a team.

I know that as I have progressed in my career, I have more leeway/control over my hours/working patterns and so can be around to do more than when my children were younger. I think if I had young children now, in some ways, I would be a far more relaxed, physically present and less harried parent.

Additionally, as we are financially more secure, we can afford to outsource some things, giving us time we would have spent doing those things with our family or our own hobbies etc. I think this definitely makes a difference to our relationship with each other, and changes the atmosphere in our home. That won’t apply to every couple, but these are examples of why things are different at different times in our lives.

I think there is a tendency towards an assumption on MN that men are nearly always the reason a relationship fails/at fault (whether they instigate the split or not), which I don’t think is accurate. I suspect lots of relationships/marriages end because the 2 partners were not entirely well suited or able to meet each others needs from the start, which may come to a head over one partners actions/lack thereof, but was never just down to one partners failings. I’m not saying men are never solely at fault, just as women can be solely at fault. I just think a lot of the time, both partners did not chose someone who is the best choice for them the first time round, but do learn from their mistakes and chose a more suitable long-term partner second time round.

I think that sometimes men feel more pressure to make a second marriage/parenting work, because if they screw it up twice they look foolish. Especially if they abandoned and hurt their first family. They need to prove that the pain they caused was justified .

If a relationship breaks down, its because one or the other isn't happy in the relationship. If a second relationship works, its because both are happy in the relationship.
It might be easier to accept that your ex partner was immature or such like, than accept that they were never fully committed?

@Finerthingsinlife that poster literally opened with in my experience 😆😆

Not in my own case. My ex, whilst a terrible partner was a great dad, could not have been more hands on and present.

He's got another child now, 14 years younger than my son, unplanned, child has SEN and not in mainstream school. I'm told he uses any excuse to get time to himself.

Sweeping generalisation.

The couple I know, the woman is now the career lead and the dad has taken a step back to focus on the kids. He does school runs, cooks dinner and mostly does the house work.

sorry that doesn't fit your power imbalance narrative but it's true.

Both very career focused who decided to switch roles. He has adult DDs from first marriage so in a position to take that step.

The one I know is more present but it's more of accepting his fate. He has confessed to DH he should never have left his wife, as the drudgery is the same but with more agg due to blended families.

Same experience for me too , and i knew of the toxicity in his marriage at the time without him being aware that i did.
Sadly for the kids involved i think men are better fathers when they have a loving relationship and live with the mother of their children.

Ime, the fathers on their second round of kids, do so with a woman a decade younger than them, vs the first wife being of an equal age, and sadly along with the age gap of the second wife, is the subservience the men seek as they didn't get their own way enough with the first wife. Second wives seeing an older man tend to do so because they like the dominant type, who with age also tend to have more wealth (albeit they have to pay maintenance - but that will end once the first round of kids hit 18, and then the second wife will benefit from the better finances of the older man).

That hasn't been my experience. DH is as good a dad to dd1 & 2 as he was to DSD. Although he was never married to her mum, and had her when he was 18. His brother on the other hand seems to get divorced and remarried every few years, I've lost count of how many kids he's got. Shit father to all of them.

This - there's a lot of people out there who get into serious relationships, get married and have kids without any kind of real thought or understanding of good communication, treating your partner with respect, domestic life skills, how to parent etc. By 'failing' at the first marriage they have learned.
I've heard a lot of divorce lawyers say that men will often say their wives left them out of the blue, or over nothing, then when questioned it becomes clear the wife had raised issues over and over again. Maybe at some point the message does go in and they think 'ah, better not do that, it used to annoy Sarah'

I like to think that people learn as they go through life and adjust their behaviour accordingly. I'd find it more surprising if they did worse the second time around.

I've seen this happen a lot.

Second time round they know what they want and what went wrong the first time. They're usually older and more financially secure, so are much more relaxed about parenting. They also seem to look for life partners who are more attuned to them, rather than just embarking with optimism.

Also seen a few high flyers happily take on the SAHD role and absolutely excel at it.

Happiest couple I know had two kids when she was late 30s and he was late 40s. Kids are happy, settled and they are a really solid family unit.

So yes, definitely a thing in my social circle.

Same situation here

I think in some cases, divorce was a crisis that forced them to evaluate their lives, and they make a conscious decision to do a better job the second time around. (One of the more dramatic examples being John Lennon going from being a largely absent father with Julian to a stay-at-home dad with Sean.) Other times they’re maybe just older and more mature, or they have more emotional energy to be a better parent once they’re no longer dealing with an unhappy marriage.