To think this is a snobby view?

[MiaMarshmallows]

Friend has been married for 35 years and never divorced.
She said the other day ' I find it so depressing when I see photos of a couple with their children and then less than a year later, said couple have split and there's a new woman/man in place acting like a new family all being photographed together. '

Just got my back up a bit.

You know you rushed into it which is why her comments got your back up.

I completely agree with your friend. I don’t think blended families have a bad reputation at all, just those that introduce their kids to every partner they meet after only bring them a short while.

@Diverseopinions

The responses on this thread are fairly uniform and come from a place of sincerity. Concern for the children comes across. The point about pacing the new relationship to suit the children is very practical advice. I agree with the spirit of the comments.

What I say though, is why then are posters on Mumsnet always urging wives to ltb , after first getting ducks in a row? I'm not talking about situations when there has been domestic violence; gambling addiction; infidelity but more problems around the practical assigning of chores and tactfulness which I would have thought would fall under the heading: 'Things which can be worked on' . Why is the advice to be found on MN "You're better off without them"?
.Also, MN seems to demonstrate that a lot of poor wives and partners are deserted for a new woman. People are often posting in distress and pain about infidelity. How can you work hard on a marriage when your partner is likely to give you STDs and is destroying your morale?

I think, but don't know, that some new partnerships end up as living together because it makes for a unit which can sustain the job-sharing and financial load of living. (I might be wrong. ) If a couple really do split and don't interact and chat, it can mean one parent struggling on not much money, struggling to find care for the kids when they are ill. Some parents have had two kids in the expectation that the marriage will last and what was planned for the kids will happen for them. If the ex, let's say ex husband , gets together with another who says "Your ex is expecting too much. We can't afford to.pay more" , then how can they keep things going? Nice if you're a well-paid lawyer with money for nannies. ( And I'm glad many mother's do have successful careers: good on them and thanks for their informed legal advice often given for free on this forum. But otherwise, not keeping two houses going, but sharing a house with a new partner must sound like a secure option.

. IMO , historically, utility bills, rent and mortgages have risen over the years to accommodate the reality of women and men both working full time. We won't return to the 50s, 60s and 70s when people like my parents lived on one full-time wage, had a gardener occasionally and home-help, when we kids were little. And my dad was a schoolteacher - not a big earner.

I think cementing the new partnership with a baby fairly speedily is something you can decide not to do and something which I think diverts existing resources from the older kids, and which maybe complicates things. Not a must to do this, I think. Kids are individuals and should be put first at all times.

What I say though, is why then are posters on Mumsnet always urging wives to ltb , after first getting ducks in a row?

Well 'LTB' and 'get together with a new bloke as quickly as possible' are two completely different things aren't they?

Yes, money is nearly always tight when couples split but bringing your new squeeze into the children's lives is never going to be in their interest.

@BilboBercow

Not sure it's snobbery but I just want to say imo it's not a bad thing that marriages don't last anymore.

I don't think people used to stay together because they knew how to work at a marriage. Mostly they stayed together because women had a lack of options so just put up with men's shite behaviour. Now we have our own careers, a better benefits system, less stigma so it's easier to leave an arsehole.

Absolutely agree on that part of it. I hate the “people used to stick it out” nostalgia. No, women stuck it out, being cheated on, being hit, being kept short of cash, or else just plain lonely. They often couldn’t afford to escape or were under too much family and social pressure to stay.

Men generally got things their way.

Easier divorce and financial independence gave women an escape route.

What OP’s friend is correct about is hastily reconstituted families. What’s the rush? Parents can quietly date. No need to involve the DC in the first couple of years.

@BilboBercow

Not sure it's snobbery but I just want to say imo it's not a bad thing that marriages don't last anymore.

I don't think people used to stay together because they knew how to work at a marriage. Mostly they stayed together because women had a lack of options so just put up with men's shite behaviour. Now we have our own careers, a better benefits system, less stigma so it's easier to leave an arsehole.

That's got nothing to do with a new partner being forced on children very soon after a breakup though.

@BilboBercow

Not sure it's snobbery but I just want to say imo it's not a bad thing that marriages don't last anymore.

I don't think people used to stay together because they knew how to work at a marriage. Mostly they stayed together because women had a lack of options so just put up with men's shite behaviour. Now we have our own careers, a better benefits system, less stigma so it's easier to leave an arsehole.

Why do people stay together now? Because they have those options and work at their marriage. Nobody’s marriage lasts without effort

I agree with your friend. Yes, marriages break down. But over the course of a year, to have your parents marriage break down, and have a new partner as part of your family is too much in my opinion.

With a marriage breakdown, I wouldn’t expect to see new partners in “family” photos with the DC in the space of less than a year.

Not snobby, just sensitive to children’s emotions.

It is not snobby but it is judgemental.

That isn’t remotely “Snobbish” but a wise observation on modern marriages/relationships
They last a couple of years after kids are born, and no one seems to put the effort in as our grandparents seemed to do.

The losers are the children.
All social classes are affected, so hardly snobbish to make such an observation.

I can see why it got your back up a bit, but I also see her point of view that it can be depressing to 1) see a once happy looking couple split up - especially if it's for depressing reasons, it's sad to see others hurting and 2) to see a blended family where it seems like the new partner is being portrayed as taking the place of one of the parents so quickly, especially if older children who are aware are involved. There are a lot of risks and potential worries there.

I think part of why it gets a bad rep is now there are a lot of people who grew up having dealt with that and there are a lot of mixed results which is why there is a lot of mixed advice out there. I think my spouse had a better deal, even having moved directly from living with both parents to with his mum and step-father because they made an effort for the step-father to have a new role rather than taking on his father's role, even when his father couldn't be arsed. Reading this thread I realized there aren't any of those posed photos that I had to go through. There were still bumps, but it seems better than when my father started dating again, about a year or so after their last separation, and when he brought them into our lives, it was expected that the new partner was in my mother's role. Pictures were taken for my paternal grandparents' walls and I saw my mother erased. Even hating and fearing the woman at the time, it was really disorientating. I felt like part of me and what had happened to me was being erased, and that maybe it was only a matter of time before the rest of me was erased as well, that soon enough I wouldn't be good enough to be there either since apparently we're all so interchangeable. Not entirely rational, I was a child and I now get why somewhat why they were doing it, but I really wish they'd considered that my siblings and I were children who had gone through a lot and stability was what we needed more than they needed to parade pretty pictures of us around (and not pushed my father into the idea he needed to be in a relationship for our good, but that's an entirely different issue). I'd've rather just had the single pictures of us with no family picture of us on the wall at all if her image made them sad than those posed ones with my mother replaced. It felt like the image of happiness and normality was more important than me and that my reality was too ugly for them. Even now, decades later, no matter how much my father says otherwise, I feel that's how my paternal family sees me.

Another coming on to say that long term marriages (I've been married 40 years) are definitely not 'luck' - they take determination hard work and a bloody good sense of humour !

Because the 'people' includes the most important ones of all in the situation, which are the children.

Honestly, the amount of times I hear parents and their new partners claiming the child is amazingly happy with the brand new set up, only a few months after their parents have split makes me sick.

Even the child has no idea how happy they really are because it's been such a whirlwind and upheaval in their life.

I agree. And it makes me really judge the parent who says it. They may as well say, 'I pay no attention to my child because it would inconvenience me to do so.' Unless a child is escaping from an abusive parent, they are not usually happy to have their stable life uprooted, to have to move between homes, to have to live with strangers.

What a staggering number of parents don't seem to understand is that children are capable of putting up a great front of being happy to protect their parents' wellbeing. Children are very protective of parents and very good at pretending to be happy while feeling sick and low inside even at a very young age.

While I can certainly understand the point about people rushing into new relationships too quickly on a wider point YANBU as there is very definitely snobbery around being divorced. IME there is a hierarchy, married to first husband at the top, married to second husband in the middle then single mother right at the bottom.

Some people felt entitled to make the most outrageously snobby and intrusive questions and comments when I was a single parent (do your children have to share a bedroom and you're very young to be a single mum, no offence but I don't think young women make good mums, being two of my absolute favourites). Mostly they weren't aware that I was earning more than most of their joint family incomes on my own. That's before the odd sleazy husband thinking you're desperate enough for them to have a crack at you when they're drunk and some of the wives giving you the cold shoulder because they think you'd be desperate enough to accept. I'm not surprised people want to get into new relationships quickly.

I am now remarried, have been with dh for nearly 10 years didn't introduce anyone to my children for 8 years btw but I still see it in action now with the single mums at school.

YABU - it isn't snobby - it is depressing for everyone involved

I find it depressing, too, the way so many rush into bamboozling their kids into a blended family set up and need to procreate with every partner they get with (most don't bother marrying at all).

Your friend has a point. Her tone might have been more smug than snobby though.

I don’t see what your friend said is snobby at all, to me she is stating a very valid point about life today, I call it broken Britain.

I always find the ‘more love to go around’ comment so.... I dunno.
If this is what makes you feel better about your family circumstances op then go for it, sometimes relationships just don’t work out. Can you hand on heart say that your children wouldn’t ever jump at the chance to live with both of their parents though?

You clearly feel sad about the situation so don’t get your back up or call people snobby for thinking the same way just because they’re not going through it right now.

I agree with her. It is sad.

I was a child in a blended family, and I was dreadfully unhappy to the point I’m now NC with my mother and stepfather. Of course, they insisted that I genuinely couldn’t be happier with the set up, when that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

@ThePriceIsNotRight

I agree with her. It is sad.

I was a child in a blended family, and I was dreadfully unhappy to the point I’m now NC with my mother and stepfather. Of course, they insisted that I genuinely couldn’t be happier with the set up, when that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

This is a good point. I see a lot of it on SM. Lots of #blessed, my BF is so amazing with my kids #family. When the reality has been less stunning for the kids.

BTW I am always very happy when someone divorces an arse and when they meet someone nice. It's the insertion into family life that worries me.

@WorraLiberty I voted yanbu because like the OP's friend, I've also stood back and had a view on it. For different reasons I think. But I can't judge the OP's friend. The OP calls this snobby and I don't think snobby is quite right for most people who have stood looking at a situation and having an opinion.......... I'm just one more. My view is how the hell do you make that work, cos damn it's gonna be hard. But I am still standing there gawping having an opinion on somebody else's life1

Worraliberty

Ltb and moving in a new partner are two different things, to be sure. But on this thread, posters have categorically stated that lasting marriages owe their success to hard work - e.g. working through difficulties.

I also thought that it was good to get another point of view into the mix and to think.about the reasons why some find themselves in blended arrangements. Some factors are choice and even selfishness. Other factors to do with life's demands.

Personally, it wouldn't be my choice to move someone in. But I can see that there are pressures on people to cope with childcare on their own.

The best arrangement would be for separated couples to continue to work harmoniously for the sake of their shared kids, making sure they both make time in their lives for childcare and try to make enough money to support the new arrangement.
Also, because human beings aren't perfect, I think when people marry for the first time, they should do their planning around number of kids to have and size of house to buy etc, building into their calculations, the possibility of divorce. As is often advised on MN, women should try to work and keep up their training, in case they ending up being on their own with the kids ( even with joint custody). They should not be too romantic, but rather plan to worst case scenario as well as best.

@MrsTerryPratchett I dated this guy a while ago never had any plans to live with him, but in the length of time I was with him, his sister split up from her first two kids father and got together with somebody else and now they're having a baby. I said to him, how did she do that? I meant, like, how did she go out and date? where did she meet him? How come she wasn't mired in court cases like I was! Did she have free time? Did her x take their kids so she was free to meet somebody else? did he contribute? Did the new bf not feel scared of merging his life with the life of a mum of two unsupported by their own father kids. I had so many questions and I think my x thought I was being ''snobby''' as well! Which obviously I wasnt. I have been a single parent a long time. It can be lonely. But i never fell in to a new relationship that had legs

I agree with your friend

I fully appreciate good families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, my mum had to cope on her own, and we were a very happy unit. I cannot see anything wrong with the statement your friend has made though. From experience, blended families can be challenging for kids and it can be hard to be asked to take it in your stride if you are a child.

@Gilly12345

I don’t see what your friend said is snobby at all, to me she is stating a very valid point about life today, I call it broken Britain.

Yep, this exactly