Why do men treat their ‘second’ family kids better?

[Fizzleaway]

Posting this on behalf of a friend who is upset by a situation she is in.

She has one child with her ex, they never got married and were together for about 2 years. He split with her and moved on quickly and went on to have 2 more children and married the women he had two kids with.

How he treats the children is so different. He will do anything for the two children he lives with but he hardly does anything with his child with my friend.

She’s really struggling to understand why he doesn’t bother much and what she can do to make him more interested.

Because they are getting sex from the woman in that house, men tend to treat the step children better even... because they are having sex with that woman.

It's that simple, men are disgusting.

I wish I knew. My bio father dumped my mother, my brother, and I, and went on to make a whole new family, all the while completely ignoring my brother and I. We have never had a relationship with him.

I think some men are only interested in getting their dick wet and basically just want to keep the woman that they are currently with happy/

PP are probably correct sadly.

Yup my dad wasn't a brilliant dad but okay for 40odd years.

Remarried and dotes on new wife's adult children.... It really hurts.

My ex did this he hasn’t seen my eldest for 20 years. I read it’s a form of immaturity, they can’t see the child as separate to the mum , our relationship ended , so he ended the relationship with his child .

Was the baby with your friend planned? Were they in a long term relationship?

My ex did the same. He sees them to take them birthday and Christmas shopping and fucks off for the rest of the year with his new family. Twats.

I think some men are only really invested in the children of their current relationship, and they to some extent 'forget' the ones from the past relationship, just as they moved on from their mother. Not consciously in some cases.

Some men seem to think that children are an extension of women. That's why many women become the default parent.

The result is that, when the man stops loving/moves on from the woman, he essentially moved on from the children too because the are part of her.

Sadly I also think it is just 'easier'. Maintaining a relationship with the first set of children is hard and messy and means dealing with the ex which they just don't want to. It means effort whereas these new kids are RIGHT HERE and already have a woman to take on most of the care that's also RIGHT HERE and also seems to like them and shags them too as a bonus.

It's laziness, sometimes guilt if the man breaks up the family, but mostly laziness.

Because a lot of men are selfish bastards.

I don’t want this to be true but in the main I’ve found it to be very accurate.

Unfortunately I think for some men their relationship with the kids is dependent upon how committed they were to the mother. He and your friend were in a relationship for 2 years, she got pregnant but he didn't marry her He married this other woman. So it seems like he was more invested in the relationship with the other woman than he was with your friend. People like to espouse that a marriage is just a piece of paper but it's not, it's a legally binding contract with real legal and financial ramifications if you dissolve it.

Because men are not interested in their children full stop.
I’m convinced men only really have kids to keep their partners happy.
it’s not that they are particularly interested in the kids more the fact they are with that woman and so they will pretend to invest in the kids because they are living with that woman.
To put it bluntly they will only be interested in their kids if they are in a relationship with the mother. Otherwise they wouldn’t bother at all.

Depends on the circumstances but my ex, although on one level still involved with our teens, left for ow when they were toddlers and did all the classic script stuff. he really wanted to just be able to ride off into the sunset with his "soulmate" and the first family is a constant thorn in the side on that. His priorities lie with her and her children (not his) and all arrangements revolve around logistics at their end, mine are never the top of the list. Sadly in the last couple of years they've started to realise this and are seeing less of him. Hell never ever take ownership of that though. He blames me, them, my family, anyone but him. Sad really.

Not sure about the sex part. DH and I have been married 15 years and our sex life has dwindled to a drought.

DH was married before (for 13 years) and had a son, who remained with him after his ex left. I wouldn't say that he treats our DD any better, though she may have more, because we're older, this also goes for time.

I never married before, but had a DS young, he may think that his litter sister gets more, which is probably true, as I was younger and a single mother. I also had less tome, due to still carving out my own life, I also used to socialise more.

None of this means that we love our first children less, luckily neither resent their sister.

In my experience, this is not true. There are men who love all of their children and are anything but selfish bastards.

Not all. DH was the one who really wanted a child. I wasn't bothered. Similarly, he was keen to get married, when I would have preferred not to.

I have it on both sides. My parents divorced, remarried and had more children. In their own words they “did it properly” the second time.

Not all men are arseholes and most do love their kids

Most men I know don’t do anything with their kids without a female there to supervise.
If the wife is away, they just take them to their grandmothers for the day.

Most men I know with kids spend time with their kids when their partner is away.

It’s weird though. Many posters complain that their partner idolises their previous children and thinks they can do no wrong and acts like a Disney dad even when they have a new child. See the step-parenting board!

There must be two types of dad or maybe the new wife is not as happy as the ex seems to think.

How long after the child was born did they break up? It's not the child's fault but he probably didn't want a child with your friend and being a man he gets to walk away from the responsibility so he did. He has contact with the child, so he hasn't completely abandoned them. Why hasn't she got a formal arrangement in place? Specifically one where the only contact he has with her is via a parenting app and he can collect child from school.

He married and has children with someone else, they have a more committed relationship because they got married, children were likely planned and he's still living with them - it's not that unusual for people living with their children to treat them differently from children they don't live with. Regardless of all the claims that every child should be treated equal, in reality it's not possible.

I think a lot of men only focus on one thing at a time. For some guys that's doting on the first family and barely doing anything h for the second where as other basically ditch the first family and dote on the second.

It's the same reason some ditch their kids when they get a new girlfriend