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.

They're older and wiser. They're in a current relationship with the mother of the second family so there is constant support and encouragement for doing well. There are no negative feelings about the mother of those children. The children are younger and easier.

Unfortunately a child is an extension of the mother and if some men lose interest in the mother they want to distance themselves from the child.

As sad as it is for your friend, she wasn't the one for him and let's face it, having a child after only two years isn't that long and he wasn't married to her.

Now he's with someone who is 'the one' and in his mind it's only fair he puts her and their children first.

There may also be pressure on him from his wife to forget the past as well as him feeling guilty with his new children who he idolises that he already has a child with someone else

It's not nice for the first child but there is not much your friend can do if he's made up his mind that her and the child are a mistake from his past.

Not quite the same situation, but I read that when a man won't have a baby with his first wife, but then leaves her for a younger woman and does have kids with her, it's because he feels to be worthy of the younger woman, he has to do something extra to keep her, so has kids with her. Her youth makes her more "high value." So to match that and keep her he has kids. Whereas he didn't feel that was required with his first wife who was nearer his age and more equal to him.

The wife might also do a lot of encouraging and facilitating so it looks like he’s more involved but left to his own devices he’d be just as hands off with latest kids. Eg wife books tickets for family activity and says we are going to a show/themepark on Saturday, your friend sees happy family photos on sm but it’s nothing to do with him. Same with kids activities - mum signs kid up for football pays subs, washes kit he takes kid and looks involved.

As PPs have pointed out, their loyalties lie where they're getting sex. Not all men of course, but an awful lot of men.

I had a baby with my ex, we'd been together over a decade however started having problems just before I fell pregnant. Our baby was weeks old and off he zoomed to a woman in his friendship circle who he hadn't been very complimentary of in the past, however she offered sex, which he wasn't getting from me at that time. Along comes a new baby with said woman while ours was only 1 year old and while he's an OK dad to our child, it's EOW and he absolutely dotes on this new baby.

Ime men love and parent the kids of the woman they are with, it doesn't matter if the kid is theirs or not, and they can easily walk away because they associate the kids with the woman rather than themselves.

I agree with the posters who say the bloke plays daddy to the kids of the woman he's fucking.

Whether he's their father or not in some cases. That's why you see men ignoring their actual children while being superdad to the children of their current partner.

I don't think such men care about any of the children and will walk away from the second lot too if their romantic relationship ends.

Agree.
Dh loves all the kids.

Sadly this ☝

My dad is like this. He is onto to his third family. He runs round after them non stop but doesn’t bother with me. Fuck him. To be honest your friend needs to build a life without him. My mum always wanted to keep things nice but it just left me constantly feeling hurt by him.

Because some very inadequate men are only capable of investing in their children to the same extent as they are invested in the children's mother. Deadbeats.

My ex will claim it's because I'm a shit mum who shouldn't have had DC. So shit that I've always been there, he sees then as and when he can be bothered (about 3 times in the last 4 years). I'm so shit that of course he took me to court for custody so they didn't suffer my terrible parenting. <sarcasm>

As far as I can tell it's because he gets sex with his current partner, and his "not his fault" she got pregnant 3 times.

Because selfish shit third-rate men (so that’s quite a big proportion of them) treat the children in their lives as well as they need to to keep in with the woman warming their bed and warming their dinner.

If he splits up with her, those children will also lose value and will come below himself, and also the requirements of any new woman he wants to keep sweet.

He deserves to fall in a shark tank.

It does often seem to be a case of "out of sight out of mind" doesn't it?

When I was 14 my own father looked me in the eyes and ignored me when I happened to be in his place of work. This was about 4 years after him being absent, no bday/xmas cards. He’d re-married and had 2 ivf babies (not his sperm) to please his wife, whilst ignoring his own kids.
35 yrs later and I’ve seen him a handful of times as an adult. His wife was welcoming (fake nice) at first but the tensions were felt when he’d tell us she would ‘create’ before we visited or were due to stay etc.

They’re both a pair of selfish gobshites and he gets resentful that I resent the way I’ve been treated he loves to play the victim.

I feel so sorry for any children going through this because it’s literally like a dagger through your heart and it never really leaves you.

As a pp said , it’s because he’s shagging the mum. If that relationship ends then he’ll treat hai new children or stepchildren better than the children from his ex partners.

My parents divorced when I was 14 (I'm in my 60s now) They both remarried and had two more children each. I love my siblings but they have always had everything given to them and all the opportunities that I was denied. It's still the same even now.
I've made my own opportunities and have a good life so I suppose they think I'm ok and don't need anything but occasionally something will happen and I'm the outsider as always. It even extends to my children being treated differently.

I've thought about this a lot and I've come to the conclusion that they don't even see a problem so don't realise they're doing it.
It's not just Dads who do it, it's just all the concentration is focused on the new partner and family

I think some men apply the 'pancake principle'-the first child is really just for practice.

Men don't necessarily live with their own children. They live with their wife's children
That means that logically they should bond with their wife's children, whether or not they are theirs. Not nice, but logical. I think that makes some evolutionary sense
Also second family children are necessarily younger and all parents give more attention to younger children.

I think this is very true.

but I’d also add trying to prove a point.

my ex treats our DC well, but he’s definitely upped his game with his second family- lots of performance parenting and wearing the baby constantly 🙄

I think he’s trying to prove to everyone ( but mostly himself) that he isn’t a shit dad. Even though we split years ago, he also wants to prove me wrong. ( or at least convince himself that I was the problem- not him)

he had completely checked out of our relationship and left all the daily grind of parenting to me. I used to practically drag him round family outings while he spent the time sexting women on his phone. So it’s amusing to see him taking his ‘new’ family on day trips to exact places we went to…( no imagination, but I expect his much younger gf thinks he’s amazing at organising trips because he just copies where I went!)

I was a second wife (not OW) and my husband had previous children.

I am now divorced from him. The fact was that he lived with our children and not his first set of children, so it was easier to have a good relationship with ours, but it became out of sight out of mind with the others. That’s nothing to do with me, it’s just how it became with him and them.

I can also tell you that when you split up with the person who had a second family with you, their attention tends to also not be on those children anymore. In the case of my ex he now dotes on his grandkids and became a sudden presence in the lives of his first family.

Meantime he mostly ignores ours and would let them starve.

Their attention is just easily diverted to what is easy and what will give them the best feeling at the time I think.

The ones thar stop caring are the ones who see children as an extension of the women.

If he hates his ex everything he does for those children he will feel he does for her and hate it. If his new partner dislikes them again in then causes issues at home so he either disneys and she puts up or leaves, or he summits and to please her abandons first children.

by the same standard he had to be nice to the new women’s children to keep her happy.

If they split they will be dropped just as fast. Nice karma for ones who are the I hate your ex wife stop doing / spending xyz on the children types.

Ex ditched his kids when social services said that because his new girlfriend was a threat to her children she shouldn't be around ours and they said as he only saw them 6 hours a week it shouldn't be an issue (he wasn't working so they were together 24/7 apart from 6 hours his response was to ditch the children they split he still barely saw them then he got this latest woman and he finished dumping them not for another child but for his wife they palm her child off to family and go on holiday etc he truly sees his children as a threat to his peace the saddest part is he told everyone for years all he wanted was children he has children and he dumped them for holidays and freedom

Because they see them as an extension of the women, as PP have said. It's easier to build a relationship with DC you are living with, and raising with someone they get on with/love rather than someone they hate.

💐