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

[GoodToBeHome]

Of all the men I know that have met/married and had children with another woman after divorce from the first wife seem to do much better by the second family than they did the first. They are almost partner/parent of the year the second time around!
Is it just because they are finally more mature? More settled down? There must be something to it as it happens too often just to be coincidence.

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.

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.

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.

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

Yanbu x

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.

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.

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

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.

Of those failures a couple of couples stayed together because of unplanned pregnancies. There can always be contraception failures but when you are young your fertility is at its absolute best.

Yeah I think my dad definitely did. He was barely ever at home when me and my siblings before he actually left, never took us to school/preschool, put us to bed and couldn’t have listed basic information about us (favourite colour/animal/food) with a gun to his head.

Second time round with the younger half siblings he was a much better dad and so involved in fact, he was head of the PTA. I’m glad he got better at it. I hope it’s at least partly because he regrets being so crap the first time round.

I wonder if the second wife is more tolerant due to knowing he's left before, or perhaps she herself was a bit more desperate for the family thus more tolerant, I think most women would prefer to start a family with a man without kids already so I assume she's had to compromise in some way and trying to make the best of it. Probably not true for a lot but the first ones that came to my mind have vibes of this.

Told by someone pretty nasty and wanting to gossip with the ex wife no doubt.

I think a lot is so they can prove they are good dads. They failed the first time now it’s do or die. If you failed twice there is no hiding you are the problem. If you can succeed once on two goes, it opens up the whole oh well but well yeah now.

Same as affair marriages. This if the time to prove you destroyed lives for a reason not for nothing it needs to work this time.

Being a better parent second time round though doesn’t change being a shit parent first time in fact it compounds the problem with the first children where dads now everything they wanted and need but he wouldn’t/couldn’t be for them. Huge issues.

Told by someone pretty nasty and wanting to gossip with the ex wife no doubt.

His current wife isn't in the least nasty. She's a great step parent to my child. Don't think you can gossip about yourself, can you?

Nah I think it's because they are human like everyone - women can leave a failed/loveless marriage too but don't get lambasted for it. People don't really go through life IME trying to prove something they just "go through life" and that life is unpredictable, fun, shitty and exactly the same as yours will be. If we can't improve or learn from our mistakes then what's the point? Also I think there is way too much emphasis on the DF in these situations on families from a first marriage and not on the role of the first spouse. Sorry for anyone who is suffering from neglectful fathers/parents (I am referring to adults) but there will be a 100 reasons and explanations for each situation.

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

100%

I find this assumption really strange. In real life, the couples I know who have divorced, it's really not been like that.

To be honest, most of the time, I would say it's not that either person is to blame, it's both people just not being well suited

I mean it’s pretty shit man or women to claim your a shit parent because of a shit partner. Very much not claiming your own fault in the problem.

my dads a shit parent to all his 10 families so at least we just know his shit 😅

I'd say my partner was much more hands on with his eldest.
When it comes to our children he has taken a step back in comparison.

Ie did reading and homework with eldest. Has never done it with ours. But on other hand, although myself and his ex are both stay at home mums. I prioritise education while his ex doesn't. One of the many reasons the courts gave him custody.

I use to refer to him as a Disney dad. But reality was he was doing what he was allowed to do with her. For example we wasn't allowed to book her into swim lessons or take her swimming because she might drown. But we could take her out every weekend to cinema. In comparison I prioritised our children being able to swim over cinema trips.

On other hand for example, he wouldn't allow our children to go abroad because it wasn't fair on his eldest.. his ex wouldn't allow it.

After over 10 years in the family courts and finally getting residency those issues doesn't exist any more but the dynamics were different then, and are different now from years ago due to the difference in circumstances.

He's a lot less involved as he was with the eldest in a lot of instances but it's because in reality we are sharing the load. For example the reason I do the homework etc and not him is because we do it straight away so we don't have to worry about it and he's usually at work when it's done. I don't see the point of saving it for when he's home.

It use to annoy me massively. At one point I felt like he loved our children less. But it wasn't because of that. He loves them equally it was because crap situation at the time.

I think a lot of men (most) discount much of what women they are in relationships say, so it is not until marriage breaks down, they really start to think about the feedback they have been given. And men often have smaller or no support systems so the loss of their marriage often hits very hard. So it is a combination of that, plus the fact they may be further along in their careers, so maybe have more clout to set their lives up the way they want them to, rather than being early on and having to really work in unreasonable ways to get on.

There's a lot of truth in this.

On the whole I agree as I know a few who have not made the same mistakes the second time around. However I also know a couple of people who are begging for their old life back.

Im the second wife. Yes I'd say my DH did better second time around. He was a lawyer and married mid 20s. So his first wife had to put up with the less money but working incredibly long hours phase. Plus the idea of being married to someone with this kind of job (eventually very high earning but still high pressure and long hours) is different from the reality. She once told me she felt he was married to his work.
They were getting divorced when I came along. His kids early teens. He had climbed the ladder to the top position in his law firm. So money good, time still focussed on work. My father was a doctor so I was used to him being away long hours, sometimes having to work the holidays, I was also late 30s and knew what life was about. I knew from the get go that he was extremely dedicated to work, though ironically he now spend more quality time with his older kids as there was no mum to act as a buffer. He also took them away on holiday just the three of them. But he learned from his past and was determined to be more 'present' in his new family. Not always successfully, but the advent of mobile phones made it easier for him to go on holiday yet still be able to be in touch if need be. I was also maybe more of an equal - his wife gave up work after having kids, which I did too, but I'd had 15 more years working than her and had for example bought and sold houses on my own and basically got on with it - she went straight from her parental home to the marital one.
It's kinda unfair that he, as a male, even gets a chance to do better though. His ex didn't - she was early 40s and wasn't going to have more kids to try and do it better next time around.

It depends on the man. If he's a decent guy who wasn't happy and goes on to find happiness in the second relationship then he'll maybe be perceived as doing better second time round in that he'll be trying harder to be a good dh/df having learnt from mistakes?

But I think no one knows what goes on behind closed doors - people will likely try to project now happy they are in a second marriage/gamily as they'd look like a fool otherwise (if they'd left their first one anyway)

My friends ex seems outwardly to be "doing better" with his second family - they have more money for nice holidays, buying stuff and he's always posting on SM about how wonderful his life/family is but we all see straight through it. He was abusive to my friend and is an awful person, that will never change - he's just doing it to someone else now! He still tries to control my friend and her dc's and is absolutely pig sick now that she's met someone she's fallen head over heels for and has no time for his antics any more. It's actually hilarious to see how he's pathetically trying to get her attention now he's lost control. I'd post examples but it'd be too outing as she's on here I think 😂
Others on the outside also wouldn't know that for the first year he was with his now wife, he was still shagging my friend and periodically begging her to take him back.

His ex didn't - she was early 40s and wasn't going to have more kids to try and do it better next time around.

Well she may not have even wanted to, she presumably remained focused on her children rather than trying again with a shiny new family, not everyone wants to collect children in relationships like medals. My parents certainly didn't, I wouldn't, it's pretty gross to have a second family to get a "do over", children are people.

Your husband might well feel better for being a better dad to his second lot, but his first children won't forget, and they have to live with that and see it, so I really wouldn't see it as in anyway a positive.