Sixteen siblings?
Apologies for long and possibly confusing post...
I am 48 and male.
First married DW1, who I’ll call Jennifer, at the age of eighteen upon finding out we were expecting. Completely unplanned, and in retrospect we shouldn’t have got married given our age and maturity, or lack thereof, but I don’t regret keeping and raising DD1, who is now 30 and has two daughters of her own.
Went on to have twins with Jennifer, DD2 and DS1. They are now 28, DS1 has three daughters and DD2 is engaged.
Jennifer and I mutually divorced before the twins were born and she went on to remarry and have four children - DSS1, DSD2, DSD3 and DSD4.
I remarried DW2, who I’ll call Mary, and had DS2 and DD3-6. DD4 & 5 were twins. To summarise so far, that’s two sons, six daughters, two stepsons and two stepdaughters. That includes two sets of twins.
Mary passed away six years ago when my youngest was ten and my oldest twenty-three (although she wasn’t her mother).
Some years later I met DW3 - who I’ll call Sarah - and we married last year. Sarah is now expecting our first child - very early days and we haven’t told anyone, not even the family.
Initially, I was overjoyed. I love kids, and it’s been such a long time since I’ve had any babies around - the only DC still at home is DD6, who is eighteen.
However, this has left me with the realisation that I will have nine children and five grandchildren before I’ve turned fifty. Add three wives to the mix and four stepchildren and that doesn’t exactly paint a very flattering picture of me. All of DC and DSC are very close, but this leaves DD1 with twelve siblings, which seems ridiculous to say out loud.
I suppose, in actual fact, I’m having somewhat of a midlife crisis. All of my children are beautiful, healthy and successful in the best possible ways - doing what they love and living happily - only I feel that somewhere along the line I’ve failed. I suppose I always pictured myself having two or three kids and growing old with somebody. Obviously I’m old enough to know that life never works out the way you plan it, but three marriages and nine children was never the life I envisioned for myself and saying it out loud is incredibly overwhelming.
I don’t know what I hoped to get out of this post, really - any words of support or advice would be very much appreciated? I’m bracing myself for unkind words - I know this description makes me look like a terrible failure. In all honesty, I just wanted a place to get it off my chest.
If you managed to read all of this, thank you for listening to my miniscule, nonexistent problems - it does mean a lot!
(Financial security has never been an issue - I’m in a very, very high paying job (think 1% of the 1%) and very lucky in that I could hypothetically have twenty more kids and be able to provide for them and then some, to provide context and assure you that that isn’t the issue).