Have any of you married your "lover"?

[MoreSpamThanGlam]

What I mean is, have you been the other woman and he left and then you got married?

Or have you/are you the other woman?

AND - does this mean that you are a troll of the relationship type (marriage wrecker/evil queen).

Might have had something to do with it.

maybe but as he divorced my mum the grounds weren't him being a prick but her "unreasonable behaviour" Can't imagine anyone more reasonable than my mum! I think in truth he was always a bit selfish but it was hidden by my mum being lovely.

Kewcumber - you are describing exactly the situation that is so unsatisfactory - each parent worse off and unable to move on. Parents who were unhappily married and unhappily divorced. It's very, very sad when it happens, but far from universal.

Lots of divorces aren't like that - each partner finds someone else and builds a new home/family and new and happier lives are built. Children whose parents divorced but still have both their parents at their Bar Mitzvah's, graduations, weddings etc.

Blueshoes - I actually know rather a lot of women who found new partners and left their marriages... it's pretty common these days.

Anna lots of people are very very happy and have "moved on" while remaining single. New partners can be selfish and bring many many complex dynamics into the situation that the children just do not need.

Simplistic example of what I am saying. My nephew loves animals. He is one of those lonely nerdy kids. He had 2 dogs and 2 cats and other pets. He was about 9 when his parents divorced and they both moved in with new partners rather quickly.

Well new stepmummy and new stepdaddy didn't like animals very much. Mum and stepdad said "no you can't have them in OUR house as stepdaddy hates animals and you have to respect OUR home" and Dad and precious princess stepmonster said "oh no no. New stepmummy hates animals on her new rugs they cannot live here in OUR house". So my nephew had to give them all up to shelters. He was gutted.

This is the kind of bullsh*t that happens. The new partner ends up taking over and little jimmy no longer has his own home because stepmum rules the roost over at dads place (and secretly resents jimmy) and stepdaddy rules to roost over at mum's (and secretly resents Jimmy). Mum and dad are too in love with their new partners to see that little Jimmy is getting the shaft and they start labelling him as a moody pre-teen.

If something happens to my DH I will not get into another relationship until my little ones are away at college and I mean it and I will be happy.

Jesus AnnemaysR tar us all with the same brush why don't you? I have done nothing but be loving and accomodating to my dsc's and I would have no respect for their father if he behaved how you describe.

Seriously. No children of mine are going to be force fed crap from any stepdaddy or "mummy's boyfriend" in their own house.

People do this to kids and then they label them as "out of control". They see their own kids as bad or disrespectful because they cannot bear to see their new partner who saved them from loneliness as the "bad guy".

Agree completely Carmenere.

Lots of new partners (and certainly all the ones I know) are loving and kind stepparents who do their utmost to enrich their stepchildren's lives.

I find it pretty depressing to read all this terrible prejudice against relationship breakdown, divorce and blended families. I really believed society had moved on from stigmatisation of those things (fortunately, where I live, it has).

Message withdrawn

There was a link to this test in the Telegraph this morning. I liked it a lot

I'm waiting to hear on this thread from a child of happily divorced parents who says it was all fine or, at the very least, became fine. But I don't think it's going to happen. I think that when parents divorce, they nearly always rock their childrens' world to its foundations.

Actually, I think people do say that it becomes okay and they get on well with their step parents but I think there was always a great deal of agony (and I'm not using that word lightly) along the way.

I was glad my parents divorced. They argued all the time and it was a blessed relief when the fighting stopped. Things weren't all hunky dory afterwards, but at least we weren't subjected to 24 hour a day rows. And I found out years down the line that my mum was unfaithful to my dad...I don't judge her. She was unhappy, felt trapped...it happens.

Anna, I wonder if you would be so blase if it was your own duaghter who was the child of divorced parents and your DP who had moved onto the new model.

I should have been more precise. 24 hours a day of arguing is no place for anyone to live, let alone children. But many marriages aren't anywhere near as bad as that and are still dismantled by the couple.

There you go again, restating your desire to stigmatise relationship breakdown.

What's wrong with you people? Have you no conscience? Don't you realise that until people like you stop making such a huge great big deal out of relationship breakdown, families will suffer needlessly?

Does anyone whose relationship has broken down, or whose parents' relationship has broken down, need this kind of finger pointing? Who are the self-righteous people who say that people divorcing shouldn't have new relationships for several years?

Crikey, it sounds so 1950s...

I agree with Anna. Some of the views on this thread are scary.

i think people just have different life experiences and it is very hard to understand other peoples

Soapbox - of course I hope that my partner and I will be together until the end of our days.

But I am hardly so naïve as to think that we should stay together come what may.

I'm only re-stating my opinion that I think children usually suffer when parents divorce.

And as many children suffer who are stuck in families with parents who are horrible to each other@NKF

Quite simply, yes and he was other the other man. In simple terms we were both in a relationship had an affair then left our partners. We are now married with two dds. I am not proud of it (nor am I ashamed). It is a very long story.

Me too@cardy. My DH didn't have children, but he was living with her and they'd been together for 8 years. I feel some guilt, but it doesn't keep me awake at night, put it that way. We've been together 7 years and have a 3 yr old and are very happy...

In my case, my life experiences have led me to believe that when splitting up with a partner one should do it with as much decency as possible in the circumstances.

Betraying a previously loved partner, by conducting an affair, stops well short of decent behaviour in my book. It is excruciatingly painful to go through from hte perspective of the partner who is dumped. Let alone the impact on children.

To have all this glib claptrap about running off and making two happy families being best all round, with not a thought to the pain involved is immature in the extreme!

very few people go through life always happy...we aspire to happiness but it is rare to lead an entirely happy life..hoepfully in the end you can lokmback and feel there was a balance between your own needs and those of others

I think more suffer through divorce than suffer through marriages that have lost their sparkle.

I know perfectly well that there ae marriages that should be ended. Totally unsuited to each other couples. But people don't always go onto make good second choices. Second marriages are more likely to end. Perhaps it wasn't always the other person being impossible. Perhaps we've lost sight of the fact that marriage can be hard.

It's a relatively modern notion that mariage is about individual happiness after all.