Does anyone feel sorry for dads / husbands of blended families trying to keep everyone happy?

[Zonic]

Originally posted this as a question in another thread . Looking at this from dads and husbands point of view it must sometimes be hard to know what the right thing to do is and a nightmare keeping both the current and the ex happy plus all the kids too . Their loyalties must be torn where the children are concerned.

Lol

Haha. Assume you're a dad with an ex and a current wife?

I agree to a small extent. But I also believe a husband should have his current wife's happiness at his forefront, not his ex wife's!

I just think it looks an extremely complicated set up. I see my neighbour and family going back and forth at strange times with kids being dropped off by the bio Dad every week it seems to be different. I don't know how the DC cope with the manic schedule of which bed will I be in tonight. Must be fantastic at Christmas though getting two of everything.

It’s not his job to keep his ex happy. If he chooses to have another relationship/marriage his wife should be his priority over his ex.

If he chooses to have more children it’s his job to make sure he treats them all fairly, that doesn’t necessarily mean equally. But neither set of children should take priority over the other.

Care to share your own set up OP?

In the case of my ex , he abandoned dd1 for his new wife and child , so I don’t feel sorry for him at all .

No lol

I don’t see how the ex should be a priority unless it directly helps the children but other than that, you’re creating a rod off your own back.

I think having the ex as a priority to “keep happy” is a mistake, for starters.

Why should he care about keeping the ex happy? His wife/partner should be the priority always. It's not his responsibility to keep the ex happy. As long as he's looking after his kids and doing right by them.

Yup it's the children of the first marriage who anyone should be feeling sorry for, in my experience. Not the dad. They have the shittiest of all deals and if they're lucky, get to see their dad lavish attention on stepkids/children of new marriage.

No. Every case I’ve seen, the dad slowly phases out his “old” kids, from 50:50, to 3 days a week, weekends, every other weekend, random days, or bins them off altogether, in order to please his new wife and inevitable new baby. I don’t feel sorry for them.

Are the mums in this scenario not ‘trying to keep everyone happy’ too? I didn’t read the other thread.

This genuinely made me laugh. Most of them please themselves.

No I don’t feel sorry for them at all. All the ones I know are selfish arseholes who did a shit job with their first relationship and then bailed on their kids when they decided it wasn’t working for them.

Then rather than staying single and doing their best with their kids as a single dad, they couldn’t wait to shack up with another woman and make all the same mistakes again.

I realise that in theory there might be good men out there who don’t behave like this. But I’ve never heard of or met any.

Yes, this was my question.

Please don't say 'bio dad'. He's their dad.

Poor men? Don't make me laugh. They're a bunch of selfish arseholes.
The children always come last. Always.

Yes but not just men, the women involved are equally, if not more, worthy of sympathy.

However, I feel sorry for the children most of all.

It is such a complicated situation and I wish more people would avoid it, frankly. It so often ends in tears and recrimination, feelings of failure, or years of being trapped and unhappy.

I actually do. Men get a hard time on here. It's not always their fault a relationship breaks down. But they tend to get the shit end of the deal.

It seems money is at the root of the problems and resentment that goes with it on both sides .

Or maybe the kids? Perhaps.

No more than the mums surely? All the men I personally know who remarried did the walking. A lot of the men was thinking about upgrading their sex toy. So personally for me, I don't see much to admire or pity. I know that not every divorced man is like this of course, I'm just so jaded by a close male relative on his fourth wife announcing each time the new wife is much better than his last one. It's like a new sports car. 100% of people fully support him.

A parents loyalty is with their child until they reach independence so that's not tricky either is it?

I don't see why the father's loyalties should be any more torn than the mother's.

I have a brother in this situation - left first marriage for OW and is now married to her with a young DC and another on the way.

He says he feels guilty a lot but also says he wishes they could all live together in one big house. Just truly not understanding the deep damage his actions have caused. The ex wife will not meet the ow/new wife and he thinks there will be a point they can play happy families?!
.just deep deep selfishness and all I think is "you made your bed..."

@Greycottage , that’s exactly what happened in our case .