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.

That rather assumes they do try to keep everyone happy.

In the case of my ex, the only person he pleases is himself, so no I don't have an ounce of sympathy.

No I don’t feel sorry for any of them.

Not in our case. Boyfriend and his ex wife are both happy with the financial settlement. Kids seem happy and say so when asked. They have 50/50 custody.

Our problem is the ex-wife is going on so many holidays with her new man that boyfriend’s custody is now probably 70/30 to him. I don’t see him when he has the kids for logistical reasons, but he’s also a carer for a parent, and I worry that he just isn’t getting anytime for himself - the odd pint with mates, a quick bike ride etc. I’m happy step back when he’s tied up but he needs to tell her “no” every once in a while as she’s treating him like a doormat.

This is generally my experience as well.

My cousin’s husband has 2 kids from his first relationship. He moved in with her, adopted my cousin’s DS from a previous relationship, they had 2 kids together and moved to the other side of the country. During this his first DDs were phased out in the way PP describes.

For me the worst thing was when (before the 2 new kids were born) they wanted to go away on a weekend his 2 DDs were supposed to be staying with them. His parents offered to take the DDs (their grandchildren) but said they wouldn’t be comfortable caring for her DS (not their grandchild). For this ‘crime’ he cut his parents off so now his DDs don’t get to see their grandparents at all, because they didn’t want to look after their son’s girlfriend’s son for the weekend.

And now he barely sees his DDs. Says they ‘don’t make the effort’ with him since he moved away. They were 10 and 8 when he said this.

I don’t have sympathy.
He does what he wants and like some of the other ex’s on here has phased the kids out slowly but surely. He’s gone from a devoted dad who did things with them and called them every night from his business trips to thinking that he’s a good dad because he paid for DD’s car repairs that she needed after her MOT. She’s saw him 3 times last year for a couple of hours each time because she can’t cope with how crap he’s become.
Her older brother has been NC with him for the past 6 years and he’s never accepted any blame for that relationship breaking down. He’s not contacted ds or tried yo fix things.
I often see posts by women on here thinking about how to blend families. My ex clearly thinks that the kids should obediently fall in line because it’s what he wants. My kids describe how his wife clearly dislikes spending time together and that feeling is reciprocated.

Only as much as I do for the wives and mums.

Yes, kids goes without saying.

In any relationship, whether first marriage, second marriage or 48th marriage, all of the kids should come first.

Fair enough, I apologise for getting it wrong. It's not a scenario I am familiar with. It just looks so complicated. Three children next door split their time between two households. The fourth child (youngest) is to the mum's new partner who lives in. Ages are 11,9,7 and 2. I don't think the partner has any DC except the one he lives with. I think the three older DC possibly have another set of half siblings as their Dad possibly is remarried already.

I think from observation it appears both parties have rushed into new relationships and had more DC.

Aren't women in equally if not more tricky position? They have to welcome his kids (who may not be interested and could be uncooperative) into her life, try not to piss off the ex, and deal with their own kids if they have them - or her own kids. What does he have to do? The same.

Not overmuch. It’s such a cliché, isn’t it: walk away from the first lot when reality hits, take up with a younger, fresher one, then, oops, turns out she wants babies too.

OK, OK, I know it’s not always exactly like that, but you’d think some of them would have a bit more foresight.

Erm no. Not as a blanket "poor men" thing.

Adults should behave like adults and protect the kids, regardless of where said adults fit in the blend.

I feel like the first post was written to bait bitter ex-wives and and it's certainly worked!

In reality, every situation is different and it's perfectly possible to have a healthy set up where everyone is happy if the adults behave like adults.

The man often seems more concerned with keeping his ex wife happy, rather than the new wife, probably because he fears she may withhold access to the children?

And the first family children generally get a better deal than the second family children due to Dad guilt. So frequently we see threads complaining that everything has to revolve around the first children.

As a mother in a blended family (both of us have children from a previous relationship) yes I do feel for dad’s trying to keep everyone happy. However doubt your going to find much sympathy for these fathers on here

This isn’t always the case and not unusual for children from previous relationship to be sadly virtually abandoned, even in favour of new step children unrelated to the father. In our own blended family the children of first marriage (who are lovely and very blessed to have as step children) are prioritised to a certain extent as felt would be unfair to undo commitments made before our children came along so our own children have had to do without basic things while funding even savings on top of usual clubs etc for DSC. However obviously reluctant to agree to new commitments (which ex wife probably assumed would always be agreed to when they had children such as uni fees etc) and this has caused some angst

The DC are powerless, they don’t choose their parents or parents partners.

The partners can choose not to be in the relationship if the package (eg, partner and the DSC) doesn’t work for them.

I guess some dads are doing their best and fighting against parental alienation etc, but in the main on this board the men are fecking useless and cause the conflict.

Bit happy blends are unlikely to post here, when they do it’s usually a case of fair civil engaged parents and step parents alike.

Exactly. Before my DH and his ex had a legal arrangement they had verbally agreed on a 50:50 week on week off schedule. After a year of this working well, the ex wanted to change the schedule. DH didn't think it was in DSDs best interests so she just stopped him from seeing her. Kept her off nursery for weeks so he couldn't even pick her up from there. 2 months later and after spending a fortune on lawyers and mediation he finally got her back.

It always seem to be the mothers who pull this stunt. So yes, while I'm sure there are women out there who feel they have to keep everyone happy they're usually not punished by having their kids kept form them if they don't.

I think the prioritisation of new/ex wives is just too difficult and nuanced to really debate properly. Yes the new wife should be a husband’s priority but the kids should come before all adults involved. I’ve noticed in my job that sometimes prioritising the kids and their wishes and feelings can sometimes present to the new wife as her husband prioritising the ex wife.

It’s just so complicated.

In my experience professional and personal, most dads/men end up slowly abandoning and phasing out the first kids. At the behest of an insecure new wife and her kids with him. And when the ex complains she’s called bitter. No one wins but the children always lose.

Vettrianofan, it’s funny you mentioned “getting two of everything” because oddly I was just thinking about this/remembering it the other day. I was a step-kid and on a few occasions I did literally get two of the same gift, one from each side of my divorced family and it was really awkward! Each side was irritated because I was obviously going to use or keep only one of them (one year it was two bedside clock radios) and there was pressure about whose I would pick as my “favorite” (the other giver would have to return theirs or see me using it less often etc). I would by necessity hurt someone’s feelings in choosing and it felt very stressful, like I was choosing which side of my family I liked best. And I recall feeling vaguely guilty, even though I didn’t ask for, or need or want, two clock radios. I had the sense that I’d done something to make the adults feel irritated with me. Honestly I would have chosen not having to deal with split families, and the hints of guilt along with “getting two of everything”, over having two clock-radios, for sure.

My sympathy lies with the all the dcs involved who have zero choice in this

Money?
Not in my scenario.
Men making posts on here is so obvious

(Violin in background(

No.

HTH.

Rather than "bitter" ex wives, most of the stories I see posted are from women who are very sad for their children because the men abandonded them.

Whether that abandonment happened a day, month or year into the divorce, it must create a world of pain for the children.

And no matter where or how we stand in the relationship spectrum, surely we can pause a moment, remember being young, and reflect on how that would have felt.

I think more fool anyone for getting into a blended situation, especially when existing children are young.

Anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together can see it is going to be deeply fraught - at best. Downright profoundly damaging to multiple people - at worst.

If you decide to go there, you don’t need anyone’s sympathy or pity.

I should add - unless you’re one of those rare breeds, who genuinely cares for and loves your step-children as your own, and is truly cut out for the role. But such people are like gold dust.