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.

I feel sorry for the women and children who have to put up with the Dads who say this shit. No Dads try to keep everyone happy. Mums do that. It's Mums.

It depends on the circumstances but generally no. My attitude is if you already have children regardless of your relationship status they should be coming first. Therefore, in the same way SM get so much flack for entering into relationships with men with children, I think it’s often incredibly stupid for our hypothetical man with 2 existing children, to enter into relationships with childless women who expect motherhood in their futures.

I mean, yes it must be an absolute pain in the arse of a situation, but they don’t get conscripted into it. They do actually have the option not to start a new family. Obviously that means being wholly responsible for yourself, and your kids when you have them. Which can be a bit inconvenient.

Nope, it is their choice. The children from the first relationship almost always lose out, it's them I feel sorry for.

I would say the same for mums too though. The children that already exist should come before a new partner and baby (why in either case is there always the need for that 'together' baby?!)

I hadn't thought of it as a negative but I can only imagine how stressful as a child that must have been getting two of everything and then feeling pressured to keep both parties happy 😢

I always was jealous of others who had two houses growing up because I had only one home with my parents and brother and nothing special going on. The grass always seems greener. It also looks that way with the neighbours. I personally have said to DH if anything happens to him I will not be finding a new partner though as I just want to be on my own when the DC are grown. No desire to get involved with anyone, let alone someone with baggage.

My neighbour that moved in next door admitted that her youngest was an accident 😬 but still a together baby I suppose. Her partner doesn't have children from a previous relationship afaik.

I don’t feel sorry for adults that choose to create blended families and then realise it’s difficult and expensive at all.

What do any of the adults in a blended family deserve sympathy for? They chose, created and achieved exactly what they wanted, often at the expense of the children's best interests and if they can’t afford it comfortably then they shouldn’t do it.

Yes I agree. It seems like getting in a relationship seems more important than just focusing on parenting.

If anything happened to DH, getting into a new relationship with someone wouldn't be at the forefront of my mind whilst raising the DC 🤷🏻

Based on what you read on here and hear about from friends I assume most of the first relationships break down because the men don’t pull their weight and aren’t open to changing. When they repartner and have more kids they have rarely changed their ways so the children from the first relationship are even lower priority.

This completely

Quite

My ex is an abusive dick. But I get on well with his new wife and am very glad she is in the house for the children when they are there (I just hope he treats her better than he treated me).

As for the judgy posts pitying my children because they move between homes, would you rather I had stayed in a relationship so abusive it made me suicidal? He showed no signs of abuse until I was pregnant, then changed almost overnight.

There's something uncomfortably judgy about these threads, I know plenty of dire parents who stay together in unhappy homes. And plenty of children who grow up in very miserable single parent homes.

Honestly and just what I’ve seen both in real life and on here it is the women who are left with the bulk of the caring and mostly they are working full time too. So it tends to be the one with the higher physical and emotional workload I feel sorrier for. That is almost guaranteed to be the woman.

I don’t feel any sympathy for them at all. I don’t understand why anyone would willingly get themselves into a situation where they start a ‘second family’, with all the anguish and heartache that it (more often than not) entails.

If DH and I got divorced or anything happened to him the last thing I would be thinking about would be a new relationship, let alone having more children. I would be focused on supporting them through the trauma they were experiencing. To the best of my knowledge (though if MN has taught me anything, you never truly know…) he feels the same. If he were to prioritise having more children over helping his existing children navigate what is defined as an ACE (adverse childhood experience) then I would have absolutely no sympathy for him whatsoever.

And that’s before I get started on the risks that male partners pose, statistically, to children.

Lol

My ex was wholly uninterested in keeping me happy when we were together, and now he actively does things to harm me.

I assume that his new partner's happiness is similarly irrelevant to him.

I don't think they are concerned about keeping their ex happy. If they'd kept her happy when they were together he wouldn't be in this situation now

No. Most NRP have the life of riley.

I'm my exs 2nd failed marriage. He's selfish. I left when LO was 1.5. Did all the heavy lifting for years until he gets easier and ex is suddenly not single and wants access. By access I mean 30pc and very few weekends.

Zero sympathy from me.

My own dad dumped his first family when he went off with his OW and her daughter. He expected us to phone him to keep in touch and acted the wounded party when we didn't (I was 9 at the time, struggling to cope). I don't think this behaviour is unusual at all from fathers.

Not always the case. My DHs ex was the abusive one in their relationship. He left after she punched him infront of their 2yo.

He doesn't give a shit about keeping her happy, and why should he? It still feels like we have to tip toe around her sometimes because she has a history of retaliating if she doesn't get her own way or just doing things out of spite. She doesn't care if it's the kids who are missing out. She's stopped him seeing the kids twice, once for 2 months, until he managed to get a legal agreement in place. She's given permission to take the kids on holiday then just before has withdrawn consent and threatened to report him for kidnapping.

People are allowed to move on after a relationship ends and if they're not complete idiots should be able to do this while still prioritising their kids. My DH was clear from the start that he didn't want any more kids. I didn't want kids anyway but if I had the relationship would have ended.

I also do believe that the new wife should be a priority. Stepmums tend to pull back when they feel they're not been listened to, are not appreciated and have no time with their partner. Taking the kids every time the ex asks even if it means cancelling plans with the new wife is not prioritising the kids it's prioritising the ex. If men can't look after their kids while also nourishing a romantic relationship then they shouldn't go into a new relationship.

I think it's a very rare man who can do a decent job of parenting two or more families. In most cases they seem to prioritise one in some way leading to resentment with the other. It's the kids I feel sorry for as they don't choose for their dad to get into family set up they can't cope with.

Vettriardofan, “the grass always seems
greener” sums it up very well I think. I can see how it looks exciting to have two homes. But the loneliness of missing half your family all the time, the feeling of being split in two emotionally, the unsettledness and ugly logistics, the pressure to choose a side at times, and not having backup from one parent when the other is acting crappy are all no fun.

Divorces are sometimes the only decent option for people, so blended families are going to happen. However it would be nice if the adults who created the situation would stop laying their irritation, guilt, and blame on the kids involved.

I recall family members trying to make me feel lucky (and maybe even guilty) because I did in fact often receive more presents / trips than my half-sister (whose parents were not divorced ). Things I did
not ask for. I think this was their attempt to convince THEMSELVES that no negatives whatsoever had been done to me by my parents’ divorce, so that they would not have to feel guilt or acknowledge any downsides of the situation or emotional fallout.

I remember once, in a conversation with my aunt, making some statement that seemed very self-evident and non-controversial about some effect of divorce on kids (I can’t recall it specifically but it was generic and nothing incendiary) and her basically exploding. Both me and that aunt have each been divorced (with no kids being involved) so it’s not like I was judging her or she had any cause to feel personally criticized about my mild statement. It was so bizarre - and it was then that I realized, another “advantage” of being in a blended family is that you can never actually talk about it with anyone in your family. Because they will all have the same knee-jerk response about how “lucky” you are.

Everyone’s circumstances are different, everyone’s circumstances have both good and bad aspects.

I don't get the lucky thing. I've never heard of happily married parents lamenting the fact that their children only have one loving home, only have half of the love as those in two homes and only get one Christmas Day for example. It's a bit doth protest too much for me.

'Boo hoo' indeed. But with a massive caveat. Women are rightly encouraged on here to leave long term relationships that aren't serving them, regardless of if they have kids or not. Where the reason for the relationship being poor is not due to abuse, but down to growing apart, loss of respect, disillusionment etc the advice is don't stay for the kids. Leave and be happy.

So it isn't just men waltzing into single life, it's women too. And lots of them have kids, with more than one partner. No judging allowed.