Spin-Off of Marriage Length Thread: 2nd Marriages

[Gumbo4x4]

What about multiple marriages because of .....ah....death?
My wife's Grandfather was married 9 times. Marriages to Mrs #1 and Mrs #9 lasted about a year before a divorce. Marriages to Mrs 2-to-8 ended were apparently keepers, until they died after an average of 10 years of marriage. He lived 93 years and was married a combined total of 62 years.

DW's grandmother outlasted 3 husbands who all passed. Always thought SHE was unlucky!

 

[tvguy]

I knew a woman who outlasted 3 husbands before she passed in her 90s.
My husband was married for 2 or 3 years before his ex filed for divorce. Once it was finalized it was a total of 5 years. DH is my only husband. He has been stuck..I mean married to me for 10 years. Just another 50 to go!

Go for it!

 

[DISNEYSQUIRRELS]

I agree. And a lot is how the other bio parent meddles. I know couples who love the kids of their new SO but can't deal with the XW or XH causing issues. Not wanting the new SO to do things for the kids, encouraging the kids not to like the new SO or to be mean to them, screwing up holidays, holding the kids hostage, being late to everything, saying the kids can't go on vacation, etc. It really is a shame because they do so well as a family unit but that other person causing so much havoc takes it's toll.

[QUOTE="bdcp, post: 58590322, member: 76145"

I can say, I know more than one couple who divorced a second time due to the stepkids and conflicts such as not being allowed to ever discipline and being disrespected by them. The kids played everyone off each other and the parents felt so much guilt about the divorces that they let them.

My 15+ relationship will most likely end for this reason. We have never married or lived together, but have been completely committed to each other. So many episodes over the years of his ex doing all the things posted by *mi*vida*loca, but I thought everything will be fine, she will grow up & see that I am a kind, caring person who wants to be a part of her life. WRONG. Her mother has spent years & years convincing her to hate me. I wish this was not the case & have tried in multiple ways to start a dialog without success.
At this point, my issue is not with his daughter. Neither of us can control what was said to her over all those years, or how she chooses to act towards me now. My problem is with him. When she has snubbed me & he says nothing to her. When he keeps all details of his daughter, good or bad, totally to himself in a compartment & doesn't feel the need to tell me anything because "we don't like each other anyway". When I get benched over a weekend because his daughter is home & he "might" get together with her. All set! & very heartbroken.

 

[ronandannette]

I don't think I would have been #9 after the way 2-8 left.

They do say however that men who are happily married remarry very quickly after being widowed. Women, not so much.

I have heard that very thing and observed it anecdotally. Pretty sure DH would re-marry following my "departure" but I've already decided I never will.

 

[KVH]

There may even be other variables affecting longevity. Like where you live. My three kids all attended a high school just a few blocks from the Microsoft main campus. Ergo, a lot of 'softies in the neighborhood. Kids talk - how about divorce rates close to 20 points above the national average.

I bet you Silicon Valley isn't any better.

 

[bdcp]

There may even be other variables affecting longevity. Like where you live. My three kids all attended a high school just a few blocks from the Microsoft main campus. Ergo, a lot of 'softies in the neighborhood. Kids talk - how about divorce rates close to 20 points above the national average.

I bet you Silicon Valley isn't any better.

I don't know that it's so much where you live as the culture you live in. Some jobs/careers are just more prone due to the fact that the only people who "understand" what you're doing are others in your field. And, if you travel together a lot that can open a whole can of worms. I've seen it in a particular career culture in people who cannot take their work home and can only talk to others they work with about what they do. It's caused affairs due to the nature of the work. I'd say the divorce rate is only a little higher, but the reason seems to be mostly infidelity with co-workers.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

There may even be other variables affecting longevity. Like where you live. My three kids all attended a high school just a few blocks from the Microsoft main campus. Ergo, a lot of 'softies in the neighborhood. Kids talk - how about divorce rates close to 20 points above the national average.

I bet you Silicon Valley isn't any better.

I work with surgeons. Most are on their second marriages. I would say 90% of them. Very rarely will you find one who’s been with the first wife for 20+ years. The female surgeons are all on the first marriage.

 

[AustinMommyofThree]

I’m surprised by this, I would have thought that 2nd marriages were more likely to be successful.



I would have thought 2nd marriages were more successful for these reasons:
-more careful about picking a comparable mate now knowing what marriage really is and what you want and don’t want.
-OR realise that no one is perfect and that many of the problems are still the same with a new partner and the grass is not actually greener as they thought during the first marriage
-often 2nd marriages occur after children, which removes the great stress of sleepless nights, and parenting conflicts.

So I've been thinking about this a lot (I think I was the one who posted the data about second marriages failing more often), and here's my guess, which is based on nothing other than a lot of the anecdotes posted on this thread by those who have had successful second marriages and those who have not.

I think a lot of people who are burned in their first marriage ARE more likely to be more careful, be more mature, and tend to be more committed in their second marriage, which is why we read about so many successes for second marriages. They learn valuable lessons the first time and don't repeat them (including being more careful about mate selection the second time around). This is the group that most happily married-only-once people (including myself) could easily fall into, had we married "bad" people the first time around (or made some of the mistakes ourselves than can easily doom a marriage). And I'm sure there are people who get burned twice before getting it right, as well, so it's not a perfect system.

A second group of people, however, are just not good at marriage (doesn't mean they aren't good people, just that they are not good at--or cut out for--marriage). Their second, third, and fourth marriages fail for the same reason as their first--they don't see it as a permanent state of being or don't compromise and work towards success. Those people are generally not going to be represented in the "married only once" group, which is why a small number of people can spin through a lot of marriages and skew the numbers. Additionally, since it only takes one person in a marriage to cause it to fail, those individuals can cause a lot of failures in marriages to people who would, in a different circumstance, been successful in marriage.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I know I hung around in my 2nd one for a lot longer than I should have. Probably the only reason we held on for like 16 years is because we did not spend a lot of time together. We had different schedules, and our paths did not cross all that often. We spent a couple evenings together during the week because of scheduling. Quite honestly I dreaded spending time w/him, but I tolerated it because I would have the weekends to do whatever I wanted and not have to deal with him. I did no want to go out w/him, we would always fight when we were together. I just did not want to be around him. I guess I was in a situation where I had the "security" of being married, and the freedom of doing whatever I wanted because we did not spend much time together. When he stopped working and he was ALWAYS around, it about drove me crazy. Without rehashing all the details, I can safely say that he did not treat me well at all. I feel a lot of guilt for feeling the way I felt. I do wonder sometimes if I brought some of it on myself because of the way I acted. I acted like a "witch" a lot of times. I really wonder why we got married because we were really a bad match. We should have done ourselves a favor and ended the relationship many years earlier. The longer it dragged on, the worse it became. I eventually got enough and reached my breaking point and left, filed for divorce and he did not contest it. I guess the kindest thing he ever did for me was sign the papers. He is gone now, and I DO find it to be sad. That is probably why I feel guilty. If he was still alive, I am sure we would be fighting and hating each other. I am truly sorry that the whole thing even happened. We should have never been together and I pretty much regret ever meeting him.