"Second Marriage" Anniversary Should be celebrated
Some musings on wedding anniversaries. Because we just had our second.
Some things that have been going through my mind lately during this COVID-19 lockdown are that with all the statistics out there, why arent second marriages celebrated, even MORE SO than the first. Second marriages are almost twice as likely to fail, mostly when there are children from the first marriage involved. Second marriages are HARDER, so every year you make it together is a BIGGER success.
But why do people not see it this way? Its as if the second marriage is a convenience, an after thought. We need the second marriage to "catch up" in life the ground we lost in the first. My DH always likes to tell me that he is "catching up", and is finally in the place he needs to be at 52, that he should have been at 35-40. A home owner, decent credit score, decent finances.
Maybe my perspective is skewed because this is my first marriage. We have been together 6 years total, married 2. When we celebrated theother day we made vows to make this next married year even better. So I get it. Im "catching up" too, and getting to the place I should have been financially in my 40's. But life happened, I did not succeed in having my own children, buying a home, building a savings...in my previous relationships.
I see this over and over in stepparenting support sites. The in-laws do not consider the second family as worthy of love and attention as the first. I call it "first family worship". My inlaws have passed, and DH's brothers and sisters "like me" fine but we dont hang out together as friends. They are mostly polite. But there is that layer of distance I cannot get through, no matter how much I do. Because I have not produced any DNA nuggets. But what if I did, would they have been considered as important?
I see how munchkin sd14 is passed over by the family a lot, sometimes in favor of her older sister feral forger. They favor a lying stealing pos over a really nice kind sweet kid, who really wants to connect with them, and they cannot be bothered. Ive dried her many tears over this situation.
Not really looking for advice. Just a bit melancholy today.
- CLove's blog
- Log in or register to post comments
Comments
I can't speak to others
I can't speak to others experiences, but both my family and DH families like us so much better than our previous spouses. But then I'm not a raging meth addict and DH isn't a wife beater so win win.
As for feral being the favorite, sometimes I think it's just the matter of birth order unfortunately. Also they might realize that Feral is going to be just like TT and so they have more empathy for her and want to help her more. Where they see Munchkin and think she will be okay because she has you and your DH.
It's just nature
I think what you are describing is just natural. I'm the grandmother of 3 bio gks and 6 step gks ranging from 12 to 37. We treat all the same (by which I mean gifts) but I notice I put more effort into the oldest, 1 SGK and 1 BGK, who are 5 months apart. I think it was the novelty and me being younger. I love the younger gks but I see I don't do as much with them. For me to admit this is a big thing since parity is my stepparent religion. But it is what it is. I certainly dont have the energy in my seventies to spend a day at the zoo, or a theme park in the hot summer like I did back in the day. Thinking back, my beloved grandmother did much more for me, the oldest, than the younger ones who came 15 years later. Probably the same thing, novelty and age.
As far as anniversaries go, in our family I always send a card and $ but I don't get very excited about any of them, imo that's for the couple to celebrate. As a side note, we have never received any acknowledgment of our anniversary from anybody.
I told DH that making it to 5
I told DH that making it to 5 years as a second marriage is a big deal because a lot of second marriages fail before 5 years when there are kids from the first marriage involved. We're now at 4 years. He agrees with me. He will tell me that he's happy that he has his children, but he regrets marrying BM big time and feel as though his years with her were wasted. He's so much happier with me and he feels as if he has a second chance at life.
I don't know if DH's family is cold to us because they are cold people or because I'm the second wife. I think it's probably both. They are generally cold and dismissive of one another, in my opinion, although in their opinion, they all love one another very much. I know that MIL and BIL have not moved on from DH's divorce (which was 8 years ago!), but I often wonder if that is just their excuse to hold onto something...and I also think, they think they've moved on. From what DH has told me, they weren't that much different with BM...still cold, distant, and dismissive. I blame MIL because she is vindictive, manipulative, petty, and narcisisstic. DH told me that FIL (who passed away over 20 years ago in a car accident) was a moderating force on MIL, so now that he's gone, she has no one to keep her in check.
Dh and I just celebrated 10 years
of being married. My family accepted DH and the skids with no problems. Dh's family...well they don't really like DH (he won't follow the family in their religous beliefs) so I doubt their aloofness is because of me.
Dh never refers to me or our marriage as a "second" marriage..just his wife and his marriage. Beaver and the VI were unfortunate blips on our radar.
However, DH and I were both talking about how we should be further along financially etc than we are. I had to remind him that we both had to restart at the ages of 34 and 37. Therefore, we are just now getting to the point where we wil regain ground.
It sucks for us...but it is what is.
Of course second marriages
Of course second marriages should be celebrated! I'm DH's 3rd wife (1st marriage lasted less than a week in reality - they were living separately with no communication within days, although it took months more for a divorce to be final; 2nd marriage produced the skids), but right now I'm his ONLY wife and of course the most important. Our anniversary is definitely celebrated, and his family accepts me as THE wife, although they're all still friendly with BM.
I wonder if family history of divorce/remarriage matters in terms of acceptance. In my family, hardly anyone is divorced. Not my parents, not my aunts and uncles, not my grandparents. There might be some second cousins or other more distant relatives who have divorced, but it's not the norm. In DH's family, it seems everyone is divorced. His dad was married a couple times, his mom was married 5 times (if I'm keeping track properly), his siblings are all on 2nd marriages. So it makes sense to me that they'd accept a 2nd (or in my case 3rd) spouse more than a family that wasn't used to divorce and remarriage. Or maybe it's just that DH's family is accepting in general.
100% agree with terms of
100% agree with terms of acceptance.
This is a rare example but, my aunt remarried at 51 to her second husband. (7 years ago) Her ex husband (I still call him my uncle) was at her wedding along with his entire family, our family, her now husbands family. She had a big backyard wedding with 120ish people. She always remained very close with ex husbands family and with her ex husband. They have even vacationed together to visit my cousin while he was in the military. My aunt, her ex husband, and myself vacationed to see him in Italy 4 years ago while he was stationed. Good times all around. They should write a book on how to get along after divorce haha. They have been divorced like 25 years now.
My family doesn't make a fuss
My family doesn't make a fuss about anniversaries regardless first or second marriage. My DH and I do celebrate ours. I don't expect anyone else to fuss. We just celebrated our 4th and going strong. We are happy and I don't care about what other people think or do