I met up with a very cool old friend recently. 3/4 years ago he married a woman with 3 young kids. He obviously really loves her, but he told me that after living with the kids for a few years, if he had his time over again he wouldn't have married their mother, because of what the kids do to their lifestyle and relationship. The kids are badly behaved, they fight all the time and break things, she's always yelling at them, and on top of that they're costing a fortune.

Lesson to us all, as if we didn't know already - beware stepchildren!

It's not the stepchildren who are the problem. Some children are definitely born bad, but most children with behaviour problems suffer from bad parenting.

Most children come out of divorces with at least a couple of emotional/behavioural issues. Instead of actually dealing with them, most parents take the "they'll grow out of it" approach, usually because they are so caught up in the messiness of the divorce. End result = out of control kids with frustrated parents.

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My Travel Blog - Tales from the Backpack

DH's second wife (I'm the third) was a widow with 3 kids. He stuck it out for 8 years but finally had enough of her putting the kids first in everything - including asserting that buying things for them was more important than for him to have insulin. He's a fucking diabetic, but her kids were more important than that. He ended up cheating on her, of which he is not proud, but he was at the end of his rope and basically did it to get out of the marriage.

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"A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it." -- D. H. Lawrence

I have a friend who is in the process of a divorce because of the behavior the stepkids are allowed to get away with. They're young adults, but the mom lets them stay in the house, not work, not go to school, and she dotes on them. It was so bad that the kids wrecked his nice house, and she all but kicked him out... of his own home.

I'm a stepdaughter, and I know that I wasn't the nicest kid to be around for my stepdad when he and my mom first got married. Especially since my stepdad was childless (by choice) before he met my mom.

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http://xkcd.com/946/

I'm sure you're right. Their dad takes no interest in them, and their poor mum can't control them.

I know that I would not have married my husband if his daughter was a brat or uncontrollable. But luckily she is a nice, well behaved child. Sometimes she gets on my nerves, but since it's not my kid, I am free to leave and do what I want when I want. And my husband supports that and never gives me grief when I need some adult time. He would have been CF had his first wife not oopsed him (which is why he married her). So he knows exactly where I am coming from.

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"Abba-Zabba, You my only friend!"
-Thurgood Jenkins

www.abigailpfeiffer.com

Knowing what I know now - I would have ran for the hills!

And I now have Iron Maiden's Run to the Hills running through my head. Thanks.

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Grumpy velociraptor

Broken people have broken marriages, I really can't see blaming the kids on this one. The parents, yeah, blame away. I know many wonderful children (I fancy that I was a good kid) from 2 parent homes. But, bottom line for me, I wouldn't ever get involved with someone who is divorced. If you can't pull it together in one marriage, you are a failure, and I am going to be avoiding you. Likewise, cheaters cheat. I'm always surprised when people are surprised that their cheating partner cheated on them, or that their divorcee spouse is divorcing them. People are who they are.

I think the biggest thing to realize is that you can't change a person. A person that is bad at marriage, is bad at marriage always.

Oh shit. I guess I'll let you break the news to my fiance then. How dreadful that Mr Kalinka is going to marry a FAILURE!

Really, unless you know the reasons behind somebody's divorce, you are not qualified to comment.

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Gib mir den Doughnut. Velociraptors love doughnuts.