bc dad cant truly be the best parent he can be if he doesnt put his marriage first, and isnt happy in his own life. and the kids will be on their own someday and WE will be the ones who are there. putting the marriage first IS putting the kids first and showing them a healthy happy way to live. and it doesnt do kids any favors to treat them and care for them ahead of the spouse...that instills the mentality that the world revolves around them and doesnt help when they are on their own.

"Given the right reasons and the right two people, marriage is a wonderful way of experiencing your life."
~the late great George Carlin

How would YOU answer that same question?

I speak to many people about this topic because it's a interesting sociologic aspect.

When two people first have children in a first marriage, they generally put their marriage first. Anyway, that's what most marriage counselors will tell you in way of priorities: Marriage first/ children second.

So why is it that in second, third, etc marriages, people (mostly men) feel that it's necessary to STILL put their CHILDREN first in subsequent marriage(s)?

So what place does the wife take then? If not for a partner, an equal, why did they then decide to get re-married?

I, too, am a biomom. I have two boys. One of them, in fact has special needs (Down Syndrome). And when I was on my own, I made sure that THEY came first and foremost in my life. I didn't date anyone for a while so I could make sure they were ok from the effects of the divorce. But when I met my DH and made the commitment to be his wife, there was the understanding that HE and my marriage came first.

Not that if there's an emergency and my boys needs me, I don't attend immediately to them, but when my DH is home and so are the boys, and everything is quiet and all is well, I focus my attention on my DH. They have their teenage interests and lives, and "we" as a couple, have ours.

Like I said, it's one thing if there's a "crisis" situation with a child, but for the most part, a child needs their own life, and the parents need their "adult" lives, and those need to be separate.

And yes, your life with your husband, should come first.

"If you have never been hated by a child, you have never been a parent."
-Bette Davis

I could not agree with you more. The 1st wife or 1st marriage will come before the kids or at the very least be equal with the kids. But take the second wife or marriage and she will NEVER come 1st to his kids. All she can hope for is a close second and be above the 1st wife(believe it or not does not allways happen). Why is this? Can be many reasons like guilt over leaving the child and exwife.Or( what I think) the fact the 1st wife was the one to give him his "1st born". Even if you are lucky to give him a child too the 1st one is always the most "special" as most men feel been there done that. Same goes for the wedding 1st one exiting and new but the second time around been there done that for most men.

I'm lucky on this one, my husband always puts me first. But when he was married to the BM, he put the kid first because by the time the kid was born, he couldn't stand her. She did so many horrible things to him that he doesn't have any guilt over divorcing her. And now we have a child, but before we had ours we found out his "son" wasn't really his, so I ended up being the one to give him his first born. And while he still feels like SS is his son, he's definitely proudest of our marriage & our son. He is also very religious so he believes the spouse should always come first. So luckily I am always first. I also have a son from a previous marriage, and for a long time I always made him first. Now I don't view it that way. I don't view our family as taking "sides" or "ranking" each person. To me, my relationship with my husband is just as important as taking good care of my sons (they are only 5 & 4 months). That being said, if when my sons are older and doing something that my husband didn't agree with, I will not enable them. Like not working and mooching off us...no, not gonna happen. But at the same time, if my husband ever did anything I did not agree with to my sons, like abusing them or something, I would leave him. So I think it goes both ways.

giving birth any day now with my first child. But I believe your marriage should come before any kids. If you don't concentrate on one another, you will have nothing. The kids will be gone one day and if you have neglected each other, then you will not have anything but either a dead relationship or no marriage at all. DH and I have discussed in depth the fact that we both intend to put one another first. He has also always told me that I will always come before his kids because that is how he believes it should be. We may be wrong, but that is what we think.

Even states that in the bible! No matter what the situation, blended family, regular family, the marriage comes first!!! The kids will grow up and have their own families one day, then where will dh be if he doesn't keep his marriage alive??? If the marriage doesn't work he will have nothing when the kids grow up and move on with their lives!! I am a firm believer in God, marriage, family!!!! Good luck to you!

BF is exactly the same. I believe the relationship should come first too, but he doesn't see it either.
I have never really mentioned that I want to be #1 but he always makes a point in saying that his kids are #1.

Conflicted,
When you work out how to speak to your man on this one please let me know, cause i'll definatly give it a go myself as well.

5teensathome,
If you write that book, I'll be your first sale.

I really think this topic is what brings MANY of us to this site.
We meet someone with whom we have a GREAT TIME, etc., and then
WHAM!! out of the blue the FUN IS OVER because of ISSUES from
the first familty.

Believe me, there are PLENTY OF TIMES when I wonder if it's all
worth it. I have a LIFE outside this marriage, and for the first
four years I allowed myself to be consumed with "trying to be
the perfect new wife and stepmother" to three adult SDs who wouldn't have liked me if I had a halo and performed miracles.

Until I found this site, I really thought that I, too, was ALONE in my misery; that I was making "too much of it" or "overreacting" to being treated like "second place" (sometimes it was THIRD FOURTH OR FIFTH PLACE). And, as so many of you state, I was TRYING SO HARD to make my marriage my TOP priority and make things great!!

So, why do we stay? Is it the good times outweigh the bad? Or, is it that, IN TIME, we get SMART and learn that it ISN'T US and start using new strategies that make them RESPECT US. MINE? I have learned to stop being so "available" whenever DH feels like playing happy family. Holidays are usually chaotic with his adult brats (someone is always crying, drunk, in a relationship crisis, etc.), and I am sick of being around them. So, I'm going SOUTH this Thanksgiving, with my OWN daughter. Let DH handle the "drama" all by himself. He doesn't like it, but he knows I'm fed up with the drama. I'm no longer yelling, screaming, or carrying on.

Oh, he'll be PO'd for the entire holiday, mainly because his "calming influence" (ME!!) won't be there. (By the way, I did this last Thanksgiving, too for the same reason.) You'd be
surprised at how much he'll appreciate ME when I get back and
he realizes how much CALMER and SMOOTHER life is when his NUMBER ONE is around.

I really think we have to make them see for THEMSELVES that WE DESERVE to be treated as number one. HE IS WITH YOU FOR A REASON!! Sometimes giving them some time to deal with the nonsense of the wacky ex-family ALONE (instead of trying to "help" and "be nice" all the time) reinforces why they ARE with us and not with "them".

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."-Eleanor Roosevelt

Hello Everyone!

I have not been on this site for several months now. It's not that life became miraculously rosey and I didn't need to vent or have confirmation from my peers. I guess I just thought I had mentally put everything in it's place.

Well, then came the email today and I had to come looking for my stepfriends. One of my SD's sent DH an email (nastygram) and it just made me sick. She wants to do something with her friends for Halloween and does not want to spend time with us. DH and I have been telling her how nice it will be to have her at our house this year. The child is only 11. I told DH that with her attitude I would be happier if she were not in my home that night. He said "If that is what will make a nice evening for you then I will tell her she can go to her friends house" I was floored and started feeling really guilty. I asked if I were really that miserable that he would want my happiness over his own childs happiness? He said no and explained what you have all confirmed here....that marriages and spouses come first.

I will blog more abut the email from SD in another post. I do need some advice on it.
__________________________________________________________________
"All power is from within therefore under our control." - Robert Collier

My explaination: When the kids have grown and are off doing there thing, who is left? You....and hopefully you have managed to hang on to a life partner - your husband or "partner" if we have to be politically correct here. So, we come first. I actually told my husband that that is the way it has to be because when it is all said and done, we have each other. Period.

I've given up on lots of things with my husband. it hurts me to the core that he wants to put his son first when his son will very well grow up and move away unless someone fronts all for him. I love my husband but he's spoiled (and he's said so himself) and so is his son. So I fear I will always wish to be special or more special and he will put his son who will grow up move and do what he wants, visit when he feels and do what he wants and I'll be left here resenting and sad that I can't get him to understand that.

How come they can't get this? I love my kids, they are SO important to me, but same thing, they will grow up and move on , shouldn't he and I be a team? Nothing we have is together, including a house or bills. He and I are now in dispute about buying land elsewhere and leaving it to his son over me and if I can't buy it I have 0 rights after his son is of age. And my kids get jack. I don't get it.

He hates them so thats some of it but I can't understand why they shouldn't have something from mom too, and I WANT to buy land WITH him not have him buy it and let me enjoy it, if he were to die tm and we owned such land it would be mine per him until his son was of age or I died. How is that fair? I should want to leave my kids something too right? he keep comparing to owning cars and jewelery. I think he's being vindictive and immature

Marriage comes first children second. My husband put his children first in his first marriage as did his former wife, now that marriage ended in divorce. My husband was up until I banned the daughter from home putting his children first. This marriage is likely to end in divorce unless he gets struck by lightening and realises what I his wife his and entire family have realised for years. I think his ideas of what a parent should be were well and truly skewed in the first marriage as he had the first child because he wanted to leave her and back then italian family catholic background, wasn't going to happen anytime soon. So he stayed and had kids. So he has never learnt wife first, children second. But as so many posters here have said, it is amazing that for the most part children only come first in second and subsequent marriages. Children coming first in any marriage 1st or 21st only leads to disaster for kids and marriage. Kids end up spoilt, self centred, entitled and unable to function in society by themselves, marriage ends up in divorce. Marriage first, children second. That recipe works best for all concerned.

The exception of course is when chidren are sick, injured etc., and then it is only a temporary arrangement

Interesting topic.....

IMHO if you put your husband first/marriage then kids will automatically thrive and be brought up in a loving environment.

This of course Will be impossible if you have married the wrong person....I was in that situation and my kids were my life my husband was someone I didn't care for.....

But now I'm with the love of my life and wow...my kids have thrived and yes my husband comes first....kids come a very close second.

True liks. Children who are lucky enough to have been born into a family where mum and dad were right for each other, loved each other and put the marriage before the kids....have it all.

For those of us who married the wrong person or something dramatically changed the way we felt in the marriage well some of our kids werent' so fortunate, because mum and or dad if they stayed together "For the sake of the kids" tended to focus all their attention on the kids. When that happens, these kids grow up to be our stepkids...Spoilt, self centered, greedy, selfish, rude, ill mannered brats who think that the whole world should revolve around them and their want. They think they should give nothing and take everything, they have no respect for other people or other peoples relationships, because, heh! that's what mum and dad taught them their whole lives.

I left when my children were very young, it was damn hard trying to raise three kids on my own, and they suffered financially for my choice. However, I put myself first then, I made sure that I did not let them use the "divorce" as an excuse for bad behaviour, I did not take any of their nonsense even though I did feel bad at times when they had less than other kids I still stood my ground and taught them respect. They have grown up to be independent self supporting adults who have their own families, are not looking for hand outs, who think babysitting by mum is a privellage for them not a right. My husband however stayed for the kids mum and dad hated each other and adored the kids, so whose kids are causing problems in our marriage, mine who had nothing or his who had it all. Yep, his who had it all. They had everything paid for them their entire lives, cars purchased for them, (new ones), registration, insurance , cell phone bills, clothes, shoes absolutely anything and everything was supplied, and even when they did work, not one of them was expected to contribute to the house, and all their bills were still paid for them. So, they are having a real hard time giving that up.

Of Course It's All MY Fault - we all know that don't we.

By "kids" you mean minors or progeny.
Of course adult children don't come first.

ITs a relief to see that I am not crazy and That I should come first any time my husband and I have a fight or disagreement I always say "I'm your WIFE" but can't get out the "I come first part" because I didn't know if that was fair or right..I am glad to see that its true and I will keep pounding that into his thick skull.

He's slowly getting it, I just wish it wasn't a down and out fight to get there!

on a good note, totally pulled away from the SS and am much happier not giving a damn, yes I will watch him and make sure he's safe ect but I'm done trying to get him to talk to me about school or his day or give him any affections. it goes against my motherly instinct but he is a little shit so whatever lol

I gave DH the BUSINESS about this, and we even went to marriage counseling concerning this issue. I let him know, if the shoe was on the other foot and I was always about "my kids this" and "you don't understand OUR dynamic", he would have a heart attack citing that I don't pay HIM enough attention. I told him, in eight to 12 years when they go to college, its just me and you buddy. I want to be married to someone I can talk to and have passion with. Not someone who is a stranger because all the focus has been on the children.

Needless to say, he gets it know. I'd say its abou 60/40 consistent. If its truly what you believe in (your relationship) then you have to teach your man how to love you.

I am pregnant with our first child but I feel me and the new baby will still be put after the first lot.
I feel I am always overriden by the SC and because of this and no suport from my partner the SC think i am a joke

I say family unit first....that means everyone knows the are loved and valued. If my dh was being out of line with my biokids, I don't take his side just because he's my husband/my priority. Likewise, if my biokids are being jerks...they don't get a pass because they are the fruit of my loins. In Echo's scenario(btw....blech, mil is a sicko) you don't ignore the more helpless ones in the house to help a perfectly capable human being. As my partner, he better be running through flames to help collect kids(and pets!).
I'm not my dh's parent...and I'm not my kids significant other..and I don't blur the lines...but I also don't rank them..anymore than I can rank which biokid comes first. If I am hyper focusing on one relationship to the point of not tending to another relationship....that's not balance and that's not good for the family unit.

When we say "we come first" we don't mean to imply that the physical and emotional needs of anybody's kids get neglected or put off to the side. On the contrary, we want to be a family (at least at first until REALITY slaps us upside our ignorant heads).

However, it is the experience of many that bio dads will put every whim and desire of their kids ahead of and above the NEEDS of their wife and their relatioship. The sm often isn't consulted about the very goings on in her own home, how the marital finances are distributed, etc.

The example for the skids to respect the sm and the marriage is never set and it goes downhill from there.

Let me give you one of about 7,000 examples from my own life. Once, on my birthday, dh asked me "what would you like to do today, we will do anything you want for your birthday". I said I would like to visit a not-too-far-away place called Farm Sanctuary - a place where they have resuced abused farm animals, do tours, etc.

While I was getting ready to go -- literally getting dressed to go out the door -- skid 2 called and asked dh if we would babysit his kid - "right now". Dh told him YES and then came to me and said won't it be fun to take his grandbrat with us?

I told him something that I won't repeat here and NOBODY went to Farm Sanctuary that day - we stayed home and dh babysat his grandbrat and I made the grandbrat a grilled cheese sandwich because that was the ONLY food he would eat at the time.

HOW DIFFICULT would it have been for dh to say to his kid "sorry, we have plans for sm's birthday"???

I hope this helps to answer your inquiry.

I don't think it's a question of "first, second, third," etc.

I think it is a question of HIERARCHY. Back in the day, ADULTS were on a higher level so to speak than children, meaning they were granted more authority and responsibility than children and were tasked with the job of looking out for, providing for and training young children.

Today, the HIERARCHY has changed in "non-nuclear" families. It seems the biological parent puts the child at the same level as an adult. Giving the child AUTHORITY but yet no naturally accompanying RESPONSIBILTY. This "shifts" the order of things and is reinforced when the CP BM puts the child on the same level as she is as her "best friend" while at the same time, usually via PAS, lets the child know that both biodad and SM are actually on a LOWER rung than the child. I have coined a term so to speak "adult spousal status" to describe the AUTHORITY the child is given however WITHOUT the accompanying responsibilty (rules, boundaries, structure, accountability).

SO now that this is "off balance" as in Mathematics and Physics, every action has an equal, yet opposite RE-action.

There has to be a party in this dynamic that gets ALL the responsibility yet none of the authority to "counter balance" what has been given the child.

Usually that is NCP biodad (not allowed to parent his child for fear of "losing" said child to the BM) and MOSTLY STEPMOM!!!

Stepmom is at the BOTTOM of the heirarchy nine times out of ten, unless she blows the whistle on all of this twisted dynamic and says "Hey, wait a minute, I'm an adult and when I was a child I had to be responsible for my actions and had to take adult instruction too. . . so now that I'm a adult, what's up with this having to be responsible for a child (that has been told and thinks he/she is ROYALTY in the family dynamic) in which I have ZERO authority to speak up and make desperately needed CHANGES???!!"

Of course this upsets the apple cart entirely. The CP BM thinks "how DARE SM have a say in my child's life and how DARE she try to stop me from trashing biodad in this manner (by treating the children as, well CHILDREN)!!" The children, especially if they have been raised from an very early age with "adult spousal status" don't like the fact that they are being urged to "come down from their throne" so to speak and assume a natural CHILD'S role in the family. So they start HATING Stepmom and of course biodad if he tries to see things from "her side."

I look at more like authority.

Dad is the general
SM is the lieutenant (i'm pretty bad at knowing the rankings) But as the SM is involved in the family more, her "rank" goes up.
Skids are privates

Dad has to support SM, it's about respect. He must ALWAYS support her and include her. She is above skids in authority. If he has a problem with what she does he speaks to her privately otherwise she's looked at by skids as a non-authority, or even a joke.

As far as putting people "first" or "second." I would say in a family everybody's needs should be valued equally and all should try to meet them. Want's on the other hand are negotiable and should never come before a family member's true need.

For example, a baby needs to eat and be changed in the middle of the night, that is a need the baby has, there is a need for mom to sleep, but the baby's need trumps the mom's.

Sometimes this happens and when it's our own child we are ok with it.

In any healthy marriage, the WIFE should ALWAYS come first. This is true for ANY marriage - first or second, etc... marriage included.

If a woman sees that her boyfriend consistently is putting the kids first (possibly because the kids really do need help dealing with their parents divorce, emotional problems, etc....) I personally would suggest you NOT live with nor marry such a man. At least not until their kids are not the center of their lives any longer. If it looks like that will never happen, or it might take a very long time to stop, move on.

If you have already married such a person, you can try to get them to change their ways, but it will most likely be an uphill battle the whole way. It isn't impossible, but you will need to find others (such as a pastor, friends, counselor,....) who can support you in your efforts to get your husband to see things differently. Be prepared for a long struggle - and if it ends up not being a long struggle, be thankful.

If a husband - or a wife - aren't willing to invest the time and emotions that it takes to create a healthy marriage, the marriage will always be unstable. When the kids leave home, the instability of the marriage will really show up, because so much of the husband's energy and emotions have been directed towards the kids, the relationship with the wife isn't there. There will be a big hole between them when it is just the two of them. Divorce isn't uncommon in situations like this.

I wish you the best.