Quote From: kjhamilton I read your entire message. Yes, you have a difficult situation of your own making. Maybe you need to re-frame your problem and then do your best to work the situation. You also put it out there on a message board for comment. No child is "worth more" than another. You also know that your comment is dodging the primary tissue in your family.
But you are grown up , well educated and knew that you were making new children with someone who had prior committments to a first family and could not in good conscience discharge his prior obligations. As you said, your husband was trying to "do the right thing" when he decided in court that he would support his very own!(wow, his very own!)children he made w/ his first wife by giving her adequate child support. Unless he kept the knowledge of his first family from you before you were married---you went into this marriage with the full knowledge ( even if you did not think entirely through the process/outcome) that his first and primary responsibility is for what he had already brought into this world. He is also (as you are) equally responsible for what you and he bring into the world anew.
It's your logic that's flawed here and you are putting your problems on the selfish old ex-wife. You also had prior obligations before you and your husband married .Your husband went to court and agreed to financially take care of his financial obilgation to his first family he was doing right by them--at least partially. He cannot ever pay enough money to make up for the destruction of these children's family--children don't come equipped with adult minds . They would most of the time prefer that they have their own mom and dad live with them at the same time in the same home--most children do not want part-time parents. In all but the most dire cases, it should be their right until the age of majority.
I really think you husband should be praised for holding up his financial obligation and not encouraged to complain.
If he is going to hold up his end of at least the financial /as much of the other as he can because it was "the right thing to do" back before you all remarried and made a new family w/ new children, why is it not today still "the right thing to do"? He can't now turn around and say that this is "not the right thing" just because he and/or you feel that there is not enough income to go around. He sounds like an honorable man and he also knows every day that he and his first wife's split was intrinscally not good for his own children.
This is not a perfect analogy, but maybe one that can explain the logic behind it. If you go out and purchase your new, first car and you totally wreck it - AND your first car is not paid off you have made a legally binding contract to pay for it fully. You even have an ethical responsiblilty to pay off the first , now wrecked car. You cannot discharge your financial obligation to the car dealer/financer because you no longer have the use of the car--you still owe the debt.
You cannot stop making payments on the old car because you need or want to buy a new one now. If you buy a 2nd new car, you are still obligated legally to finish paying off the one you wrecked. If your budget does not allow a new car before the wrecked one is paid off--you have to find extra work, cut back the budget, ride the bus--whatever, but in our country you cannot discharge a debt simply because it has become burdensome or inconvienent to pay.
Children are not cars (it would be so much easier if they were objects instead of young humans w/ all the attendant fears, love, and hopes) so the logic is even more important that we take great care in not taking on more than we can afford. When you planned your new family it was surely in the back of your mind to plan an put into and good practice steps to make sure that you can take care of any new committments because the old ones do not go away.
If you can afford additional children and want them , only then should you bring them into the world. It is the ethical thing to do as children are not cars, but small beings that parents will have to give to for 25 or so years before the are truly indepndent and hopefull, ethically functioning members of society. Your husband is showing his children how to be good persons by honoring his own obligations (even if it hurts a bit) and he is teaching them that they must also learn to honor their own obligations and committments --first small, then larger as they grow older. He is teaching by doing,not by telling.
I can use myself as an example--I have a chronic illness that requires even w/ good insurance takes lots of our income as a couple (me and my husband) to help w/ medical care. Although children might have been part of our wishes, I knew from my early 20s (I am 47 yrs old now) on that I could not affford without great sacrifice to have and care for even 1 child. Because it was unfair to a potential partner who might want a family, I dated men who were not desirous of having additional family. If they had children under college age I just "didn't go there". Why tempt yourself with a life you can't really handle?
I would not have wanted a partner in my life who would not want to keep his obligations. I was upfront about my own problems and my limitations personal, financial, and professionally.
There is enough danger in daily living (we are a country w/ few supports if something goes wrong) . For me it was unaffordable given my resources to try and have more than I could afford. Having any kids costs a lot ( I read recently that it takes an average of 250K to get a child frome birth thru college)--you complicate that even more when you add more family. I could not afford financially, emotionally or in terms of stamina to live that much on the edge. But you decided as a couple that you could handle it
I do not know your age, but one thing life teaches you in shovelfuls is that you are not entitled to everything or anything (including a child )just because you want it and others have it. The reality is now you have a family and to stabilize family life you may have to be willing to advance a 2nd career(yours) or do without some things. Life is a great equalizer for all of us. Once you accept that life is by it's nature unfair--you start to see thru and work your way to a way to live--my guess is there is a lot of underlying "current" in your happy marriage because you have yet to come to terms with the fact that you will always share your husband financially and emotionally because he came from a previous marriage w/kids.
If you all have had additional children then that means you have tnow got to learn to live efficiently. The books eventually have to balance or you will destabilize all. Start with a good book on the financial end of family life--Jane Bryant Quinn is one of the best writers for the average family on this subject.
Your ex-husband's wife could be a billionaire and it would not change HIS obligations to his children and her . Get over that. It's part of the picture because he agreed to them first. He made a legally binding contract when wed his first wife. He and she discharged upon their divorce their contract--but children belong to both of them and they arranged the terms of caring for their children financially and in other ways. He is equally responsible for his new kids, so he and you have to find a way to make things happen.
The ex-wife could win the lottery, but if your husband is the straight up guy you say he is--he will choose to take care of his first kids' financial life and not accept his first wife's money even if she offered to let him off the hook. His kids (and your current children) will" pay "every day just being part of a "blended" family because by its' very definition it is harder to make a life when you have obligations (personal and financial) to both households.
It is harder for his children who will have to live w/out the relationship of a primary set of parents under one roof to interact daily. that's gone for these kids--all of them in a way. It will be harder for yours too, as they have to share a father with divided obligations. What takes it's place can be rewarding if you will work at it. Life is not "fair" and blended families are harder--every relationship, business, anything in life is harder to manage efficiently when you make it more complex . One wife /one husband /2 kids (no new marriages with new kids)--much less complicated and costly than what you have.
It is by it's nature, very expensive to be divorced and remarried with kids, esp. if you have a modest income. Comes with the decision. It's hard with a good, but modest income to afford to be a part of 2 households. I know we can't afford to support 2 households. We did not put ourselves in that situation.
Reframe your thoughts. It's not all bad. If your husband's ex-his wife has done well financially, then I'm sure he couldn't be happier. I would as a father of these first kids. I t would please me to know that my children might get some "extras' such as private school, remaining in their own home, the experience and gift of travel, money in the bank so they don't have to careen from crisis to crisis--all things he may not be able to afford to make sure they have in their lives now that he and you have decided that you want a family together. You know that your husband is a good and honest man who takes care of anything he puts on this Earth. That is a good thing to know.
Whatever you think of his first wife---if she can give his children a stable home with adequate financial resources then she is in fact, helping him and you more than you know. Poverty in America is housed mainly in homes where their is a female head of household w/ young children (no father in the home).
This has been a joint decision (2nd family) and you all have to as a couple figure out what combination of downsizing and increasing income/building wealth will keep your family going. It probably is not the ideal situation for a young mom to be at work if you have very small children, but you may ultimately need to get back into the workforce in some capacity if you cna't or don't want to downsize any further. You have not only your own children, but all these children to consider now.
WOW! Very well said.
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