Second marriages: how well do they work?

Marriage second time around. It never comes with the same lightness of heart or innocence as first time round. It also frequently comes with a bit less hope and a few more fears.

The characteristics of a second marriage depend on the circumstances in which it arose. A couple may have got together as a result of deceiving their previous partners during a secret affair. If they have divorced their partners and subsequently marry one another, they may still be a little high on lust and excitement, feeling very positive about their future together. After all, they reason, we’re winners in love, not losers like the partners we’ve ditched. Once they’ve embarked on the second marriage and the excitement recedes, doubts about the other’s fidelity may or may not begin to crop up. If your new wife was cheating on her husband, she may now be cheating on you. If he was betraying his wife, he may betray you as well. One or other calling to say they’re working late or missed the last train may engender suspicion if you used to hear him or her calling in with the same lie to his or her previous partner. However, although multiple factors will work together to determine the quality of the second marriage, each partner knows that in general the other has made a positive choice to be with them.

This is not precisely the case where two people who are deceived by their partners go through divorce unwillingly and later meet and marry a second partner. In this case, each new spouse may go through the second marriage highly aware that they were not each other's first choice, feeling that if only the previous spouse hadn’t wrecked things they would still be together. On the other hand, if the wreckage of the first marriage has receded gently into the past, they may find a kinder, more sincere love than they had first time round.

The question of age is also significant. Where a couple embark on a second marriage in their forties or fifties their joint priority may be to have a peaceful partnership and avoid emotional chaos in the future. Even if they got together following an affair, they may be intent on having a faithful second marriage following their experience of the breakup and divorce. All the same, they may face difficult emotional, practical and financial problems in relation to ex-partners and step-children. The ex-wife or husband may maintain a relationship with the partner who left them, usually a co-parenting relationship. This makes it unavoidable that the ex-spouse continues to figure in the everyday life of the new couple. He or she may still command some degree of loyalty or even love and this provokes competition and jealousy in the second wife or husband. And a husband or wife who has left their first partner may experience significant guilt over the infidelity and abandonment that he or she feels it’s essential to go to the ex-partner’s aid when she or he has a problem.

A new spouse also knows that, except in rare cases, the other spouse loves his or her own children more deeply and more fully than he or she will ever care for the stepchildren. The children too are quite likely to resent a new husband or wife if they perceive that he or she was the cause of the breakdown of their family. They are also likely to feel concerned about the parent who has been left single. On top of emotional concerns there are often resentments and suspicions on the financial front. The new wife presents as someone friendly perhaps, and innocent. But is she in reality a gold-digger? Has she brought her children to this marriage and is she diverting dad’s resources unfairly towards them? If the new couple share wealth and property, children on the two respective sides may be suspicious about how it will be apportioned when one or other partner dies? Everyone has heard of instances where a husband dies and a fairly new wife inherits all he possessed while the ex-wife and children of the first marriage are disinherited. In other cases, a second wife may lose her home because her husband leaves almost everything he has to the kids. Such conflicts of interest can lead to persistent resentments within second marriages and the broken families produced by them. It’s also common for the children from each broken family to resent one another. Forced to become step-siblings and often to spend time together, they may experience feelings of jealousy towards the other children who are getting the attention of their mother or father and also towards to the husband or wife who now also has a claim on their parent’s love and time. This battery of conflicting relationships can make homelife uncomfortable or bitter, a battleground where tensions are at best contained and often spring into the open.

Where partners in a second marriage are younger, they may decide to have kids of their own. When they do, they lay themselves open to the problems that come with ex-wives, ex-husbands and the kids from those marriages when new ones arrive on the scene. The complex connections between new children, older children by the first partner, older step-children, their father or mother, plus the ex-wife and husband are fraught with tensions and potential conflicts. How troubled will the siblings, half-siblings and step-siblings be as they grow up and begin to understand the different and uneven ways in which they’re connected? How will all the parents involved decide what is fair treatment for each set of children? And how is it possible to reconcile the varying behaviors and expectations that arise when half-siblings and step-children spend the week at their home but arrive at yours with their bags for the weekend? Although direct contact with ex-spouses can be cut down to a bare minimum of what is practical, there will almost always be a need for significant discussion and decision-making. A father or mother must always be contactable by his or her ex, for instance, in case a child is ill or suffers an accident. The first marriage may have ended but there are still joint decisions to be taken about discipline, schooling, health, holidays, birthdays and Christmas. On both the practical and financial level, a new husband or wife is likely to feel obliged to offer help to the parent looking after a child full-time and may also want to.

Direct conflict between a new partner and an ex also occur frequently. An ex may be unable to accept that the marriage is over. He or she may wish to make life uncomfortable for the partner who left and for his or her new partner. On the other hand, where there are no real hard feelings left, an ex may continue to have a relationship with the husband or wife who left, to the annoyance of the new partner. When an ex-wife stays on good terms with her husband, it’s common for the second wife – especially if she had an affair with her husband while he was in his first marriage - to feel angry. She’s unlikely to care that ex was hurt by the cheating and subsequent divorce. She feels frustrated because the first wife hasn’t entirely vacated the scene. For his part, the husband is torn to some extent between what he experiences as pressure from both sides. They each expect him to behave in ways that the other will object to.

The following statements encapsulate the tensions between first and second wives.

Annie, Colin’s second wife:

“My husband’s ex-wife won’t leave us alone. Her 6-year-old stays with us every other weekend and I go out of my way to entertain her. But Colin’s ex interferes, calling on some pretext or just to speak to her. If she has some problem at her place she’ll call him and ask for advice or get him to offer to fix things. Sometimes it feels as if she’s here in the house with us. Colin’s too soft with her – he should tell her she’s not to call. Their marriage is over and he’s my husband now, not hers. Her trouble is that she’s living in the past but no-one’s forcing her too. We’re having a baby in five months and things will have to change. Colin’s daughter will have to share his attention and his ex will have to accept that she needs to move on.”

Robyn, Colin’s first wife:

“We’d been married for 20 years when Colin announced he wanted a divorce. To me, it came out of the blue. We had lot of plans for the future and we both adored our daughter. Suddenly becoming a single parent at 38 was terrifying. Overnight my family broke up and I had no say in it. Colin and the girl he cheated with both chose to go off together. But I had no choice. I lost a lot of weight and slept badly for months. Our daughter goes to stay with him at weekends and it’s excruciating, like this other woman has taken my place, taken my family. When they have children I think Colin may come under pressure to detach from our daughter. I can’t see a future at the moment. My marriage and family was our future.”

The easiest form of second marriage is probably marriage when both parties were previously widowed. A new relationship in these circumstances can be another, often unexpected, chance to share life with a loving companion. Both husband and wife will be more mature than first time around and may demand less of one another. Step-children and step-grandchildren may contribute to their happiness and be pleased to see the new couple enjoying life together. Even so, it’s still possible that there’ll be jealousies or suspicions around the question of inheritance.

This is how Elizabeth and John describe their second marriage after both were widowed in their early sixties:

John

“I was a widow for four years. I hated being alone. I was one of those men who’d cook something and eat it straight from the pan. I don’t look after myself when I’m alone. Now we’re married I like doing a bit of cooking for Elizabeth and she likes cooking for me too. We share everything. I worried at first whether her son and daughter would accept me but they were very welcoming right from the start. They were delighted when we told them we were getting married. My daughter was a bit slower coming round to the idea but everyone gets on now. I have photos of my first wife in the house and Elizabeth has photos of her first husband. If they hadn’t died, Liz and I wouldn’t be together, we’d still be with our first partners. No doubt about that. But this is how life has turned out and I’m lucky to have married two wonderful girls.”

Elizabeth

“I met John through a girlfriend and her husband. I’d been widowed for two years and wasn’t looking for a new husband. But we both like walking and we started meeting at the weekends to walk on the Downs. We both like eating out too, and a glass of wine, so suddenly we were meeting during the week too. John’s daughter was quite snippy with me for several months and I didn’t know why. I thought she was either jealous because her dad was giving me attention or resented that the fact that I was ‘replacing’ her mother in her dad’s affections. But a friend told me she was actually resentful because she thought once we married I might inherit her dad’s house! We talked that over and John showed her his will. It’s true that he’s made some provision for me, but the house will be hers. Since then, we’ve got on well. She gets on well with my kids, who accepted John from the outset, and her grandkids get on with mine too. We’re one big happy family!”