Week Fourteen Post Two

While reading chapter twenty-two I enjoyed the section on repartnering.  It is proven that divorce is most likely to occur during the first five years of marriage, and cohabitation usually ends within two years. Usually both partners reestablish former friendships and resume dating or even marry again, especially young men. Women with children are less likely to remarry, but when they do, their new husbands usually have children from a previous marriage. About half of all U.S. marriages are remarriages for at least one partner, and many formerly married men and women being new sexual partnerships, either cohabiting or having a steady mate whom they do not plan to marry. Usually remarriage brings intimacy, health and financial security. For remarried fathers, bonds with their new stepchildren or with a new baby may replace strained relationships with their children from the earlier marriage. Divorce usually increases depression and loneliness, remarriage brings belief, and happy couples right after the wedding. Except that happiness may not last long because personality tends to change slightly over the life span, therefore people that were really unhappy in their first marriage may become unhappy in their second. Stepchildren are said to cause unexpected stress, most likely because the culture has not yet codified the relationships and roles of stepfamilies, therefore individuals may have clashing expectations on what they should and shouldn’t do.  I was really interested in this section because I really learned a lot. My father was married before my mother and had two children in his previous marriage. My dad was a young man when he remarried proving that theory to be correct. I think when my father had three children with my mother his relationship with his children from his earlier marriage changed. He still loved all his children the same, but it was different having children with my mother because they got to raise them together and his relationship with my mother was true love.