It's pretty much common knowledge that American's divorce rate is 50%. When you get married the first time, you are taking a 50/50 chance that all your effort, and usually a large portion of time in your life will be for nothing. For a gambler and most anyone else, these are ok odds. Hell, it's better than nothing because in any situation with those chances the outcome could be wonderfully rewarding and worth taking the chance.

For second marriages, the statistics are a bit more gloomy. At least 70% of those marriages fail. In fact, they are more likely to fail if they involve step-children. I wouldn't be writing about this if I didn't know at least something about it and experience it too. I'm in a second marriage, but not my second marriage- it is my husband's second. According to statistics, we're still likely to fail. I have recently given a lot of thought about why a second marriage is nearly doomed. One answer is there are more things and interferences to disagree and argue about.

Responsibility to a first marriage continues even after the marriage is dissolved. Sad, but true. What is frustrating in the second marriage is the question about how the priority of responsibilities should be assigned. Does it lie with the first family or the second? Which children do you put first if you have to? Reality is second families often come in second.

Besides counseling after divorce, nobody teaches a divorced person how to transition into another marriage and family or how to deal with balancing the two. The first family doesn't just go away. At the risk of sounding selfish, I honestly wish it would. I'm brutally honest about the toughest things in life so don't hate me for it. In my situation of never being married, I was not prepared for taking second in many circumstances, and just how much a long distance ex family would effect our new family.

I've never had to compete for a man before, but I often feel like I'm competing for importance between the ex wife and their child together. He seems to be their representative and voice in all our arguments, whereas I am the rep for myself and our daughter. It seems he is almost more responsible for them than his current family. Reason is for fear of being labeled dead beat dad or irresponsible. There are more stigmas against men who have first families, than women.

Many women leave a marriage with majority of responsibility for the kids so this leaves dad in limbo- not knowing where his responsibility is. Sometimes my husband has to drop everything, including us (his current family) to tend to a crisis situation with his first family. Is this responsible and the right thing to do? Yes and no. As in most life's situation's, the boundaries are not clear. How much of the first family do you have to scarifice to make the second marriage work?

FINANCES: Many first marriages suffer because of financial arguments, but in second marriages there are usually additional financial obligations to the first family, such as child support, alimony, etc that take away from the second family's income. My husband and I have a child together, but he also has a child from his first marriage and he pays child support, additional money towards custody ammendments, and flying his daughter out to visit. This is only one example, but several other examples include giving grown children from the first marriage money or the ex spouse to keep up their way of life.

What ever happened to the old fashioned nuclear family? It doesn't even seem right that people should have more than one family. I think if people were allowed to be married only once, there would be a little more thought and effort into making the first marriage succeed. It's common place to have one family from your twenties, one from your thirties, etc. Now there are numerous extra family members; step parents, step grandparents, various aunts and uncles, step siblings- I'm going to stop there before I get dizzy! A second marriage and family walk into this mess and as statistics show, walk right out. Who can blame them?

There are dynamics in place as well as loyalty and history among relatives from the first families that haven't been established yet in the second family. There are "your" children and "our" children, and various feelings coming from everyone. Time and efforts taken to deal with the loose ends from the first marriage take away from the family life and establishment of the first family. Make no mistake that somehow things get stirred up in the first family when one or both ex spouses gets remarried. It seems that the first family suddenly requires more attention, money, etc from the remarried spouse.

As the number of relationships increase in one's life, complications arise. People tend to ride through their first marriage with a feeling of 'if it works, it works and if it doesn't, it doesn't'. It's not until the second marriage comes around that they discover it takes work. It's also in the second marriage that figure out they are still tied to their first marriage because those relationships need to be maintaind. So here is the spouse who is trying to make first and second mariage relationships work simultaneously.

Some things to think about before or while being in a second marriage are:

The statistics. Why are they stacked gainst second marriages? Lessons not learned, etc. There is a common factor that majority of our population is having troubles with in a second marriage. I think reflection on this is important

Boundaries. Are there some in place already? What needs to be changed when one remarries? Can you communicate about boundaries? I know a woman who can't hold a steady boyfriend because they get frustrated that her ex (father of her two children) stops by to see their kids unannounced. That is an example of very poor boundaries.

Special needs. I was once told by a marriage counselor that a second or subsequent marriage is to be treated as a special needs relationship; extra communication, nurturing, etc. Also, step children will fall into the special needs category too. Dealing with divorce and feeling replaced by a new family brings up a lot more issues.