First Marriages

[2sp_]

Following on from a thread in News by Ric.ror -

Say you are married with children. You were married once before at a young age and/or a brief period but had no children with that spouse.

Would you tell your children that you had been married before?

At what age would you tell them and how would you do it?

[Sharingan]

I wouldn't have left it this long, I'd have made sure it was mentioned casually several times so it was just unintersting non information. I don't think you have to explain yourself, just say 'yeah I was married before it didn't work out', be as mattter of fact as possible.

[bednobs]

oh dear, i didn't mean for my dilemma to lessen yours!
TBH i always said i would tell her about them but now it's sort of getting to the stage where she might understand a little bit, it feels more difficult. It was easy to make them into the prince ans princess in her bedtime story perviously, and easy to take her with us to the cemetery to kiss balloons before releasing them, but now i think to myself i don't want her to get a complex about she being the one who survived, or think that we only had her because they died (in fact i probably wouldn't have had her had they survived) or for her to worry about dying too (because kids think the strangest things).
Yes we do have photos, but they'll probably be moved soon because she's getting more mobile. With yours, i wouldn't wait till their first relationship - it seems a bit old to find that out to me

[bednobs]

i think 2sp's children are only little though sha

[Sharingan]

Oh well perfect then, sorry I assumed for some reason that they were older, my mistake. My Dad had been married before but that was obvious because of my older half brothers, but she was mentioned casually, likewise my mother has an older son as well, so again it was obvious she'd had another relationship and her ex was occasionally mentioned. As such it never really interested me very much and wasn't a big deal.

[Prudie]

I was in that situation and certainly told my daughter, can't remember when, at 6yrs maybe. It's no big deal and not the sort of thing that's easy to hide forever.

[2sp_]

Shar, the girls are 3 and 1, so I've a while yet to figure it all out!

[karenmac60]

I would say tell them. My aunt was married when she was very young to a man who was very ill. He died a week after the wedding. He had always been spoken about in family circles and my aunt had remarried and had 2 kids. I always presumed they knew about the first husband and put my foot in it big style by mentioning him to my cousin when she was in her mid 20s. I felt awful! But since I knew all about him even though I was a baby when he died, I just assumed my cousins would know. Don't put your children in this position, if there's a chance someone could mention him to them, then they should hear it from you first.