Random things on my mind

So I'm divorced and remarried. Let's not get into my ex or into my spouse's ex, at least not in the first quantitative post.

Let's talk about what it means to be married a second (or third or fourth) time.

A few months ago we had shabbos guests over who are good friends of ours. It is her second marriage, his third. They were much older baal teshuvas when they got married several years ago and had a "miracle" baby. Although they wanted to have more children, it does not appear that they will, as they are both close to, if not yet, 50. They love their child very, very much and are some of the best parents I have ever met. I knew them before I got divorced, my husband met them after he got divorced. They were extremely happy for us when we got married.

As we were sitting around the shabbos table, eating the last dregs of the cholent and potato kugel; the kids were off playing in the other room. I asked the husband, let's call him Aaron, if he had any kids from a previous marriage. I think actually what I said was, "Aaron, do you have kids from before you were frum? With one of your previous wives?" It was a fairly innocent question, because the man is old enough to have college-age students, and it's not unheard of for someone to have a child you don't necessarily know about.

In an interesting turn of events, it turns out that yes, Aaron has two teenage children with his first wife, and he hasn't seen them in years. At some point his ex-wife refused him access to the children so many times, he apparently just gave up. I don't know if the children were halachically Jewish (but that shouldn't have made a difference in my mind), and I don't know all the details, but basically he had become frum at that point, and the Rabbonim that Aaron spoke with told him that since it was already after a long period of time without contact with his children, it was better to not pursue it further. He has not seen his children from his first marriage in over 10 years.

I didn't say anything at that moment, but I was kind of stunned. As a parent myself, how does one just "give up" on seeing their children or having a relationship with them? I understand I was not privy to all the details and to why things went down, so dan l'chaf zechus there is a very good reason for it, but I haven't a clue.

What perplexed me even more though, was how Aaron's wife, we'll call her Aliza, agreed to marry the man knowing what the situation was. That type of situation would send big red honking flags at me - DO NOT MARRY DO NOT MARRY DO NOT MARRY. Obviously, she's okay with it, because they've been married for over 10 years, but that type of thing would send me screaming in the other direction because if he was willing to write off his children then maybe he was willing to just "write off" other people including future children. Of course, the man has done teshuvah, so I daven that he has taken a different tact the second time around.

Still, it is all too common to fall into another (and sometimes another) bad marriage that is a repeat of the first one. You've got to change yourself if you want to change your relationship in your next marriage.

I married someone very different from my first husband (thank G-d!), but of course, there are things he does that drive me up the wall. I'm sure he could say the same for me. In fact, I'm positive he says the same thing about me. :D