More than half of all adult women in the US will marry a man with children. 70% of those partnerships will fail.

Divorce rates are 50% higher in remarriages with children than in those without.

Some experts recommend delaying marriage to a partner whose child is between the ages of 10 and 16, so great are the risks of conflict for the couple.

The final high-risk factor: a childless woman marrying a man with children. (some research suggests that women with their own children fare batter in a marriage to a man with children, although they face a whole different set of emotional and practical challenges).

Later on in the book, it went on to clarify that these second marriages that go beyond 7 years or so have a better chance of success than first marriages.

So, Stacey…..read this book. I’m five years in, things are much, much better. I’ve learned a lot. But having said that, if a very good friend came to me and told me she had a choice to date a man with or without children, I would steer her toward the man without.

I’m a very different person today than I was before I met DH. For the better? In some ways, yes. In others no. Its work. Everyday. Some days are really, really, really hard. Some days are easy. Some days I count my lucky stars that they are in my life. Some days I think..”why the hell did I ever get involved”.

When I was a naïve young adult, I thought to myself “I will marry a man and have children and live happily ever after”. Instead I married a man who already had a child.