Second wives, depicted as homewreckers and evil stepmothers in fairy tales and made-for-TV movies, are often doomed as soon as they tie the knot, new research suggests.
“They marry a man with the illusion that his former family won’t infringe on their perfect life together,” said Susan Shapiro Barash, author of “Second Wives: the Rewards and Pitfalls of Marrying Widowers and Divorced Men.”
“In reality, the day-to-day demands of his ex-wife and children can be overwhelming,” said Barash, a gender studies professor at Marymount Manhattan College.
With more than 50 percent of first marriages ending in divorce, and 75 percent of divorced people remarrying, more women are becoming second wives.
But second marriages are breaking up as often as first marriages. According to the U.S. Census, 52 to 62 percent of first marriages end in divorce, while 60 percent of second marriages fail.
And second marriages typically last about half as long as first marriages, only six to seven years, Barash found.
The do-over “I dos” collapse under the stress of raising stepkids and splitting a husband’s income with his former household, said Barash.
“If the second wife really can’t abide the financial obligations plus the emotional attention he gives his children, those marriages dissolve very quickly,” Barash said.
Widowers make “better husband material,” she said, because their former marriages ended in death instead of divorce.
On the other hand, when the first wife is “immortalized” – like Paul McCartney’s first wife, Linda, who died of cancer – it gets thorny. Barash calls it the “Rebecca” syndrome, after the Daphne du Maurier novel and movie about a troubled widower’s romance.
The Beatle’s second marriage, to Heather Mills, last year caused family unrest. Relations were bitter between Mills, a former model, and McCartney’s daughter, Stella, only four years younger than Mills.
Now McCartney and Mills are expecting a baby next month – an event that could strain or strengthen the new family, Barash predicts.
“Even though it causes great distress, a baby can be the great equalizer,” Barash said. “It sometimes brings the family together.”
A Manhattan second wife in her late 30s had mixed results. She described the “total hell” of helping her husband raise two teenage daughters.
“They hated me because it meant that their father would never marry their mother again. It also meant they didn’t have daddy to themselves any more,” said the woman, who did not want to be identified.
When the new baby arrived two years ago, one stepdaughter grew attached to the child and felt closer to the family, she said.
The other stepdaughter recoiled, she said. “She was horribly jealous and hasn’t gotten over it yet. She doesn’t like to visit us anymore,” she said.
But becoming a second wife can represent a long-single woman’s best hope of getting hitched, according to another recent book, “How to Married a Divorced Man.”
Author Leslie Fram, a born-and-raised New Yorker, was so busy with career and fun she didn’t think about marriage and kids until she turned 35.
By then, she said, most of the available men were divorced with kids.
So she married one.
“They’re not necessarily damaged goods – they’re recycled goods,” she said.
Fram said second wives can find happiness – if they’re realistic: “You’re never going to get 100 percent of his time, his emotional availability, or his money.”
HAVE A SON TO STAY TOGETHER
Want to avoid getting divorced? Have boys instead of girls, a new study suggests.
“We find that mothers with girls are significantly more likely to be divorced than mothers with boys,” says the study by two economists, Gordon Dahl of the University of Rochester and Enrico Moretti of UCLA.
The authors of the study cite the following evidence in support of their theory:
* Divorce rates rise from 4 percent to 8 percent in couples with only daughters.
* Divorcees with only daughters are less likely to remarry.
* Unmarried couples will speed up a “shotgun wedding” if they learn they’re having a boy.
One reason couples with boys may avoid or delay divorce, the researchers speculate, is because they feel boys need fathers more than girls do while growing up.
Reached by The Post, Dahl said the research is “preliminary,” and declined to comment further.
WIVES CLUB
* “Rebecca Syndrome” wife:
Heather Mills
Marries a widower with “immortalized” first wife who becomes sacred in memory
* Trophy wife:
Marla Maples
Young, impressionable beauty, or “arm candy,” weds older man with teenage or young-adult kids
* Power wife:
TK
Highly successful in her field – e.g. surgeon, judge, CEO – she enhances her husband’s image and credibility.
* Fantasy wife:
Nicole Kidman
Young, beautiful and successful, her husband is envied by all men
Source: Susan Shapiro Barash, author of “Second Wives: the Rewards and Pitfalls of Marrying Widowers and Divorced Men.”