AIBU to think my husband's ex needs to accept the divorce and move on ?

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to change children’s ages slightly when posting on a public forum, particularly when you’re sharing personal family circumstances. I’m not sure why that’s being treated as some sort of inconsistency.

My marriage ended for a number of reasons, and I’m sorry, but not wanting to move to Australia a country I’m not from, never even visited, and where I had no family, friends or support network was a perfectly valid position to have. I still speak to his parents and siblings and I was very close to them, he is back home, married and quite happy its not as though we hate each other, I have video called his sister to say happy birthday to her daughter and my ex husband has been there and we have said hi and had small talk. Sometimes marriages just end you do not have to stay with someone if you are unhappy is my view. There was obviously more to the breakdown of the marriage than that one issue.

Changing identifying details such as ages when posting publicly doesn’t invalidate anything I’ve said. It’s a public forum and I’m entitled to protect my privacy while still asking for advice surely ? If you disagree you can report or not read the thread

Exactly. People do remarry and move on and I’m not sure what the alternative is supposed to be. Someones previous marriage ending doesn’t mean they’re supposed to remain alone indefinitely, particularly when the divorce happened years before they met their new partner.

Of course there can be complicated feelings especially for the kids and I don’t think those should be dismissed. But people are allowed to rebuild their lives fall in love again, get married and have more children. That doesn’t automatically mean they’re replacing anyone or disregarding the children from their first marriage.

And I think your experience is a good example of why you can’t really predict these things. Your stepchildren ended up doting on their younger sibling and now they’re all close as adults. There are obviously no guarantees that every blended family will work out exactly the same way but equally there’s no reason to assume it will all be negative or that a new marriage and baby necessarily damages the existing family relationships.

Sometimes people just move on, life changes and everyone finds their own way through it. In 20 years time things will be completely different I hope my child can have a good positive relationship with his/her siblings the same way I do with mine albeit they are my half siblings I see them as my siblings and never really differentiate between that.

I think you may be giving me rather more credit for having some elaborate strategy here than is actually the case! I genuinely can’t put every detail of my previous marriage on a public forum, and I don’t think I need to in order for the overall situation to be truthful. I also don't think that is a prerequiste to post on here for advice. There are identifying details I’ve changed, including ages, because these are real people and this is a public forum. I don’t think my husband’s children’s exact ages are anyone else’s business, particularly when they’re not the ones choosing to have their family circumstances discussed online.

The actual circumstances of my previous marriage are also a lot more complicated than one or two sentences can convey. My ex is Australian; we met in our 20s in south america when I was travelling after uni and he originally wanted to stay in England but later changed his mind and wanted to move back to Australia. He missed home and ultimately wanted me to move there with him, but I didn’t want to move to a country where I had no family or support network. We also fundamentally disagreed about having children. He didn’t want them and I did and we even tried fostering because I hoped it might change how he felt. He hated fostering I loved it. So there were plenty of other reasons the marriage ultimately ended.

And I think there’s also a tendency on here to assume that if a marriage ends, someone must have been the “bad guy”. That really isn’t always the case. He was unhappy in his marriage and made the decision to leave. There isn’t any great “bad blood” between them, and I have no reason to think he doesn’t still care about her on some level. People can love someone, share a huge part of their lives with them and still reach a point where the marriage isn’t right for them anymore.I actually understand that because I feel similarly about my own ex-husband. I don’t hate him and I don’t wish him badly. I’ll probably always have a soft spot for him because we shared a significant part of our lives together. I don’t think a marriage ending necessarily needs to have a villain and a victim.
None of that changes the central point of my post, though. I haven’t altered the substance to make myself look better. I’ve simply not provided every private detail or identifying fact about several other people.

My husband also knows I go on Mumsnet I’ve actually shown him the thread so there isn’t some secret version of events being constructed behind anyone’s back.People are obviously free to take what I’ve written with a pinch of salt if they want to, but I’m slightly amused by the idea that changing ages for privacy somehow means its bad. Sometimes an age is just an age that has been changed because it’s a public forum

I’m not writing a witness statement here. I’m sharing my experience and asking for opinions and a bit of perspective thats all while trying to protect the privacy of the people involved. The broad circumstances and the crux of the situation are true even if I’m not going to provide every single detail that would allow strangers to identify.

But those timings haven’t changed. I haven’t changed the year I met my husband or the fact that he had been divorced for years before I even knew who he was. That is still exactly what happened.

I’m honestly not sure where the idea that I’m changing the important circumstances has come from. I’ve changed some identifying details, such as ages of children because this is a public forum and there are children involved.That doesn’t mean I’ve changed the substance of the situation.
As for the children’s feelings, I can’t really see how I could be accused of lying about those when I can only tell you what I understand and have experienced. They are people with their own feelings, and I’m not claiming to know everything they think or feel privately.

I’m also not quite sure why you’re so invested in the idea that I’m deliberately lying to get people “on my side” I came here for perspective same way I have asked my siblings for perspective as they were in this exact situation since our father remarried my mother. I posted because I wanted other people’s perspectives and I’m perfectly capable of hearing things I don’t agree with. If I wanted to manufacture a story purely to get a particular response, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here explaining why I changed some minor identifying details.

You’re absolutely entitled to think I’ve given too little information or that you don’t believe me but I do not believe I need to share the exact details of children under who have not consented. That’s fair enough. But changing identifying details for privacy isn’t the same thing as changing the fundamental facts of the situation and I think there’s an important distinction between the two. I don't think it is a requirement to give the exact ages of the children, I have said we have been together for 4 years, married this year, those are just the facts.

I think this is probably where I’m overthinking it. My husband hasn’t said he feels he shouldn’t have moved on and I’m not suggesting his ex is preventing him from doing so. I keep coming back to it because of some of the things she has said and the way she has reacted. She has actually asked him directly why he is “doing this to her” as well as on messages and there was also the message she sent, which is probably why I’ve found myself trying to understand it, particularly as they have been divorced for years.We’ve also had our own difficult experience with this. We had a miscarriage, which devastated both of us and afterwards we agreed that we wanted to try again. So having a child together wasn’t some casual decision or something we’ve taken lightly.

I completely accept that she may have complicated feelings about it. I’m not saying she isn’t entitled to them. Perhaps I’m just trying too hard to make sense of them because I care about everyone involved. He hasn’t expressed guilt or regret about moving on it was his decision to divorce as he was unhappy. So yes, perhaps I do need to step back and accept that she can feel however she feels without there necessarily being a bigger issue behind it.

I think there’s a tendency to talk about remarriage as though it’s somehow inherently unfair or a bad thing to do when really relationships sometimes break down and that is simply part of life. I’m sure most people would ideally like to have married once(I know i would) had it worked out and never experienced divorce, but unfortunately life doesn’t always follow the plan we started with. No one goes into a marriage expecting it to end, and I don’t think divorce should ever be taken lightly, particularly when children are involved, but equally, if two people reach the point where the marriage is no longer right for them, I don’t think the answer is that they should stay unhappy or never love or marry again. There can be sadness, complicated feelings and a period of adjustment for everyone involved and those feelings deserve empathy but that doesn’t mean people have to stop living their lives. My husband having an ex wife is simply part of his history, just as my previous marriage is part of mine, and neither of us can change that we can only move forward. I personally do not look down on people who are divorced but I am biased I have had a marriage break down luckily no children were involved but it was still painful.

I’m not expecting her to have responded with “hooray” at all. I completely accept that even years after a divorce hearing that your ex is having another child can bring up difficult or unexpected feelings. I think I was just a little taken aback by how emotional the reaction was she said it felt like a “punch in the face” and messaged him asking why he was “doing this to her”amongst other things, no mention of the children or anything of that sort. I can have empathy for that I am just confused as they haven't been married for years of course he was going to move on all that should matter is that he is a great and involved father to his existing children. Maybe she is worried he won't be but the baby isn't even here, she has no examples yet to be worried about, I care alot about his children so they will always also be priority, the 4 of them are his children its not as though I came into this relationship with my own children to join the family. Theres plenty of blended families around the country.

But she hasn’t said that he went anywhere else and I certainly don’t know because I wasn’t in his life at the time. I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to fill in the gaps with assumptions about what must have happened.

I also don’t understand why someone leaving a marriage in their 40s even with young children is bad, they did counselling and through that he decided the marriage was not for him and he would be happier not being married. People can reach a point where they are unhappy in a marriage and decide they cannot continue with it. That doesn’t necessarily mean there was an affair or someone waiting in the wings. In this case, there wasn’t any infidelity. Is it universal that a man in his 40s cannot choose to divorce if they are not happy ?

Of course, leaving a marriage with children involved has consequences and I’m not suggesting it’s an easy or consequence-free decision. The children’s wellbeing has to be considered, and their relationship with both parents matters. But I don’t think having children means you lose the ability to decide that your marriage is no longer right for you. Sometimes staying together isn’t necessarily the healthier or happier outcome for everyone either.

Ultimately I wasn’t there all I can see is that they have had a very good relationship coparenting and he will always care about her, she is the mother of his child who he loves more than anything. I think everyone has autonomy to leave a marriage you do not need to stay married to someone if you are unhappy surely that is bad for the children if parents stay together for the sake of it, people grow and change and realise they want different things in life, that is just part of life in my view anyway.

You’re right. I think from my perspective, I just thought, “They’ve been divorced for quite a while, surely it doesn’t have the same impact anymore.” It’s not as though they divorced a month ago, he met me shortly afterwards, and a week later we were announcing a baby. There’s been a significant amount of time between their marriage ending, us meeting, getting together and eventually deciding to have a child. He told her because we had to tell his children since I am showing as they spend a great deal of time at their father's place and I see them every time so it was best for him to tell their mum so we can tell his children.

I understand that I guess I am just analysing her saying why is he doing this to her etc. Whereas I do not see him as having another child as doing something to her. I guess its just something we have to learn to navigate and all move forward hopefully once baby is a little older things can settle down. My child won't be taking anything away from the existing family albeit he is as much the fathers baby as the others. Many people remarry and have children all the time we are not the first and certainly won't be the last. I myself am a product of this my father had me at 54 and my brother at 58 we got on well with our older half siblings, their mum was even always around us,, I have lots of photos at my birthday parties etc where my dad, my mum and his ex wife and her husband and all their respective kids all in the photos. This isn't new I just never imagined myself to be in this position aha