For not wanting my husbands pregnant girlfriend to meet our children yet?

[armywife1]

My husband left me on 31 May this year telling me he needed time to consider our future together. On 27 June he told me our marriage was over and on 2 July concieved a baby with a woman with whom he claimed he slept with for the first time. Needless to say we are now going through a divorce. However my husband is pushing hard for our children to meet his new woman, before the child is born in March. Our children are 4 and 2 and we will be moving house on 31 March next year. Am I being unreasonable requesting that he waits until the children are settled in their new home, school and nursery before they meet his new partner and their child? I feel bullied by a man and his new partner who clearly feels she needs to meet his children. In less than 6 months my children have had to accept that their father has left home and now he wants them to meet his partner and get excited about a new half sibbling.

I think he made the decisions based on his best interests actually, Fayc84. Were they still together do you think?

WRT talking about children, I have to say, one thing that made me almost throw up was a text I saw from my exH to the GF 'Have just read a bedtime story to 'DD4's name' and am now going to sleep but thinking of you.' . It really angered me to see him talking so freely about my DD with this woman, making himself out to be such a 'loving father' to DD4. I also found he had been talking to basically random strangers on dating sites (I read his entries and some e-mails to female prospects) about our children. It still angers me that he would use the children this way and present himself as this sensitive, doting daddy figure some men at least have the decency to buy a cute puppy when they're trying to pick up women.

I think the exH is trying to brush the previous relationship under the carpet by insisting on the happy families thing. It is incredibly hurtful to the mother of the children of the first relationship to have to put up and shut up about what has happened, at breakneck speed and hurry the children into accepting the new reality.

He is actually using the children here to hurt the OP, rubbing her nose in the new relationship by insisting everyone get on board with visits. In effect, he is telling her by insisting on everyone getting used to the new arrangement, that what went before is ancient history and that she needs to embrace the new situation it's like salt in the wound. She will no doubt be expected to field the questions the DCs have about the OW and the baby. She will be expected to make it all sound normal when explaining to them. She will be expected to bite her tongue and shrug it all off as something dad went ahead and did and he was entitled to do while at the same time raising the DCs with some sense of what is right and what is wrong.

I also predict this new relationship won't last very long. Someone who is as blind and deaf as this man seems to be to the feelings of others, including his own children's, is not a good candidate for any long term relationship.

This just happened a few months ago and this poor OP is being roundly jumped on by just about everyone for not just getting over it.

I think she's done really well so far.

March is still a ways away, too.

gillyboot - I've never met or spoken to the child I'm carrying now but it doesn't stop me from loving him/her already. Maybe once I have my baby I will realise it wasn't really love I felt for my partner's child - but it felt like it to me and I would've done anything for her. What about family/grandparents who live abroad and have never seen a new addition to the family, can they not love them?

I agree that the husband obviously wasn't acting in anyone's interests but his own when he left his family and got this new (though I can't believe it is as new as he claims) woman pregnant. But I wouldn't assume that by wanting his children to be involved with this new, and important if they are having a child together, part of his life is just to rub his ex's nose in it. Perhaps he is trying to do what he thinks is right now. Of course, he might not be, but I still think it is best for the children to know what is going on before a new baby suddenly appears.

The baby is going to be their half sibling for life, mathsanxiety. We all know that we couldn't describe OP's ex without being rude, but how does it help if OP tells her DCs that she hates the half of them that come from his genes? How does it help if she slags him off? How does it help if she poisons their minds? How does it help is she makes a fight in court?
It doesn't help at all, to my mind, so she puts it to one side, cries after they have gone to sleep and gets on with making it smooth for DCs. If they have one parent with the emotional empathy of a gnat they don't need two!!

"Also many of you who seem to be defendinG him have probably done the same as what he has done! "

Oh dont be so ridiculous.

Some of us, if you read through, have actually been on the receiving end of some pretty shit behaviour.

Children don't really think too deeply about the bump on mummy's tummy (or any woman's bump) and the baby. No matter how thoroughly you explain to them that there's a baby on the way, a lot of them are still completely surprised when the baby arrives.

It's unrealistic to expect that 'getting used' to the new situation will involve any sort of linear progress. Children absorb the emotional reality of situations rather than the bare facts. You can explain until you're blue in the face that dad now lives with X and dad and X are going to have a baby, and they can meet her, etc., but the emotional reality can take years to sink in and will affect them in a huge number of ways. Ignoring this and believing that if everything looks fine and dandy on the surface then everything is all right, is this man doing his thinking with a part of his anatomy normally reserved for other purposes.

spot on mathanxiety.

Not the same situation at all.

Grandparents are likely to have had a long standing connection and interest with one of the parents(one of whom they will have given birth to brought up and nutured presumably).

It is perfectly possible for step parents to love a child not biologically theirs, but presumably this does not happen overnight or without ever having had communication with said child.

Anyway that's not the point here. I think the OP is quite justified in doing what is best for the children and delaying their meeting the new girlfriend.

'Kids are far far smarter than you seem to be giving them credit for.'(me)

"Exactly-so you let them form their own opinions and you keep yours well out of it."

Pisces I really have to reiterate that I have at no point suggested OP slag off her ex to her kids.

Merely that he is a tosser and she should look after herself first and foremost, letting things proceed ONLY when she is ready, and when she is able to do it all calmly so as not to further hurt her kids.

Hi folly I actually think their is some truth behind what I said!

She will of course be the bigger person and won't tell the DCs that she hates their hateful father, etc. Nobody is advocating that she should do that, and she hasn't done any of that either. But she doesn't have to sing his praises or condone what he has done. And the children will form their own conclusions.

'Making it smooth for the DCs' here means making it smooth for the exH, and very tough for her. What she is being asked to do, so fast, is swallow a very bitter pill, guilted into doing it with the whole 'best for the children to peel off the plaster quickly' spiel.

And again, I predict that by the time the OW has two DCs with this man and the reality of family life with small children starts to grate and chafe, he will repeat what he has done here to the OP, and the half sibling(s) and the OW will themselves be faced with the horrible situation she is now facing.

I am interested to know in what way the DC are likely to be harmed by meeting this woman, or any new partner in the event of divorce, provided things are dealt with properly and well by both parents?

As for children being far smarter than we give them credit for... my DS1's father is an absolute twat. He was 32, I was 19 (and stupid!), he told me that if I didn't have a termination he'd leave me. I didn't have a termination and he stayed, was unfaithful on numerous times but I only suspected until after the relationship ended, then he left when I had severe PND. He was never on time to collect DS, frequently left him with his mother and since we moved away 8 years ago has made the effoprt to see DS twice. There are more things, but in all of it I have never, ever critiscised him once. I have never let my feelings on to DS and have also made excuses as to why he doesn't se DS. (Eg. it's such a long way, he's busy working). DS is an intelligent 14 1/2 year old, yet thinks his father is wonderful. I would say that is probably because of how I have handled things, as opposed to the fact it's true. I believe I have acted in the best interests of my son and could have caused him real self esteem problems if I had acted differently.

Oh, and just to add, when we were living close by, DS1's Dad had a host of girlfriends, most for a short time and DS met most of them from what I can gather. DS thought and thinks nothing of it and it has not been detrimental to him in any way.

My father left the OW when their child was only a few years old and married somebody else. Not a sibling for life for us there, unfortunately.

He married again and had yet another dc, but he wasn't as enthisiastic about us having much to do with this new family, though I suppose we were older by then.

midori1999 - the trouble is you're painting this picture of a man which simply isn't true. I hope your son never does what I did and announces he wants to live with his father, what a let down that was.

Hi armywife just wondering how you are today ? X

midori1999 I think your son will figure out for himself his dad is not 'mr' 'wonderful'

personally I think there comes a time when you shouldn't protect your children from the truth ..

but hats off to you ,you are a better woman then me .I couldn't lie and make excuses for a waste of space bloke for ever

Hearing of lying and making excuses just makes me sad.

mamatomany, I am not painting any picture at all, I am simply smoothing over the truth where I feel I need to for DS's sake. What would you suggest I have told him all these years about why his father hasn't see him? Can't be bothered? Other things/girlfriends/life more important than his son?

usualsuspect I am sure you are right and he will eventually. However, by the time he does (even if it's soon) he will be a confident and self assurred young man and won't feel it is in any way because of himself that his father didn't want to see him. I have done what I have done for the best interests of my son. I hate his father, but that is between me and him and nothing to do with my child.

mathanxiety, what would you suggest I say?

I honestly don't think it will make that much difference to the existing DC whether they meet the new baby when it's a couple of days, a couple of weeks or a couple of months old. At their ages it will still just be a new baby and they'll have little concept of it having been "kept from them" for however long. The important thing is that they first adjust to daddy not living with them then, that they adjust to the house move and settle in their new place with just mummy and make new friends (not sure if the four-year-old is at school yet or not but might have to change if so?) Then the OW can be introduced along with the baby. All this will give the OP time to adjust too which, as the DC's primary carer is also important. She can try as hard as she likes but, if she is feeling wretched and miserable the DCs will certainly pick up on it. Armywife will need help and support and I urge her to go to mediation asap. She can't control the whole procedure it's true but at the moment she feels her ex H is controlling her (and possibly he is) and that's not right or healthy for her either.
How are you today Armywife?

How about nothing at all? You could say, 'it looks like dad can't make it this weekend,' and wait to see the DS's reaction.

Or how about jumping in and asking the DS how he feels when his dad doesn't show up?

Expressing feelings of disappointment is important it's very hard to deal with a child's sadness and maybe making excuses for the dad's lack of concern is more palatable an exercise right there in the moment, but in the long run what you're telling the DS is that he needs to set his expectations aside because whatever it is that his dad is doing is more important than him. And it possibly encourages the DS to play along with your act and not burst your bubble he may have got the impression from you that you really believe what you're telling him, while underneath his feelings of disappointment or even anger, and the habit of making excuses for someone who has let him down are developing and finding no outlet.

If your DS is a bright and perceptive boy, he knows you're both being led a merry dance by his dad, but he doesn't know how to express that, and I think that's a problem.

Libster, I agree that mediation would be the way to go here for Armywife. It helped me greatly to have another adult, an authoritative one, give her view on what exH was proposing.

' letting things proceed ONLY when she is ready'

Unfortunately the ex is an equal parent and I don't think that he can be stopped from proceeding when he is ready.