AIBU to things my husbands ex wife needs to accept that we are now one family.

[QuirkyRoseLion]

I've been with my husband for five years. He has two children from his previous marriage and we welcomed our baby together in August.

Ever since we announced I was pregnant,his ex has been noticeably upset about the situation. I do understand that it might have been an adjustment for her, but equally, we weren't having a baby to upset anyone. It was simply the natural progression of our relationship and something we wanted together. I’m not getting any younger, I’m in my late 30s, we plan to have another child but again I am in my late 30s so not sure about that. I think 5 years with someone is enough to have a child. We’ve bought a house together, we’ve had time and believe it was part of being together and having a child was something we both wanted.

The thing is, the children absolutely adore the baby. They always want to see their dad, spend time at our house and be involved in family life here. I have always made an effort to makethem feel welcomeand included. They have their own bedrooms, their own belongings and their own space here. This is their home too.

I actually thought it would be a positive thingfor their mum that I have a good relationshipwith herchildren. Surely it's better that they feel comfortable and happy in their dad's home,rather than feeling like visitors or outsiders?

I would never try to replace their mum, and I have no desire to interfere with her relationship with them.But I also don't think we should have to make our family smaller or pretend the baby doesn't exist to make her feel more comfortable.

My husband is still their dad, they are still very much part of his life, and now they have a little brother s too.

AIBU to think she needs to accept that this is the reality now and that the children having another happy, loving home to go to is a good thing? Or am I being naive how difficult this must be for her?

His children are old enough to form their own opinions and decide if they want a relationship with their sibling and they’ve chosen to have a relationship. Surely that is a good thing.

Aha I hope so too. I don’t think just because someone’s marriage ends means that they can never meet someone else. Life is messy and shit at times. No one can predict and hopefully if that does happen I’ll grieve and get on with life he’s not being held hostage aha

But your thread title is that she "needs to accept."

Has she met the baby?
I remember when I found out my ex was having a baby, I didn't care, but I did think how weird it would be for my kids to have a new sibling and for me to not meet them, like your own kids having a sibling that they were close to that you never met, that thought sounded completely bizarre to me.

it's weird it is always the second wives complaining about what a nightmare the first wife is. I don't see it so often the other way around.

Omg this is so true. It's like first wives are supposed to just disappear. Or at least behave like total robots with absolutely no feelings , needs , experiences of their own.

@Calliopespa my dscs mum is absolutely lovely. Not a nightmare at all and a fantastic mum.
I think some people make a lot of assumptions about stepmums....

No she hasn’t I don’t think she will for a while maybe when he’s older but then again I’m not sure she’d want to.

OP: what exactly do you want her to do? She isn’t going to stop feeling unhappy about the situation, so what you want seems to be that she will just keep her unhappiness to herself and stop letting her ex, and thus you, know about it. Have I got that right?

@QuirkyRoseLionaah, now here I do thing she should be given the opportunity asap if she wants to.

I am trying my best I’m not really sure how to navigate it. Her children will always be her children and I’ll always respect that. They’re also getting older.

There have been some lovely sms on here - and I know a truly amazing one IRL.

But the truth is a lot of the ones that come on here are very often fixated with criticising, resenting and sometimes basically wanting to obliterate all that went before them.

OP, are you absolutely sure you’re not enjoying her discomfort, ever so slightly?

If she wants to but she hasn’t said that she does. I have her number she can always text me. I wouldn’t want to make things messier than they already are by amazing her to meet the baby.

Hardly think it's misogyny, if you're a woman complaining about another woman! If people are asking whether your husband is making life difficult for his kids (as in they're querying whether he's spending less time/money on them) again, not misogyny.
If they are purely blaming you for destroying his family, implying that the woman a man cheats with is more guilty than the cheating man himself, yes, that would be misogyny, as obviously the person married is to blame as much as anyone they sleep with outside their marriage, but I haven't seen anyone say this.

@NortieTortie

Great username! My childhood cat was one. <misses point of thread>

No not really I don’t particularly like to see my husband upset I’d prefer to have a happy husband he’s had a lot happen recently in terms of his dad not being too well and this hasn’t made it easier for him to navigate.

It is the fact you have criticised her for "not accepting" OP.

There isn't really any evidence that she isn't accepting anything other than feeling upset her dc seem to be more distant from her - which is entirely reasonable and shouldn't be happening.

Expecting her to do the adjustment on that issue is BU. There should be an emphasis on rebuilding whatever is happening there. And stating she needs to "just accept" isn't a good faith attempt at that.

I’m not here to make things worse. We’ve had a good relationship up until the last year when the children have chosen to spend most of their time with their father. I’ve never had a bad thing to say about her, I don’t know her, their marriage ended before I even met him but I’m sure she’s a lovely person and maybe in another scenario we would get on.

I think it’s best to let the novelty wear off the kids might just want to be here because it’s a different house it. It’ll wear off as soon as our baby becomes a toddler they’ll find the baby quite tiresome and they’ll want their quiet house again.

I've read a lot but got rather tired of people having nothing but a pop at the op for anything, everything and more besides!

@QuirkyRoseLion you say you get on ok with their mum, how about going totally outside the box and invite her over maybe once a week when the kids come. All have tea together and she can take them home too. You can maybe build a better relationship with her, she has more time with the kids and it could possibly build some bonds as well as let her see you are trying to make this work for you all. It may not help anything at all, but nobody can say you haven't tried 🤷

That's a lot of assumptions, a lot of reaching and a lot of nastiness all in one post! 😐

It sounds like your DH is not short of cash as earlier up thread you talked about him putting money into savings and trusts etc, has he considered paying for the boys to have private therapy so that they have a place where they can unpick why they don’t want to be around their mum anymore? It sounds like they have some complicated feelings around their parents being separated and what family looks like if they don’t feel like being in their mums household is living within a family. A therapist would be a more neutral place for them to have those conversations than having them with their Dad and to look at the real reasons behind their feelings and would do more to supporting their emotional needs than just changing the contact arrangement would.

Have things changed at mums? Has she got a new boyfriend the kids don't like?

It does also seem like there is a lot of 'they decide what they want to do' and 'We cant stop them coming when they should be going home'.
Perhaps the fact that you are allowing them to please themselves as much as you do is annoying the mum. If for instance she has told them they must be home for the evening meal and then they turn up at yours and they are allowed to stay then that may be a problem for her.

The children should not get to decide where they want to be against the mums wishes. If they said they never wanted to be at your house would you be as accepting of them making their own decisions?
They are still children and even though as they get older they may have opinions they don't get to make the rules yet.

Its a lot harder to be the resident parent especially if you are a single parent. This seems a bit like mum puts rules down which are ignored because they can make their own decisions at dads which then leads to mum nagging them to do as they are told which then leads to 'things are better at dads'. Dad needs to be working with the mum to stop this happening.

Perhaps you now having the baby has made her think back more to a happy time when she was bringing home babies with her husband and the memories hurt. Perhaps she is finding that difficult to come to terms with.

So what has she actually done to you then? Or given you the impression she is upset?

Yes, it’s very unclear what the woman has done other than complain that they are not sticking with the contact arrangements.

She agreed to a change of schedule to suit everyone else and then seems to be expected to go along with further changes without complaint.

Isn’t it natural that the boys want to spend a lot of time with a new baby sibling? It’s surely a good thing to encourage that bond to develop and to ensure they feel part of their dad’s new family. I don’t think you should “do” anything about this OP. As you say, they’re teenagers and they have a level of healthy autonomy. Telling them to spend more time with their mum could backfire and make them feel unwanted. Unlike others on this thread I don’t think you’ve handled that part badly.

At the same time, it’s also somewhat natural that their mum is feeling a bit sad and worried about this. It’s nice that she’s able to discuss this with her ex. Her feelings don’t mean anything needs to change. She’s entitled to her feelings and an empathetic approach would be for you to accept how she feels and show a bit of solidarity. This isn’t something you can or should fix.