How do I deal with this?

[Ginpasta]

Hi,
Will try to keep this as short as possible! I left my husband a year ago after I discovered his 2nd affair. We have a 6 year old child together. I moved into my new home a few months ago & since then have been trying to move on. However, my ex decided to introduce our child to this other woman. He obviously knows how I feel about him & her & knows i don't want her anywhere near our child. There was no discussion about her meeting her - he just did it. I know there's nothing I can do to stop this but I'm so hurt & angry at the thought of this woman being with my child. I suppose I'm looking for advice on how to deal with this situation or to hear I'm not alone. My ex husband is a very narcissistic man - never thinks he does wrong & is very difficult to reason with.

whereas you are a beacon of reasonableness in that you still want to control how he lives his life a year after you left him?

Do you know how your son feels?

Well thanks for that helpful comment wobytide! I never said I wanted to control his life. If you read my post I said I'm having a problem with the idea of our child meeting the woman he had an affair with. I'm well aware I can't do anything about it but I'd like not to feel so angry about dour child being in this woman's company. The reason I left my marriage was because of them & the affair

You need to move on.
You need to let your feeling of anger go.
He has the right to introduce anyone to his child. And I do get that it’s hard. But feeling angry about it only affects you and potentially your child.

He has the right to move forward with his life too, and it the OW is still part of his life then you need to learn to accept this.

My sympathies though - I recognise it’s hard.

Here is what I told myself when I was angry with my ex.
“Being angry is like holding a hot coal in the palm of my hand - and expecting him to be the one who gets burned”.

Wow, wobytide. Just wow.

Surely it's respectful for father of this child to have at least had a conversation with OP to let her know his intentions!

OP, I completely understand why your hurt but he was going to introduce this woman to your child at some point. I do, however, think you may need to set some boundaries here and say he should have at least mentioned it to you first so you could prepare yourself emotionally.

Also, I really don't understand mumsnet sometimes. I've seen posts like this where every reply would have been to call your ExDH an arsehole and yet on this post, you get a bashing. Ridiculous.

Hope you're ok OP.

Thanks I know I need to let it go & I really want to. It's just hard. Hate feeling this way. Their relationship has been very off & on so not particularly stable. I'll try thinking of the hot coal thing 👍🏻

Thanks jamboree05. We had a discussion ages ago where we agreed if and when he felt he wanted to introduce our child to this woman he would let me know beforehand. This didn't happen so I suppose I'm a bit disappointed that he didn't think to mention it when we had discussed it previously.

He don't pay any mind to your feelings as his wife - why did you expect him to now?
Be mad at yourself for expecting a miraculous metamorphosis to have happened post divorce.
And leave the to it. Nowt like a dc to add delight (stress) to a new relationship imo.

I understand how you feel OP. STBX left me 4 months ago for OW. He introduced her to the children 4 weeks later.

Omg 😱 4 weeks later! How are you coping? Such an awful situation xx

I do, however, think you may need to set some boundaries here and say he should have at least mentioned it to you first so you could prepare yourself emotionally.

OP can ask. He has no responsibility to do so nor can the OP insist.

@Wobytide - you utter bitch!!

OP, this is horrendous vile for you. I don’t think you have to ‘move on’ as such, kerrist that would be asking a lot given what you’ve been though.

He is behaving abominably IMHO.

The only advice I can give is that you must live your life a) relieved that you’re now without him and b) knowing you are always taking the moral high ground and showing your DC you will behave well. Hopefully one day your stupid selfish ex will do the same.

Sadly in life we can’t make others behave well, we can only control ourselves. Good luck, and don’t feel bad for feeling this way. Just try & shift your focus onto things you can control. V hard.

Look at it from a different point of view he decided not to discuss introducing your DC to her. So if and when you meet a new partner you do not need to discuss it with him as he has set the pattern.
I win the jackpot my ExH introduce OW to our DC with a sleepover after 4 days! So 5 years later when I had been seeing DP for a while I didn’t think I needed to discuss it with ExH.

Thankyou for the replies & advice. I'll be taking them on board. I feel like if this woman was someone totally new & not the affair woman I could cope slightly better. It's the fact it's the affair woman that's really getting to me. Glad to hear I'm not alone! Xx

If I've got this right he's been with he for a year. It's devastating when marriages breakdown after affairs and I'm sure it doesn't feel great sending your child to their dad's knowing that there will be another woman there. For the sake of your child see the positives here:

• your ex waited a year that (to me) is not too quick and it suggests their relationship is stable
• this woman may be a positive part of your child's life - she may enrich his life and grow to love him - it's not a bad thing if children have many adults in their lives who love and care for them.
• your child is growing up seeing and loving both of his parents

The less positive thing is that to help you son adjust to this change (and by that I mean divorce, not meeting the other woman) you need to find a way of dealing with your hurt and anger so that your son doesn't pick up on it.