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Divorce/separation

Here you'll find divorce help and support from other Mners. For legal advice, you may find Advice Now guides useful.

Meeting the OW or OM first time and Co parenting

29 replies

CookieDoughKid · 14/09/2023 06:19

We are seperating after 16 years together . He cheated on me for a year with a woman 17 years his junior. She's 31 and he's not far off 50. We have two teen children. I understand this woman means a lot to him and they are planning to move in together. The news is very fresh to me as he only told me last week.

I don't want him back and I'm not gonna try. He clearly wants to leave. A lot of complex emotions at play.

For those who are coparenting, stop seeing your ex is not an option . How do you manage and what was it like meeting the other man or woman for the first time?

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exDHisatwat · 21/09/2023 11:28

@Fairymcclary your response to @Gensola sums up how my children feel. They thought we had a perfect, happy, family life. They thought their dad was wonderful. As did I. He destroyed that life and turned their world upside down. He refuses to tell them his plans, where he lives or how they'll fit into his new life.

@CookieDoughKid

I know the OW and will never have anything to do with her. As both of my children are secondary age they don't need to meet her and don't want to. I hope they can salvage a relationship with their dad but that is up to him to make the effort. As your kids are also older I don't see any need for you to have anything to do with the OW, or your children to if they don't want to.

whatchulookinatwillis · 21/09/2023 12:09

"what a shame your daughter chose not to see her dad based on his relationship choice. It’s a form of emotional blackmail to say I won’t have a relationship with you if you’re with XYZ, and is unacceptable from parents to children but also the other way around, no one has the right to dictate who other people are in relationships with. she should have been encouraged to see him separately, no need for her to associate with OW."

Wow @Gensola, you jumped to a lot of conclusions with that!

9 times out of 10, it's the father with the new, younger woman (& often subsequent new baby) that reduces contact/time with their DC.

If the children already have a strong relationship with their father and he continues to prioritise them, even after splitting up the family home, then usually those strong relationships continue.

DCs who "lose" a parent to an affair, rarely do so willingly; most often they parent-please to the Nth degree to get the absent parent to stay in their life.

But having sex with a 17yr younger woman is often seen as preferable to the exH than taking his kids to the park/helping them with their homework/doing the school run/washing and cooking for the DC - you know, all those parental tasks that the resident parent has to do.

It's the daily small bits of parenting care that create the foundations of the parent-child relationship and when those foundations are destroyed (by cheating, lying and subsequent moving away) the absent parent not doing those day-to-day tasks should work really hard to give their DC new stability.

The onus for that should always be on the adult that broke the foundations in the first place, not the child. The child isn't "emotionally blackmailing" their absent parent by asking for one-on-one time; they're asking for proof and reassurance that they haven't been replaced by Dad's new and shiny OW.

exDHisatwat · 21/09/2023 12:47

@whatchulookinatwillis

I agree 100% with all of this. My eldest dd had been texting her dad, he'd read and not reply for days. My youngest would text him night night and he'd not reply until the next day. I could give reams of examples of how shit he's been.

At the end of the day imo your children should always be your priority. Men who have affairs and leave their families are not even thinking of their children let alone prioritising them. I had no idea he wasn't happy as he'd never said anything and we seemed very happy. So if I had no idea you can imagine how shocking what he has done is to our children.

CookieDoughKid · 24/09/2023 23:56

@Fairymcclary thank you for your wise words, very insightful. Every day I am feeling turbulent but I’m now seeing a professional counsellor. Early days but at least I feel less of a victim now.

I will refer back to this thread frequently.

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