Ex wants to introduce kids to OW

[Blueblub]

Ex walked out on me almost 6 months ago for OW (his colleague). He just dropped the bombshell on me that he had “fallen” for someone else and he was done with me and us. Found out he had been seeing her for a couple of months behind my back. We have two kids (4 and 6).

Obviously heartbroken and devastated but I’ve been trying to pull myself together last few months. Anyway he’s just messaged saying he wants to introduce our kids to OW (who he’s calling his “partner”). I feel sick.

I feel like I’m right back at square one. I suppose I knew it was coming but I’d pretty much suppressed any thought of them together. I’m in pieces.

Posting this partly because I need a handhold but I also need sensible advice. I feel like this is way too soon but of course I’m thinking about me. Is it also too soon for the kids perspective?

Thanks all x

I think so too. If someone was on here telling us that they were introducing their new squeeze to their kids after 6 months, people would be horrified.

Plus- he’s left your family home for this woman. Can’t he give your kids the chance to see their dad and have quality time without her?

My father left my mother for another (much younger) woman when I was about your oldest’s age. My mother was consumed by bitterness and threw difficulties in the way of my seeing the OW. She was also unable to say anything about the OW without spitting venom.

The results were extremely negative. By the time I was 30 I loathed my mother- whose irrational & hate filled behaviour revolving around being ‘left’ had blighted my childhood - and had a firm relationship with the OW. In fact in my 50s now I still have a great relationship with the OW - in her 70s now- who has been a great source of support to me in my own child’s illness. My mother would be spitting nails!

I would recommend that for the sake of your relationship with your children you swallow your feelings- however difficult!- and facilitate this in a reasonable and positive way. Do not let your children see your bitterness. It’s hard but worth it!

There may be research on when it's best to introduce a new partner. Six months isn't long and it may all collapse.

I think 6 months is quite early especially as your DC are too young to understand.
Ask him to wait until after Christmas at least

I agree with this. He’s going to have to learn to parent all by himself, better start now and not let him use OP as a shield for his bad decisions!

I think you need (however hard it is) to see it as helping them out- ie helping your children- not helping your ex out. And at the same time to abandon any suppressed wish for the DC to hate her - because hate is bad for children. You don’t want that blight in their lives.

I know it feels shit but if your ex is going to stay with OW, your DC will really benefit from having a warm & affectionate relationship with her.

Obviously it would be irresponsible for him to introduce her as a new ‘partner’ (6 months is not long, it may not work). If the introduction takes place it should be as a friend. Plus given that they don’t see as much of him as they did - & their time with him is valuable- you might well want to insist (I would) that her visits with them are time limited for this reason - he needs to spend time with them by himself & increase the time she spends with them gradually. But that’s a different matter - the practicalities of the introduction.

As a young child I used to really wish my bitter mother could be civil to my father and the OW. It would have been so much easier for me. Children of that age will not see your pain- they are (naturally) selfish in that respect. But if they see bitterness, or malice, they will be frightened by it without knowing what it is. That’s not good.

I’m glad for any support you had during your child’s illness.
I can’t help but feel for your mother though. It’s easy to be the nice one when you’re the OW. You don’t have to deal with the feelings of abandonment , heartbreak, anger etc. You’re essentially the cool aunt. And OW didn’t care about you not to break up your childhood home in which case your relationship with your mother might have been a lot better. I’m sorry if that’s seem patronising, I just really feel for your mum and the OP in this case.

It’s so interesting reading this as similar to @JeminaTheGiantBear I’m the daughter of a dad who cheated on her mum, but a mum who didn’t handle the rejection / bitterness / anger at all. And I’m now where my mum was 30 odd year ago.

IMO I’m doing it totally differently to her. Yes, she did the best job she could of bringing us up healthy, keeping a roof over our head, clothed and fed, but after 3 years of therapy, some of her decisions and actions harmed me and my DSis. She was emotionally unstable and we were her support. She may not have slagged my dad off, but may well have done how her passive aggressive stance was, and no so subtle digs. Dad couldn’t stand her, she couldn’t stand him, and we never saw them together until we were gone 18yo by which time it was awkward and weird for us. My mum still harbours so much resentment and bitterness towards him as she hasn’t healed from the trauma she went through. This has resulted in a no contact relationship I now have with her. She’ll always be the victim and still plays that role 35 years later.

I can’t stress enough how important it is for you as the person cheated on, does the work. Go deeper and learn more about yourself so you can learn to love yourself again.

Oh god. I really don’t want to be bitter and alienate my kids. How on earth is it possible to dig deep when someone has done something so cruel and selfish and inflicted so much pain.

It upsets me so much. I would like to look her in the eye and make her understand what she did to our family. To those children.

This and your other post re her inflicting pain etc - nope, that’s your ex-DH. Your DH did this to you and your family. Your DH has inflicted this pain. There was one person married to you who took vows and it was not her. You seem to be ascribing a whole lot to her, yet it lies at the feet of your x-DH, not her!

I say this as someone who is not an Other Woman, so definitely not defending her from that perspective.

I get it I'd feel the same but ultimately you don't get a say. It'll be nice if he does take your wishes into consideration but you can't stop him.

Even if he does decide to wait a bit longer he will eventually introduce her and won't necessarily ask or inform you again so I'd start taking steps to make your peace with it, it's not nice and it's not easy but it's better for the kids. Sorry this has been done to you OP.

No. I blame him. You do not know how much I blame him. This is possibly the third time we’ve even discussed her in 6 months. The person I have been raging about and who I have been crying myself to sleep about how someone could do this to me is him. But now he’s brought her front and centre into the frame and so right now I think I’m allowed to feel anger at her as well.

It doesn’t happen overnight. I know it’s cliche but time just helps you overcome it day by day.

They are both parasites. That’s a given. But no amount of hatred from you will change what’s happened to you. It will make you feel marginally better for 5 minutes, and then you’ll feel worse.

Given what he’s done to you, you can attempt to turn around that into a positive. You don’t have to put up with his lies and deceit. Your relationship with your children will be stronger. You’ll get downtime from being a parent when he has them, making you a better parent, friend and individual. None of this I felt at the time but honestly I can’t stress enough that it does feel like I was meant to go through this utterly devastating situation. Changed me as a person for the absolute better.

I’d probably say everything says give the kids a year and I’d rather you went with that. Then leave it to him.

If there is bad blood between you already which is understandable then you have to give him credit for asking your opinion or permission…

I would say that saying no is only likely to make things worse between you and him and sets up any co-parenting relationship with his new partner on rocky grounds. Sometimes it’s better just to roll with it for the sake of peace. Kids are smart and resilient and will be ok.

It’s the epitome of good parenting. Sucking it up for your kids even if it hurts you. Don’t let them live rent free in your head because the only person that harms is you and he’s not worth it. I suspect he will have a whole pre-prepared narrative about how unreasonable you’re going to be about this. It’ll grip him far more if you don’t engage than if you try and forbid something that’s not within your control.

I actually have a very real life perspective on this, as I went through exactly the same scenario 17 years ago!
My ex wanted to introduce his affair partner to our dd after just a few months. Like you, I was absolutely distraught, but realised I couldn’t prevent it.
She actually came over for lunch at my house a few months later, which was extremely difficult to begin with.
I then realised I could either deal with it or not.
All these years later, they are still together, and we are friends.
She adores my dd and is like a second mum to her.
I realised early on my ex had spun her a load of lies about the state of our relationship when they met, which she obviously believed.
I am not saying it’s been easy, but accepting her as part of my dds life has been the most positive and genuinely rewarding action I could have ever taken.
I know you are really early in the process, and must be hurting terribly, but I just wanted to let you know it can work out.
Sending you strength x

Much as I agree with you there really is very little point in saying no. He can do this whenever he wants so why not use this to agree how he does this, for example short meetings with a plan to ensure they still get time with their Dad without her there.

Blame lies with both of them. He broke his vows but no woman who hooks up with a married man with kids is innocent.

Yes but once it’s done it’s done and how you manage the relationship between the adults going forwards can really affect the kids unfortunately. It’s very tempting to think that you have some control over the hurt they caused and wanting to reciprocate it by refusing contact with children but ultimately it’s only the kids who end up suffering as collateral damage.

I think it's a bit soon but he's probably going to do it whether you object or not. And you don't want your kids to hate her - it would make them miserable when they spend time with her at their dad's. As hard as it is for you, it's better for the children to have a good relationship with her. You're their mum and nothing can change that - if she's around for the long term and will possibly be the mother of their half siblings, I would want them to get on well with her, for their own wellbeing.

You are allowed to feel anger. And hurt

but 1) your children deserve to have 2 loving parents who can at least be civil to each other and not have warring parents and constantly caught in the middle. 2) holding onto anger and bitterness long term
Only harms you and your children - don’t let it

you can’t stop or control what your ex does - but you can decide how you deal with it- wave them off then cry and shout behind closed doors and don’t pass your feelings onto them

You have every right to be enraged at her as well as him.

Some on MN say the only person you should be angry at is your ex for betraying you.

So many men think they can just snip through the bonds of marriage, family and fidelity and head off elsewhere without a care, start again, and expect the ex to be cool with it, accommodating every whim. I honestly think a lot of them have a bit missing.

But in my view women who deliberately throw a grenade into another woman's marriage, destroying her happiness, depriving her of so much? When they could say 'no - you're married'? They deserve that rage, too.

You're struggling right now. Still in shock and despair at what the pair of them have done to you. If you can, some therapy might help you deal with the rage, grief and despair. Letting it out is probably healthier than trying to suppress it. Help yourself accept, heal and move on.

On a separate note, you are now separate individuals. It's quite likely that you both might find love and happiness elsewhere. Maybe she's his forever person, maybe once she realises she's got a lying cheating bastard in her life, things may change.

But he is always going to be their father and a relationship with him is not necessarily a bad thing for them. And if he does have a change of personality and become a good partner, then she will be part of that.

A hard road for you - try some therapy to help you heal.

Oh dear @Blueblubyou’ve taken me back a few years with this - it is absolutely horrendous to have to deal with not only the abandonment of your relationship but also the thought of another woman in your DC’s lives. It killed me at the time and I had a breakdown over it. It was bad enough having to start and share them with my exH, let alone a complete stranger who would effectively be taking my place. I toyed with moving to the other side of the country (was possible as had family there ) but when push came to shove I HAD to put my DC first, and allow him to be in their lives, which if I’d moved that far, would have been having to do ‘handovers’ (god I hate that terminology) either half way or he’d manipulate me to doing the full 4hr round trip. My consolation in the fleeting moments of feeling sane at the time were this:-

1. OW was not a chav
2. He’d already cheated on OW by this point and it was rocky for a bit, but for my DC I preferred stability sadly I was happy for them to remain an item. (They are still together many years later but why she put up with it I’ll never know … prob his bank account).

You have no control over it and although I tho there should be a law surrounding exposing young children to ‘new partners’, it would be impossible to police.
3) He did actually want to see and be involved with his kids, and did provide financially, unlike my close friend, whose children had none of this from their ‘father’.

These man are emotionally retarded at best, but clearly don’t value their family unit in the way we did. They lose so much, in laws, friends, memories etc.. but they must have realised this beforehand.
Not in a million years did I think I would marry again, but I did that and it did actually end, but by mutual decision and we are still friends (no DC). I simply prefer living alone with my dogs and my frequently visiting DC. I have managed to co-parent quite successfully (graduation day wasn’t particularly fun), but they are now successful young independent adults and for all I wanted to stick a knife in his eyes at the time, (he was an utter c* to me and I don’t use that word often), I’m glad I kept schtum as much as I could and had faith in my solicitor, who said “your kids are intelligent and will work out for themselves what he is really like as they get older” - they have. I’m just sad I can’t say nice things about him to them, like I used to hear about my own lovely dad. Anyway, they gained a wonderful step-sister and I’m so grateful my second marriage bright her into my life. I’m also grateful that the spilt enabled me to re-evaluate my career and find a job I loved so much I eventually bought my own business in it. All the fears I had of my kids losing ‘the family unit’ were a waste of time as they manoeuvred around the situation very well and were loved by both sides of the family.
Remember this; nothing stays the same for ever - good or bad. You can’t hang on to either, even if you wanted to, there is no choice but to move on. You will be ok. X

And the OW actually stayed with him after finding out that her and her baby had been a dirty secret? How humiliating for her.