Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Not telling his ex and children

51 replies

scoobydooagain · 14/08/2014 22:23

I have been with my BF for over a year and he has not told his ex or children that he is seeing someone. Divorce has not been started (they separated about 18months before we met) and his current account is still in joint names , he uses it as his sole current account but every now and again ex takes some money from it.
I feel like I am wasting my time here and more like his mistress rather than his girlfriend. Anyway not too sure why I am posting just getting increasingly fed up with the situation which has been highlighted by me doing him a favour last week - I lent him my car as his was off the road, to take his youngest children on a holiday, I walked, then took 2 trains to get to the holiday town, he picked me up from train station, drove to the camp site, he got out at entrance and I drove home (I needed my car back,this took me nearly 5 hours).
I didn't expect to see his daughters but the whole thing just made me feel upset and that he is always going to keep me as some (dirty) secret.

OP posts:
Quitelikely · 14/08/2014 22:25

What is his reason for keeping you a secret?

Vitalstatistix · 14/08/2014 22:26

I don't blame you.

He sounds still very very entangled with his ex.

Perhaps it might be wise to remove yourself until he is sorted out?

Has he explained exactly why he wants to hide you?

Original poster
scoobydooagain · 14/08/2014 22:28

He has not kept me a secret from everyone, met his father and work colleagues. I am really not sure and when I have asked he can not really explain it, says its not a problem and has given himself a target of Christmas to tell them. I think he doesn't want to upset the children and he has built it up to a bigger thing than it really is.

OP posts:
Original poster
scoobydooagain · 14/08/2014 22:31

Vital, I am beginning to think I may have to do that, but I am wary of it sounding like blackmail.

OP posts:
SavoyCabbage · 14/08/2014 22:33

The car thing is awful! However I do think that sometimes people can rush into introducing their children to a new dp and a year is about right really.

Maybe he is sensible and cautious and is thinking of the children? And he hasn't told his ex as it's none of her business.

I think it's down to the rest of the relationship really. How everything else is.

Quitelikely · 14/08/2014 22:34

That's ridiculous! The very least he could have done was explain why, in the interim you were to be a secret!

Maybe you should say its now or never......

GaryShitpeas · 14/08/2014 22:34

So you've been together a year, he's been separated 18 months...so two and a half years since he split up with his wife....so what's the problem telling his dc he's got a girlfriend?

Why did they split?

And why no divorce proceedings yet?

Sorry for all the q's but these are all things i'd be asking him

Quitelikely · 14/08/2014 22:34

Is he holding out for a reconciliation? Who ended the marriage?

Original poster
scoobydooagain · 14/08/2014 22:41

Savoy - I am not asking for an introduction just acknowledgement and not to be hidden.
Split was from ex, but from what has been said, it was a long time coming, from both of them.
He has said no way would there be a reconciliation.
No divorce, think due to money and also his ex's health ( she has become quite unwell - which I think has a lot to do with things)

OP posts:
Charley50 · 14/08/2014 22:49

No advice but just empathy as I've been there and it is painful. That's how I felt 'a dirty little secret.' he didn't mean to make me feel like that but that's how I felt.
Re: car thing.. He should have hired a car or got the train.

Original poster
scoobydooagain · 14/08/2014 22:52

Charley - what did you do? Did you hang on in there or get out?

OP posts:
Charley50 · 14/08/2014 22:54

Some men will do anything not to 'rock the boat' where the mother of their children is concerned. I think it can be for various reasons, e.g. Still love ex, scared of ex withholding contact, fear of any sort of confrontation with ex,... But whatever the reason the 'new' DP feels like shit. I highlighted new because this situation can be going on years down the line if you allow it into your life.
Speaking from bitter experience!

Charley50 · 14/08/2014 22:56

Oh and just being a weak person in general. (other common reason)..

Original poster
scoobydooagain · 14/08/2014 22:59

Charley, that's what I am thinking, think its to do with fear of being bad mouthed to children, except they are between 12 and 17, so old enough to make up their own minds. Also what I think is upsetting me, is now is the ideal time to tell them, school holidays, questions about a random car, mum (ex) going through a period of good health, so if he can't tell them now, when will he ever tell them.

OP posts:
Needadvice5 · 14/08/2014 23:00

The car thing is very complicated,why didn't he just take his dc on the train ffs?

CogitoErgoSometimes · 14/08/2014 23:03

He's being ridiculous and stupid. He's lying to his family and making you complicit in the lie. What does it matter that his ex is unwell? Does he think news of him having a sex-life will make her worse? Hmm He has no respect for either his ex or you.

I suggest you gather up what's left of your self-respect and tell him to stop being so childish.

Original poster
scoobydooagain · 14/08/2014 23:05

Car thing, because train went to a few miles from campsite, but suppose could have got a taxi from station. Plus train left from city I work in and not town we live in so would have needed taxi to train station. They are coming back by bus (to city) and ex picking them up from there.

OP posts:
Lookingforabetteryear · 14/08/2014 23:05

I've been here. I am now a single mother to a baby. He was and will always be at her beckon call. Find Someone else, it's not worth it.

Charley50 · 14/08/2014 23:10

Scooby I was with my guy for 7 years. It never got any better, in fact I think it gets harder for these weak men to say anything the longer they leave it. They always find a reason to not tell the ex (bear in mind I'm projecting here).

Having said that, ex actually did withhold contact for a year when he introduced his DD to me, without preparing her first. But even then he made it more awkward as we had been together 4 years by then but as far as ex knew I was some crack whore he could have met two days ago ( sorry crack whores I love you).
Footnote: I was not an OW.

Original poster
scoobydooagain · 14/08/2014 23:12

Ergo - I am beginning to think this and have to decide what I want, he knows that this is annoying me, says he will tell them but just talking to him this week, I feel this is just words, he calls me when the girls are elsewhere, puts me on hold if they are around - last night he was speaking to me from outside the caravan and when one of them came out, it was not like a polite pause in conversation more like a hide the phone thing. It seems sad to end an otherwise great relationship because of this but that is how I feel it is heading

OP posts:
Charley50 · 14/08/2014 23:12

I agree it's not worth it. It's fucking soul destroying.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 14/08/2014 23:18

Lying is not a good character trait. He's made his priorities pretty clear and, if you don't like being strung along or treated as second fiddle, he's not right for you.

Original poster
scoobydooagain · 14/08/2014 23:22

Yep, I think you are right, it's very sad and also stupid, we could easily be seen out and about, we don't hide away, for God's sake we were even photographed for some silly mag thing a few months ago!! I have highlighted to him it would be worse for the kids if they stumbled across us in Asda!

OP posts:
Charley50 · 14/08/2014 23:22

These simple people that make life so fucking complicated. Sorry been drinking but why is he making such a drama out of a normal thing - moving on and finding a new relationship? This is what my DP did, you would think they were Richard Burton and Elizabeth fucking Taylor.

Charley50 · 14/08/2014 23:23

again im totally projecting and think I had better shut up and take myself to bed now.