Other child

[Heartbroken4]

All sorts of threads over the last little while ...

Very sad to see on Facebook how much time H is spending with his Girlfriend's daughter, who is a similar age to one of our children.

This isn't a post about the wisdom of looking at Facebook, but about protecting my children, who have no idea about the other child (and very little about the OW). When he wants to leave, they begged him to stay, "even if you don't love Mummy, because we only see you at week-ends anyway". He has taken this child on holiday and out to theme parks. Our children see him EOW at their Grandparents.

He doesn't seem to realise the pain he will cause them when they find out: what can I do?

My SD's are really upset that their father rang them from Cuba to tell them what a lovely time he was having on a family holiday with his fiancee and her kids. He also took one of them skiing on his own.

By all means get on and enjoy your life but don't ring up your kids and rub their noses in it. Numpty

I've read some of your other threads and I know you are having a really rough time right now OP.

However, with the best will in the world, please do not encourage your children to alienate this other child. It's not her fault.

I'm on the other side of this. (although not the OW) My dp's ex hates the fact that I have children, she thinks (and has told him) that he should have found someone who either didn't have children or children that were grown up. She says she deliberately picked her partner because his dc were grown up so that her dd would not have to share her with another child. So the hostility was there from day 1 and as a result my DSD has been hostile towards me and my dc.

It's caused so many problems and now his dd no longer comes here, refuses to talk to him. Because she's had four years of being brainwashed by her mum. Being told that he priorities my dc over her and that's not the case but she doesn't live here and they do so of course we do things when she's not here. We can't force her to come here but at the same time we aren't going to put our lives on hold on the off chance that she decides she's going to come one weekend. That happened before Christmas. Hadn't seen her for four months, she decided she would come and see us. Unfortunately we had booked to go somewhere and it wasn't possible to change the booking or add her on so dp had to say no.

Just tell your dc that his dads gf has a child and that it will be really nice once they meet and have a new friend. Please don't put your dc in the middle of your war with your exh.

It's horribly painful to see your child's father treat any other child as a priority over their own. You might be the most reasonable person in the world and have the most amicable relationship with your ex but it still stings at very deep biological level, unless you've been in that position you have no idea how it feels. To a child seeing their parent with another child, doing the things that they would like to be doing with them is like an adult seeing their partner with another lover. It's obvious. I've been on both sides of this situation and it's very very hard.

My Dad took on 3 other kids and prioritised them from day one, he pays for everything for them, took them on days out/holidays when growing up and buys and maintains all their cars now then they are adults.

I tried to ignore it and have a relationship with my Dad but in the end I realised that he was an arse who took the break up with my DM out on me. We are now NC.

Your kids will make their own mind up about their Dad.

They are struggling with the break-up anyway and I just feel so helpless.