I was the OW, and his family want nothing to do with our children

[Justanothersunday]

Cowardly name change for this. I'll sum up the backstory as briefly as possible whilst being transparent.

DP was with the mother of his first child for a long time, after many years together she was meeting up with another man from her past and bringing him back to their home whilst DP was at work. DP found out and forgave her for the sake of keeping the family together but the relationship never truly recovered.

A year or two after all of that i met DP, he changed jobs and joined my place of work. Over a period of months an emotional affair began. He told me he was developing feelings for me and was no longer in love with her so he left her and we began a relationship.

We moved in together and have gone on to have two children of our own. Many years later we are still together.

DP is still hugely involved in his DC1's life both financially and physically present.

The ex was close to his family and remains so, with most of them having very little to do with DP now and turning their backs on him.

However, his family have also refused to acknowledge our two children (short of giving me abuse on the internet) and have never wanted to meet them. My DC have never received a Christmas or birthday card and have been completely shunned.

They have grandparents, uncles and cousins they know nothing about.

Short of calling me a home wrecker etc which I can take on the chin, what do you think about the way my DC are being treat?

Should they be punished for their fathers actions?

Very well put Jabber, I agree completely though I imagine I'm going to be shot down for saying so.

It seems irrational to say the least but it’s a very emotive thing isn’t it? I’d probably struggle to forgive my sons if they left their children like that one day. I wouldn’t want to cut off further grandchildren but I can imagine for some people it’s easier to have a clean break.

I think it is up to your partner to sort things out with his family.

They are the ones losing out on having a relationship with your children. Your children have parents that are together. They are not shunted from parent to parent. They may not have relationships with your partner's side of the family but I'm sure they have good relationships with other adults that will compensate.

He has been a brilliant father to his first child despite leaving the home he shared with the mother. I do appreciate it's impossible to shield a child completely from the fallout of a split but he went above and beyond to make sure his DC felt secure and never pushed out.

They had and still have a very close relationship and his child has no ill feeling toward me AFAIK. I make an effort to treat them the same as I do my own children and such they are never left out.

Please excuse the lack of pronouns and referring to DSC as "they" as I'm trying to be as least outing as possible.

Isn't this just the sort of thing that affairs cause, especially when children are involved? It was never going to end well was it! Your actions had massive negative impacts on his child, which wasn't right or fair and that didn't stop you, but now it's having a supposed impact on your children you're all of a sudden concerned about the children! If you didn't want to impact the children you should've sorted yourselves out way before, not had an EA and not had an argument on the phone with his then wife when you were having an affair. It's far too late now to be thinking of the children, the damage is already done.
His family (and most of mn) don't believe you about the affairs, yours or the ex's.
I have no idea why you would even want these people who have no love or respect for you at all, and probably actively despise you, to have a relationship with your children. They're not missing out if they've never had it. Just move on.

With respect OP if your husband has ASD and you're making mental space for his different way of thinking you should consider there's a really good chance that at least one of his parents is too and allow for that. I think all you can do is try to keep the door open with Christmas cards, birthday, mothers and fathers day communications all coming from him.

Very sad but it's not a big deal as you like to think.

I only met my father parents once, I never considered them grandparents and it never bothered me and my siblings that they did not want an relationship with us.

I am guessing they have a relationship with your parents?

You seem angry, ismellbabies. I hope you're not projecting onto me.

What is "sorting yourselves out" by the way? The only person who had anything to sort was him, and he did.

Their relationship was never going to last the course, if he hadn't met me he would have met somebody else eventually.

I'm not remotely bothered if 'most of MN' don't believe my account of what happened, I know it to be true.

As for negative impact on children, it is far more damaging for children if their parents remain together for their sake only to be brought up in an unhappy environment. His first born child is perfectly secure and settled and is not missing out on their father at all. He is very present and involved.

Perhaps DSC mother should have considered their child before she did what she did then.

The world isn't black and white unfortunately, nobody is perfect and things happen.

As for not getting into an argument with the ex girlfriend (they were not married) I'm well within my right to defend myself after the sort of things she was saying to me.

Our children have a good relationship with my parents and family yes, that being said they're not lacking love or people who care for them and that's all what matters really.

OP just wanted to jump on and say I believe you, but also that your DC really aren't missing out - I'm sure they don't want to be around people who have no respect for their mother.

By your own admission your h has ASD and rarely talks to his parents. Being friends with his ex allows them to have regular contact with grandchild 1.

Is it possible that your h misinterpreted some
of his parents actions post split? I mean things would inevitably be awkward at first and I can imagine how a person with ASD would interpret that as a parent being angry or being rejected. Maybe they needed time to get used to the new normal (if your h has ASD there's a high probability that he has a parent with ASD too) or needed support adjusting to the new normal. Your h might have pulled away to feel less awkward leading to them becoming even closer to the ex and less close to their son. Did he confide in them and offer details of how he was feeling? Silence on that angle can obviously appear like he dgaf .

The children obviously shouldn't be punished for their parents mistakes but if they had seen the kids then they might have known about the infidelity at a young age and be damaged by having a relationship with paternal grandparents who can't treat the kids as innocent victims of circumstance. Their lives have been much simpler as a result of things panning out like this.

I do think you have had a lucky escape. I never ceased to be amazed at how inflexible and pseudo moralistic people are in Mumsnet. My partner and I were both married and had an affair- i had two young dcs at the time. It was very traumatic for everyone but nobody, including my ex and his family cut me off. Real life is complicated. All the threads on here are like living in a Welsh Mining Valley in the 1890s.

It is only since I've been reading mumsnet that I've learnt that an emotional affair and telling someone you will only go out with them if they separate from their spouse is infidelity. I'm still not convinced. Personally my problem with infidelity would be the lying and going behind my back and wanting to have two partners at the same time.

As for the grandparents, it is a shame, but such is life.

@GoldenEvilHoor erm it's quite an unusual position to not love your children

I agree about MN

In reality, people around me have rubbished the implication that what we did was an affair but I know that's how it is seen on here hence me saying I hold my hands up to being the OW and having an EA etc.

Had I not then I'm pretty certain I would have been bashed alot more than I have been.

The truth is we never touched one another like that whilst he was with her.

You relay the facts very matter of factly. I'm not disputing what you say happened, but others may see it differently. He forgave his ex partner for her breach of trust and she may have seen things differently. Although you say your partner wasn't happy in this relationship, she may have been, so it could have come as a huge shock to her. It's highly likely that she was deeply upset and his family saw how painful this was for her and her child. Unfortunately this is something that can happen as a result of an affair. Having said that I don't believe that it's fair that your children are treated this way. Your children are innocent in this and his parents should have made more effort. Could you try writing them a letter? Explain how you feel? Even if they don't reply, you know you tried for your children's sake and you can carry on as you are. If they refuse then quite frankly, they don't deserve your children in their life. It's them that will suffer when they're old and your children don't visit them as they don't know who they are.

What did your DP do to help with this transition? Did they visit the new borns? Did he ask them? Has he took you to their house?

He must take some blame for this continuing situation.

To be completely honest DP has done nothing to remedy the situation or try to build bridges between me and his family.

However, i think this is purely because his own relationship with them has gone to shit. He sees no hope for reconciliation and is of the impression they're just not bothered with him anymore so he doesn't want to expose me and the DC to more of the same rejection.

They were never that close before all of this happened, but I think he's hurting that they've effectively shunned him for his ex who isn't a blood relative to them

@GoldenEvilHoor wow. Just wow. You have some issues there.

If that’s how your DP feels, then you need to accept it.

However he clearly sees their choice to continue relations with his ex as a rejection of him. This may not have been the case. They may well have welcomed you and the children. Or they may have continued to play favourites. You won’t know unless your DP decides different.

Oh and stubbornness is a huge sign of ASD!!

Op. Here’s what I got from this.

Ex girlfriend was having an ‘emotional affair’.
But dp chose to forgive and move on. Ex girlfriend ended emotional affair to work on relationship. Both have child together.

You come along and engage in an emotional affair. You do not think of existing child. You ask him to leave his partner for you, which he does. Again you do not consider existing child. (Regardless of whether a child is affected more or not of being a product of an unhappy relationship.)

Now, you are seen as the home wrecker and therefore your children are not being considered by others. Sad, very sad, but I kind of agree with ismell , in that you seem deeply concerned about this. Your children matter but the ex’s was collateral damage.

Accept your situation is as good as it gets. As others said, your children don’t sound as though they’d benefit from the contact anyway. Dp’s family are harbouring a grudge for a reason, maybe you don’t really understand the full extent of what that is.

Not saying you are the one at fault. He is...he could have told you no. He could have stayed single for a while after leaving to not cause so much pain. It’s inevitable you’ll be blamed though.

It does annoy me that it's always the woman who is demonized in cases like this.

I was single with no children, he was the one with the responsibilities. Even so, I did what I thought was the right thing and told him that although I had feelings for him I wouldn't entertain the idea whilst he was in a relationship. He did the right thing by leaving the relationship because he developed feelings for me.

I didn't sleep with him until I was convinced he wasn't going back.

People meet and develop feelings all the time, I don't think our story is comparable to other threads I've seen where the man or woman stays in the unhappy relationship and shags about on the side.

Everybody deserves to be happy and like I say, he has never let his first born child down since he left the mother.

I don’t buy the idea that people in unhappy post-affair relationships should leave before starting a new relationship. That person has been put in an unrequested position - to work at rebuilding something they didn’t break - never knowing if it will work - never knowing if the pain will one day lift - always holding on to the idea “just a little bit longer, and it’ll be all alright”. Except months turn into years and things don’t improve; not sufficiently anyway. And then they are left with the knowledge that they have sunk even more time and more emotional energy and they keep chasing their losses - what psychologists call “The Sunk Cost Fallacy”.
People don’t always make clean breaks after an affair. Many hang on by the tips of their sanity until they can’t hang on any longer and what causes them to let go is the kindness of another.