Kids Totally Disapprove of relationship

[KidsDisapprove]

I won't drop feed. I was utterly miserably married, had a 4 year plan to leave when my youngest went to uni but I couldn't bear it any longer.
In the meantime I fell in love with someone else.
Realise this is completely wrong but it happened.
2.5 years later and we are at the point of living together but my children hate this man. They've refused to get to know him and treat me with contempt if I even take a call from him when they're there.
I've just had my eldest ranting on the phone to me as I took a call for 2 mins if that yesterday as he was asking if I as having a lovely Mother's Day.
I feel totally torn. I love this man so much. But they're my children.
Their dad is happy with someone else and has been for over a year now.
Not sure if I need to give any more information - would you end a relationship for your children, I guess is what I'd like to know.

Completely agree with @Mintychocolate. I hope you're okay, OP.

I'm divorced, no affairs on either side. My adult DC are just happy I'm out (awful marriage) and have met someone. They want me to be happy. That's a healthy response.

@Mintychococolate completely agree with what you are saying.
We women, mothers have to learn to set healthy boundaries for ourselves. If we don’t value and respect ourselves and our needs no one else will. If we don’t see ourselves as imperfect but still worthy human beings others will not see it either. Especially our children.
We can have unconditional love for our children - but still say no to their unacceptable behaviour.

Divorce, affairs, tension between parents at home - all of this is undoubtedly traumatising for children. But overcompensating, bending over backwards, sacrificing your needs to make them happy at all costs - is not the answer. It sets them to fail in their adult life and in their adult relationships.

Well said Malena. Bringing up children who everyone hates because they have never had to think of others.. not a good idea. Life isn't a straight line and resilience isn't taught by trying to make it one.

If the OP loses her children (in reality it will only be the oldest, and the middle one for a little while - both of whom are already pretty lost) then it's sad. But hanging on to someone who is going to cause you harm is even sadder. A destroyed life full of regrets is not worth it. No one, including posters here, should play on that fear to keep someone in line.

As for the 'extended family' well if they don't know how difficult the husband and his daughter are then there's no hope. The 24 year old will come around. If not she faces a very lonely future if she thinks that's ok behaviour. It's not too late for her to learn this valuable lesson. The man himself is almost immaterial. This is about how you move forward with new boundaries and respect.

This particular man isn’t immaterial here though, however hard you try and make out that he is. This is the man that they’ve seen help destroy their family, and you can say with no certainty that they will ‘come around’ when so far it looks very likely that they won’t.

Maybe it’s a price worth paying for you, maybe for you a man would be worth sacrificing your relationship with your children for, but it’s theoretical for you, isn’t it? It’s not for OP, she has to live in, and bear the consequences of it.

Oh good lord. Her husband destroyed the relationship. Did you not read the OPs posts? Any of them? And the ones about her children? And how he coincidentally had a new relationship a few weeks after the discussion about splitting up and before they even officially split up?

They weren't even separated and were both seeing other people. BOTH OF THEM. If you think you exist only to do what your children tell you to do i despair. Because those children turn into very unpleasant adults who the rest of us have to put up with.

Do you hold the same views when men come on here and they’ve cheated on their wives? I doubt it.

OP has not said he cheated. You may suspect that he have, but suspicion is not in itself truth. What she has said is that she had an affair and left the marriage, which her children discovered and hold her responsible for, hating her affair partner as a result.

It really doesn’t matter what you think they should or shouldn’t do, or whether you think they’re unpleasant, unreasonable, misogynistic or any other adjective. It doesn’t matter that you think it’s emotional blackmail. They’re entitled to hold the views they do regardless of whether mintychocolate thinks they’re assholes for it or not, and they’re going to hold those views.

What does matter is that they’ve drawn a line in the sand over this issue, and as a result OP, who is actually living this, has to decide whether she can live with the consequences of the choice she makes, whatever that may be.

I can't possibly begin to respond to every post but please believe I'm reading and re reading and absorbing.

I need to make it clear. My exH did categorically NOT cheat. I encouraged him to OLD. As he's so insular and antisocial this was the only way it would happen (and even in the 90s it's kinda how we met!). I think initially he just wanted to negate the feeling of rejection from me but he found, second time of trying, someone that he fulfilled his needs. It absolutely did not happen before. Pointless including myself in this but we truly were NOT that kind of person. He clearly still isn't.

My grammar is awful sorry still working. Haven't slept. Need to eat at some point this week and even partner said on FaceTime I look unwell. I know I do cheers

@KidsDisapprove, I have been watching the progress of this thread and you are clearly very distressed about your situation.

Can I add that sometimes situations and people are just what they are and there isn't a solution? I know I drive myself mad searching for the right thing to do. As well as being the child of a parent who broke her marriages with infidelity I am also someone who left an emotionally abusive marriage. I did it the 'right' way and there was no one else involved but guess what, I was still roasted by friends and family for having the audacity to get out of a bad situation. I was effectively isolated from everyone but a handful of real friends. People find it hard to walk in other's shoes. Often it their own fears and insecurities which get projected as judgement and condemnation.

My DD wasn't pleased either and I had to ride out her anger until she realised what her dad was like herself . She lives with me and it wasn't great for a long time. She no longer sees him which made creating a new life for myself and her so much easier.

Perhaps you need to step back a bit from this emotionally. You have apologised, you can do no more and it sounds very enmeshed in your family with people taking sides and having rigid opinions. Other people, including your children, will think and behave how they want to. You are powerless to change that. Perhaps enjoy your partner at a distance for a while longer, continue to parent your children but keep this issue off the table. Your children haven't had enough of their own life experiences to properly understand and if they have the same emotional issues as your ex husband you can't be responsible for that.

I wish you the best of luck with this. You don't sound an awful person and beating yourself up isn't going to change anything.

You need to take care of yourself, OP.

Is this all coming to a head in your because of your phone call with your oldest child? You already knew of your children's feelings because your middle child doesn't live with you over it. Materially, nothing has changed from last week.

You need to eat and sleep and sort out your thoughts. If you are in a bad frame of mind you will not make good decisions.

@KidsDisapprove I've also been following this thread with interest as both a child of divorced parents and a spouse who ended a dead marriage (to a man with asd).

First though I want to suggest something about your children's anger. It sounds from what you've said that they've been emotionally abandoned by their father, if he ever fulfilled this role, for years. Therefore you are their only source of this, so any threat to this is viewed as catastrophic. Also, its not safe, or even worth, showing anger to dad. So you get both barrels. It's not fair, but I recognise it as I'm regularly an emotional punchbag for my dc because their autistic father just wouldn't pick up on it.

My parents divorced when I went to uni. Mum got with another man suspiciously quickly and they're now married and have been for yonks. I don't and didn't harbour any hate towards her for this - my father is an emotionless depressive, and I was old enough (21) to understand her reasons. My father is also remarried. However, partly as a result of the people they married, and partly due to the not particularly great parents they were in the first place, we have little contact now. It didn't help that I felt I had no home to return to from university, so that's great you're already thinking about this for your dc. I do feel my parents chose their new partners over their children, for various reasons. And whilst that hurts, I also understand that those are the people in their lives day to day. Our preexisting issues are much more to blame for the distance now than their new partners though.

You sound much more able to be honest and emotionally available to your dc, so they're lucky even if they don't recognise it yet. I do feel that women are expected by society to sacrifice themselves on the altar of motherhood, and I feel the most valuable lesson I've hopefully taught my children is that their needs are just as important as other people's. Of course you are allowed a happy life. Yes it wasn't ideal for it to end the way it did, and of course your children don't have to like your partner, but they do need to be civil. Life doesn't always go the way we hope, and sometimes we have to interact with people we don't like. It's a great life skill to be able to do this civilly.

My children are much younger than yours and I agonised over whether to end the marriage. They both express desire for us to all be together again, and I don't intend to blend for lots of the reasons on this thread. But I am allowed a life. And children do need to learn that parents are separate people, and that they are fallible. The latter in particular is a difficult one for children the first time it becomes evident. Maybe some therapy for yourself would be helpful? It's bloody tough being a mum.

The phone call was only on Sunday. Mother's Day ironically when your daughter gave you her nasty little lecture and threatened to have you ostracised from the whole family (an extraordinary threat) unless you did as she told you to. You can't change her but maybe if you keep contact to a minimum she will reflect and realise how utterly inappropriate she was? I certainly wouldn't seek her out if it was me.

Maybe there's no big conversation to be had? Just a gradual integration of him into what is effectively your life - one she chooses not to be involved with. By the time she even knows it's happened your youngest could be part way towards acceptance? I'm not talking about moving him in just yet obviously. More like telling your youngest how he said x about how clever something she did was, or how impressed he was about a test she did etc. So that before she even meets him she sees him as someone that thinks she's a great child. Little things. It will be much easier post lockdown, and that's not far away. You may never get the 'approval' of your oldest. With or without him. But people are fickle and if the vote is pro him she may go where everyone else is?

My mum did this when I was a kid. I'm a mother myself now and I still struggle with the deceit and gaslighting that came with her affair.

You effectively lied to your children over a long period of time whilst you were having an affair. This is the crux of the issue. Trying to pass it off as dad being emotionally distant etc is muddying the waters. People can try to turn it into a feminist issue but at the end of the day you lied to them. This is the heart of the issue and its better to confront it head on than skirt around it.

He is and always will be a reminder of that lie. They will associate him with a side of their mother they don't like and this sounds like the dynamic that is playing out in your house.

Please don't try to shoe horn him into the conversation with made up praise from him
Teenagers are not stupid, this will likely get back to the others and cause more issues.

You have a choice to make, its a horrible position to be in but it is what it is.

You could keep your life compartmentalised whilst they are still living at home and then move in together later. I think trying to push it at the present time will make the whole situation blow up.

Also, from your partners perspective he's going to be taking a lot of flack if he tries to move in. Can he deal with that level of stress on your relationship or is it likely to cause damage there? You have never lived together so you really don't know. An affair isn't a real day-to-day relationship so you've got to consider this carefully.

Other people, including your children, will think and behave how they want to. You are powerless to change that.
This is something I've also had to learn, and if you can really take it on, it can be very helpful.

@Ladydayblues1 The children are 16, 18 and 24. Only the 16 year old (who is fine) lives with mum. They are young adults with their own lives and romances, no doubt. It's hard because mothers almost never talk about how unhappy they are. If there's abuse they hide it. And the children grow up modelling their fathers behaviour and looking down on their mothers seeing them the way he does. As a non person. That's where years of staying for the children gets you. Trapped even after you leave.

My mum put up with no end of utter contempt from my father, I wish she had left and I resent her for being such a doormat. I see her weakness and can't identify with her. Maybe that's how the oldest feels? But id never think about trying to control her in this way.

when you are that martyr mummy how can your children even know you? At some point aren't you supposed to see your parents as people? Or is that just for men?

I'm so sorry you're going through this. It really isn't my fair, however your DC have learned to treat you in the way they saw you being treated. While your ex-H's behaviour toward you worsened in the final years, I'll bet there was a lot of low level bad behaviour that you put up with because 'you loved each other'.

Well, that is how your DC have learned to treat you. You need to develop new relationships with them. Develop yourself, become an interesting person with hobbies, take an interest in your children as individuals and share things with them. Go to the cinema, get tickets to a sport or event they like and go with them. Be A PERSON to them, rather than just their downtrodden mother. Become interesting and don't let yourself be put in a box labelled 'boring'.

So this with your extended family too. And see how it goes from there.

Mothers are people in their own right, but conversely so are children. There comes a time when you can’t tell them what to do, even though you’ve spent the majority of their life doing just that. You can’t demand that they accept him, or even that they’re civil to him. You can’t demand anything of them in relation to him, because they have the ability, and indeed the right, to pay him no quarter. There seems to be a level of outrage that children have the audacity to hold their mothers to account for their actions. However, they do. I remember my own mother trying to revert to the old parent/child dichotomy because I dared hold her accountable for the choices she made. It didn’t work out in her favour.

Ultimately there’s no ‘right’ answer here, because someone is going to lose out, someone is going to be hurt further. There’s no scenario where everyone gets what they wants and makes no sacrifices. There’s no happy ending here. The children have made their feelings known, two of them very strongly, now it’s for OP to decide. What decision OP makes depends on what her priorities are, and what she can best live with. What anyone else thinks she should or shouldn’t do, whether in ‘her corner’ or not, doesn’t matter because they’re not going to be the ones in her shoes living the consequences of her actions. She is.

OP , I came on to say give yourself a break .
Life is not a pantomime and there is not a hero and villain for every life situation, though somehow so many people categorise in that way when judging and assessing other people and their challenges.

@Daquoise and others have stated it way better than I can .

Take care of yourself.. it will all work out in the end .

minty I think you're mixing up a lot of different strands there.

when you are that martyr mummy how can your children even know you? At some point aren't you supposed to see your parents as people? Or is that just for men?

Being a martyr isn't good. But neither is lying and deceiving those closest to you.

Looking at your parents as people when you grow up is naturally part of maturing, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they will instantly become sympathetic and understanding towards that parent. They may take the view that they couldn't do to their kids what their parents did to them. As a pp said, children are people in their own right and entitled to hold their own view. You've been very critical of the children in how they've reacted but to be fair we don't know all the circumstances of the situation or how all this came to light. Two sides to every story. Their anger may be justified, it may not. Its a double standard to argue that the mother needs to be respected in how she's feeling but to hell with how the kids feel. This isn't a theoretical debate, the children will feel how they feel and will take those feeling forward in life. Affairs cast long shadows over families whether its fair or not.

To your point about men being seen as people in their own right, given the dialogue around men and their OW on this board they are treated the same. Many of their kids cut them off because they don't trust them and don't want to know the OW. The relationships board is rife with examples of this.

I have just come back to read and read again. I expected extreme views and I truly am taking them all on board.

Nothing is going to change for now other than me being more discreet when my older two children are around. I'm going to speak to my youngest when they're here this week.

I'm not selfish, self centred or anything more than a woman who had a very miserable existence as time went on (obviously not our entire marriage) who made a big mistake.

My partner is not an evil man and nor is my ex but they're very different. Personally I don't think much, if any, of this reaction is in defence of their father as any one of them would admit he's not been much of one however my youngest is very much a race keeper and would not hear a word said against him, which is fine. I don't do that.

My 3 offspring are also very different to one another!

I have no idea if the feelings would be the same with a different man but my middle one did once say it was difficult to think of either of us with someone else which I do, of course, understand.

So thank you. I really needed to read every view. And thank you so much to @Mintychocolate for that link. Absolutely resonates. Scarily so.

My children have definitely learned certain behaviours. But I've allowed it to continue.

I feel drained and ill. Not helped by my eldest saying today "what's wrong with you, you look shocking?" When I told her after last weekend's conversation I was not doing so well she replied "oh I had PMT too HAHAHA". WTF actually wanted to drop kick her right outta my garden I personally think my youngest has the most sway as they still live here part time, as many have said, but I do not want to lose them. 6 mc makes them very very precious and I can't believe the hurt I've already caused.

So tonight I'm done with work and life and I shall sink into a bubble bath with a glass of red and not overthink too much.

Tomorrow I will try and tackle my life and my garden. Partner is training ready for his future role and I'm glad of the space.

THANK YOU.

These children are adults / almost adults and they don't get to dictate who the OP spends her life with. It does sound like they have been very hurt by the separation and by the choices that you made and I think you will have to work hard to repair those relationships - if you're spending time with your kids (especially on Mother's Day) there is no need to take a call from your partner nor for him to call you, if he knows you're with them. I think you need to make clear to your kids - if it is definitely the case - that your DP isn't going anywhere and that they need to respect your right as a human being to decide what makes you happy but that they are the most important part of your life. Show them that by making time spent together about you and them - see your DP around this. Over time, they will accept that he is a permanent part of your life. They may never decide to welcome him as part of theirs or to get to know him for themselves and that is their prerogative and something you will have to accept if you remain with him. But as adults (the 25 to definitely and the younger two as time passed) they will need to decide for themselves to work through any anger they feel towards you and make their own decisions about their relationship with you. They need to see that they are your priority but that that doesn't mean you being forced to choose between DP and them.