STBExH wants to introduce OW to our kids. Separated 6 months.

[tiredconfusedhungry]

I don’t even know what I’m asking. We’ve been separated since April. We split because I found out he was messaging someone from work (he says only a month when I found out). But they are now together.

Hes now told our DC (10 and 6) that he has a girlfriend (mainly because they had noticed he was disappearing for days at a time). My eldest is very inquisitive and asked (when he told them he was seeing someone) when can I meet her? He said whenever you want.

I think it’s too early. They’ve barely been together for 6 months. She’s already introduced her kids to him. And as much as our 10 year old asked the question, I think it’s up to us to put a boundary in place between us that ‘new’ partners aren’t introduced until after a year/18months.

I know why he’s pushing for it, he doesn’t then have to split his time off between her and the kids, he can see them all at the same time.

Am I wrong? Do I just have to suck it up? Ultimately he is their dad but he’s not the one that has to deal with our eldest, they have not taken the separation well and they are really struggling as it is.

Yes. You have to suck this up unfortunately.

Ah fuck… 😂

It’s really shit and personally I agree with you OP, if I were to become single now I’d not even be thinking about introducing any new partner to my children until 12+ months into a serious relationship, but it’s not something you can actually enforce or insist on if he doesn’t agree with you.

Right or wrong - I’m afraid it’s not something you can control. Just need to focus on what you can control - you and the kids. Be there for yourself as well as for them?

I know I do. It just fucking sucks. My eldest is worried about a lot of things but won’t speak to their dad about it. I don’t feel like I can relay what they are saying to him entirely because it comes across as sour grapes. All I can do is reassure my eldest and be there I guess. I wouldn’t mind if he’d said I want them to meet because it’s getting serious and I really want them to be involved in this part of my life. It is literally for his own convenience.

Yes, unfortunately you will have to suck it up. There's nothing you can do to stop him. You can ask him, but you can't put any boundary in place.

I remember your previous post about living together while separated.

You can make your feelings on it known but I wouldn’t do it with any emotion. Be clear your concern is for your kids wellbeing. If he’s not certain this is a longterm relationship then introducing your kids, encouraging them to build bonds with this woman, and then never seeing her again if the relationship fails will add to the change and instability they are already going through. Considering it’s a long distance relationship with two people who have lots of responsibilities odds are it won’t last long unless one of them is prepared to move.

Rooting for you @tiredconfusedhungry

Yup. You suck it up. How he handles his relationship with his children is his business. You wading in will do nothing but make things worse. Best you can do is be a supportive parent and let the kids vote with their feet if they want to when they’re old enough

@OchreRavenso we are still living together, sort of. He stays at work or her house part of the week.

Thats what I’ve done so far but he hasn’t really responded either way. I told him I was worried about our eldest and the impact this will have on them but all he says is, well let’s see how it goes. The problem is they come to me to vent, rage, cry, off load and I’ll be honest it is exhausting. They are having some counselling which is good, but I felt like they needed more time to settle before rocking the boat again. and so did I.

His plan once we sell here is to move in with her, they’ve already discussed and agreed this so it seems pretty serious. Although I worry it won’t last when she finds out the truth about him. He hasn’t told her that he’s cheated before, she knows nothing about how we have about £130k in debt (meaning we’ll come out of this house with nothing once the second mortgage is paid back). That’s when I worry it will all go tits up. I know that isn’t my problem to worry about, but I had hoped all of that would have come to light before she met the kids and they were then impacted again. Maybe she’ll never find out.

People come in and put of kids’ lives all the time. They deal with it just fine. It wouldn’t be my choice to do it, but I wouldn’t be upset if someone else did.

This happened to my nephew, his dad has had a string of relationships over the years. It never bothered him and now he’s an adult he just laughs at his dad’s inability to hold down a relationship. He says it helped him to see that his dad was the problem, and not him. He had that feeling that kids have that somehow his mum and dad living apart was down to him. My sister was always very careful not to bad mouth him so for a while he wondered why if the guy was so great, his mum wasn’t still with him. Seeing his dad fail at every relationship helped him get over that.

Just keep talking to

I mean I wouldn't worry about them being introduced and then her and your ex splitting up. I doubt they would even be arsed!

But why on earth is he still living with you? Does his new gf know this?! I wouldn't be dating someone still living with their ex! Can you not kick him out?! 😬

If the 10yo is inquisitive and wants to meet her then maybe let them have a brief meeting. I'd personally try and delay the 6yo meeting her though if you can. It's a lot for them to understand.

If there was any other option he wouldn’t be. Long story, but his job requires him to live within 5 mins (he’s on call a lot). So unless he changes his job (which I think he will eventually so he can live within her) for now we are stuck. Money problems means we have no spare money for him to even rent a room somewhere and no family near enough for him to stay with and work. That side of it isn’t too bad. We work it so we’re not here together much at all.

Yes you have to suck it up, sadly.

You do have some input in terms of talking to your children about what a new partner is and isn't.

You could highlight that this new partner may be short term only and only time will tell if they are going to have a long term involvement in their lives.

You can manage their expectations and encourage them not to get too attached and that girlfriends come and go.

@tiredconfusedhungry sounds like you are well and truly over him. But it still must sting that he’s just walking into another relationship that he started before you separated. I thought she lives far away and he couldn’t move because of his job? How has he squared that one? And if she doesn’t live nearby presumably he can’t have the kids 50:50 as they will have school etc?

No doubt he’s committed to this relationship because there was no way back with you but like you said, I’m sure the rose tinted glasses will come off when they are living together and she is looking after his kids as well as her own, and she realises she is with a man that has been proved himself untrustworthy, has nothing to his name, and will owe child support to you.

This is helpful 👏🏼 OP you'll be the stable, reliable, safe harbour for your children, sounds like you're doing a great job and I'm so sorry this happened to you.

Like the PP said, your DC will see through your ex eventually. Sounds really tricky though.

DC are getting counselling which is great, are you getting any support?

What I find even weirder was he reckons that if this house doesn’t sell very quickly (which I know it won’t, it took our neighbour over a year) that he will change his job, move in with her and still pay his contribution to the bills here. And apparently as she’s already covering her own rent and living expenses alone she won’t mind him not contributing to their household when he moves in. Fucking delusional doesn’t even cover it.

@tiredconfusedhungry cocklodger springs to mind 🤔

So he just stays with her when he's not working?

Blimey, both of you are very accepting of this situation!

Yeah I’m doing ok. It does sting, I won’t lie. Especially as he seems to have found a new persona and is now dad of the year, I hope for my kids it does continue, but sadly I don’t think it will. It’s all a front. She lives about 35-40 mins from where we are now. He will change his job before he moves.

I said in the beginning, I had no reason to argue against him having 50:50 (he’s not a useless dad, he’s quite competent), I just know it will never happen anyway. The way it’s going now is I will be moving to where my family are and I had planned to just commute the kids back to school every day. But now he is also looking at moving, the kids won’t have a home in the town the go to school in. I told him if this ends up being the case I think that they need to move schools to near where I am. More for when my eldest goes to secondary, it’s no good all of her friends being 30 mins away. And that’s even before we get into catchment area issues anyway. He agreed with me on that one. I then said it would likely mean that he would probably only have them every other weekend and maybe see them during the week after school but not overnight (due to distance). He said he’d do whatever was best for them. So he knows that them being with me Mon-Fri is more practical.

I don’t feel like I have much of a choice if I’m honest. I obviously don’t know her feelings on it and frankly I don’t care. But he’s here overnight maybe once a week at the moment. If he’s here I tend to go out to the gym, see friends or family and come back late. Or I go and watch tv in my room. I don’t spend any time with him when he’s here if I can help it.

New relationship you say?
Add in dc.
Add in debt..
It won't last.
Let him deal with the dc ad the fall out.
You will be the stability that keeps them ok.

I can't understand why parents do this.

I'm with my boyfriend 4 years and he has never met my children.

Well let’s hope for his sake this new relationship goes the distance because he will miss out on huge amounts of time with his kids for her. Did he envision being a EOW Disney dad to his own kids while help raising someone else’s? Sounds like the responsibility of the financial hole he found himself in left him yearning for less pressure. Now he gets to be a cocklodger in someone else’s house. In the short time it’s solves his stress but what he has given up long term is a chance to be a father who is there for his kids day after day.

Im glad you are moving closer to your family and can start to rebuild with support.

Can I be nosy and ask why?

Only because I was chatting to a friend, I am in no way ready or wanting a new relationship right now. But I said if I did in the future, I would almost like my relationship to be separate from my ‘family’ (me and my kids). My friend thought this was weird. I feel like it gives you the best of both worlds! I love having my time with my kids and I wouldn’t want anyone to change or encroach on that.