Handhold please- exH marrying OW and my DDs will be flower girls at the wedding

[Mensuckbigtime]

When does the pain stop?
it’d been 4 years, but I am constantly reminded of what he’s done as we have two DDs together- I have to smile when they tell me stories about her, pretend that I don’t mind. It’s absolutely awful

now DD has told me that they’re getting married and she and sister will be flower girls.

I know it’s well within his „rights“ to do so. But the thought of our girls being flower girls while he’s marrying the woman he betrayed me with- is killing me

How am I ever supposed to heal and get over this, if I have to have contact with him and OW spends loads of time with the girls?

it’d like the wound can never heal and I feel stuck in a life I didn’t choose or want

Family Courts are a literal law unto themselves so it’s completely impossible to predict what they would say. There is rarely any logic to their judgements in my experiences. And most of what they decide is unenforceable anyway.

Family Courts have to give their Reasons for decisions so unless you've read a few hundred of them your opinion regarding lack of logic is hardly valid.
Their decisions are enforceable but as the OP isn't stupid enough to refuse to let the children attend it's immaterial.

I can answer that - they'd see it as damaging. And it is.

I don't normally comment on these threads because my heart bleeds for the women that have to deal with these degenerate men who think they can crash a wrecking ball into the lives of their children and then expect those children to help them celebrate their marriage to the wrecking ball itself.

Daft concept.

To the OP - book yourself and the girls a holiday to leave the day before the wedding. They'll have a lovely trip, and won't be 'proxies' (as some smart PP said) to their father's nonsense. It's not being the bigger person to allow your children to be used to validate their father's idiocy.

You are contradicting yourself here - first you say a Family Court would see a mother not letting their children go to their father's wedding as damaging and you agree that it is.
Then you go on to say the OP should book a holiday and keep her kids away.

Confusing post.

Anyway, it's irrelevant because the OP has made the sensible, mature decision to let them go which is the right decision for them.
After four years of seeing their dad with a different woman they are no doubt very used to the idea and would be upset not to be included.

My father's OW, who was actively horrible to us children whenever we saw her, died of cancer seven years after my father left our family to struggle in poverty in order to live the high life with her. I don't actually believe in karma but if it existed, then that would be a fine example of it. I don't really know anyone whose cheating has worked out happily for them, honestly, if they left their other half for the affair partner.

Absolutely. Frankly, if as a child I'd been flower girl to the woman who'd fucked my father behind my mother's back, and participated in my father's destruction of our family, I'd feel really gross and used as a teenager/adult once I found out the circumstances of him leaving, and wish I hadn't been allowed to.

Of course, if they have their hearts set on doing it, it may not be best for OP to say no (which is probably exactly why her ex went behind her back and asked her children not to tell her about it).

But as an adult, I'd feel disgusted that I'd been used by my cheating father as a prop in a farce of a wedding that had caused my mother pain.

This happened to me, and it was my son who was ‘best man’. Sending you lots of support and positive feelings. For me, I focused very hard on internal forgiveness and after a while it settled.

You’ll begin to draw distinctions between ‘hurt from a partner’ to ‘frustrations with an individual’ over time.

Invest in your wellbeing, draw in your inner circle, and one day I promise the feelings right now will pass.

It's definitely not a long time, OP. Not for something as life-changing as marital betrayal and divorce. My exH left me longer ago than that, and although I certainly don't want him, I'm still pretty bitter about the betrayal. It's a massive, massive adjustment. The entirety of the rest of your life looks completely different from what you thought it was going to be. I think that that's such a truly enormous thing that people who haven't been through it don't really understand. I don't want him, and I have adjusted, and I have had great dates and sex, too.....but there's still the fact that things weren't supposed to be this way, and the fact that every day as long as I live is not what I dreamt and wanted and hoped and assumed it would be. Nor will it be what I was promised. And the fact that he left me with trust issues, and left me trying to find someone else when older and most people had settled down....I think it's the emotional equivalent of having a big scar on your face, I really do, except that scar is on your heart. If he'd only been the man he made out he was, we'd have been so happy.

But he wasn't that man, and neither was your husband. The only thing to do is think about it as little as possible. Keeping busy helps. Significant dates are hard, and it's also hard seeing happy couples around me in the prime of their marriages. Apart from that I don't think about it too much, but I do have my moments. And I can imagine that this news has absolutely thrown you for a loop. But you will feel better - this news is very new.

Marriages that began as affairs have an exceedingly low success rate, so there's that. And he's no prize. He's a man who not only cheats, but does so when he has tiny children and breaks their hearts.

I've been through some tragedies and hard times, and what I've found is that when there's no fixing something, and when you are not in control, like bereavement or divorce issues, the best thing to do is distract yourself, whether with work, films, books, whatever. There's no action you can take to affect what the situation is, like you could if you had a bad job or relationship. So distraction is the key. And the less you think about it, the better. The more you ruminate, the worse you will feel.

You must be fairly young if your kids are that young. Thank God you haven't wasted any more years on him.

Self-care, OP. He's a rat and you're much better than him. And SO much better off without him. This is just a blip.

Hugs xxx

Now go and get busy and try not to think about him!

I don't believe in karma either. I will just say that I have a friend whose husband cheated on her and left her and the kids high and dry in the foreign country they'd moved to, but wouldn't give her permission to take the kids back to the UK. He put her through hell with his midlife crisis and his debt and his drinking and the other women. And he was so angry with her...he was just awful to her, and the divorce was really acrimonious. Then he left her and their young children two weeks before Christmas. Four years later, he was diagnosed with a rare and usually-deadly cancer. So far he's still with us, still drinking, which won't exactly help. And my friend is a nurse and could have looked after him so well. C'est la vie.

My Mum always told me that you can't build happiness on the back of someone else's unhappiness & I think she has a point.

But I appreciate this must really, really hurt. As suggested previously - I would be making the most of the child free time and booking a holiday somewhere fabulous - this is what I did and the wedding became a side note.

Wow. How horrendous for your friend! It's horrible for the kids too, both to have a terrible father who broke up their family, and to likely lose him to cancer on top of that. But he certainly didn't make wise choices – I wonder if he has the self awareness or empathy to regret his cruel behaviour now. I hope your friend is doing well, and living a happy life free of him.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond
it’s been really helpful

reading the messages from those who’ve survived betrayal- the fallout is just
insane 😢

for those of you who have forgiven

how did you do that?

i „understand“ how affairs happen and I know they happen all the time

rhe thing I can’t forgive him is what he did to justify his behaviour- he made me into the most disgusting, horrible person to ever walk this earth.

he used the most private details of our marriage against me (e.g my jealousy of pregnant woman after 3,5 years of infertility)

he was basically following the script and that I can’t forgive. He tried to annihilate my character to make himself feel better

If you are able to speak to a GP, therapist or counsellor I’d recommend it and then don’t be too hard on yourself. It does take time, but remember you are the main character in your story, not what happened to you.

What he has done to you has happened and now you have time to reset and gain a fresh outlook on what your life could look like. Invest in your passions, read that book, enjoy the reduction in the mental load and sometimes it just being thankful that you did get out of your situation.

That’s not karma. Karma doesn’t exist. That’s cancer that happens to 1 in 2 of us.

Maybe the OW has been a flower girl at her dad’s second wedding so she thinks celebrating the relationship that broke up her family is normal.

I wouldn’t be sending my children. I wouldnt be encouraging this betrayal to be seen as ‘normal’ and something we all had to celebrate because Dad found happiness elsewhere whilst he was still with Mum.

It’s a shitty message to send and I think it’s mad some replies think his young daughters should be participating in this ‘celebration’. I think it teaches a lesson of allowing disrespect towards women and it’s a shit relationship example to teach as ‘normal’.

Yes, I know. I said quite clearly in my comment that I didn't believe in karma, so I'm not sure why you're mentioning that?

I didn't know the odds for cancer in uk were so short ?

Stress can be a precursor to cancer along with other factors.

The thing is- the girls don’t know anything about the betrayal, because that’s adult stuff

keeping them away from the wedding for reasons they don’t know and don’t understand just seems unreasonable to me

Because it is. You're doing the right thing, OP. It simply isn't about what some of these posters insist it is about to them. Your idiot ex has already confused the issue by trying to get them to keep it from you; if they now get you trying to stop it completely, that'll wildly confuse the issue even further and imbibe it with all sorts of adult stuff that they are just too young to deal with.

Also, please try not to think that what he did to you while you were struggling with infertility makes you a bad person. Clearly the arsehole is him. I find that worse than the affair, to be honest.

I agree but the whole thing would stick in my craw too, OP.

Your lousy, lying, cheating exH has manipulated this situation for his own ends. (Whatever they are).
He told them first before running it past you, and got them all excited about it. So now, if you try and stop them attending, you will be the "bad guy" who's being mean to Daddy.

So you'll have to suck it up OP - sorry.

On the positive side you now have an insight in how nasty and manipulative he is, to the extent of using your DC as pawns ( I wouldn't expect any less from a cheater TBH) and you can be prepared for it.

So make it clear that he is responsible for the whole event and can pay for their dresses etc, make all the transport and accommodation arrangements.So step back. Turn your 'phone off on the day of this wedding and do something nice for yourself.

Afterwards, make it very clear that he should consult with you first about any arrangements for the DCs and that his manipulative tricks won't get him anywhere.

I can see another hand in this 'behind the scenes' - I'm sure you get what I mean ? 🙄

Yes, they are too young to be dragged into all of that &, as long as their dad isn't a terrible one going forward, there is no reason to think they will be resentful of their inclusion in the wedding when they are older.
People here say they will be upset at their inclusion "when they find out what their dad did" but I would question whether they ever need to know what he did. I don't understand what that would bring to their lives.
At some point the past has to become the past and everyone has to leave it there. Even though it will always be sad & hurtful for the person betrayed, that hurt & betrayal doesn't have to follow the children around too.

But I think @OtterlyAstounding has hit upon another point which is kind of an explainable form of karma, and that is the fact that people who act selfishly in one relationship tend to keep acting that way, so, while I agree cancer isn't a form of karma, poor relationship outcomes are a logical outcome.

Hi OP, i know how much strength it takes to smile and pretend that all is ok when all you really want is to tell them what a piece of shit their dad really is and wish you could cut him out of your lives- well it was that way for me and my ex (he was abusive and we split before our first was born) he was so abusive i had to hand a picture of him in to the hospital so he didn’t try to come while i was giving birth- he still gave me so much abuse over text/ringing social services/threats etc for years but i had to smile and say “oh thats nice” when DD used to come home from visiting him and they had done this n that together, i know its hard to keep it all under wraps.
Don’t feel guilty for crying infront of them, its OK for them to know mum is only human and that crying is a normal thing when you are sad, i have cried a handful of times infront of my kids, sometimes its just not possible to hold it in.
It does get better, eventually they will be old enough to visit dad and arrange visits with him themselves etc and you won’t have to have any/much contact with him or OW at all.
My DD stopped contact with her dad 4 years ago thankfully so he is no longer in our lives.

You are probably right, but actually to these two little girls it’s a chance to wear a pretty dress and have a lovely day at their daddy’s wedding. They don’t understand what has happened. Keeping them away from the wedding would be punishing them for something that is not their fault.

Your feelings are perfectly valid OP, and you mustn't consider yourself a failure for not working through them as quickly as some might.

That justifying happens all around us every day, not just after relationship betrayals. It's how people live with their own shortcomings. I don't know if it helps to think of it that way: the more lurid his justificatory story, the worse he feels deep down in the part of his psyche that sees his actions clearly.