Older son from first marriage causing issues

[Mummamia87]

I would value people’s opinion please. I've been with my husband for 12 years, married for 5, and we have a little boy who's 3.

Before we got together my husband was in a long marriage from which he has an adult son, now 29. They haven't spoken since we got together . Yes it was through an affair which I know that was wrong but it wasn't just a fling. His marriage was effectively over, he was deeply unhappy, and we’ve ended up building a wonderful life together. I know that's only my perspective but I'm not here to debate the affair itself - it was a long time ago.

The issue is that every time our son reaches a milestone my husband reminisces about when his older son did the same thing. I completely understand why, but because they're estranged, it almost always ends with him looking sad.

Instead of just enjoying our son's moment, it's overshadowed by grief over the son he no longer has a relationship with.
I'm increasingly resentful that our son's milestones seem to become bittersweet instead of joyful. I want to say to my husband that our little boy deserves to have his achievements celebrated without them immediately becoming a reminder of someone who wants nothing to do with him.

Am I being unreasonable for feeling this way? Is this something I should keep to myself, or is there a kind way to raise it with my husband? Or do I simply need to accept that this is what grief over an estranged child looks like?

You sound very bitter. I can only assume that you cheated and don't like being criticised for it.

Or perhaps you were the OW.

One or the other.

Why should she care?

He chose to have an affair.

Now he wants sympathy from his wife for wallowing about his first son and making it all about himself and HIS feelings?

I think he should get over himself. He did wrong to his previous wife and son, and wants to mither about it with his second wife and make it second son's special days all about him.

What a self-obsessed man he sounds.

Nope. The spouse wanted to be able to be married while lining up and establishing a new relationship - he wanted to have his cake, and eat it too. He could have left his 'deeply unhappy, basically over' marriage as soon as the OP caught his eye, so that as a single man he could approach her with some integrity. But no doubt he didn't want to risk losing his marriage for nothing, so instead he behaved like a coward, without integrity. I wonder why his son doesn't want to bother with him?

Hm. I would wager a good portion of the 'fuck around and find out' people who think OP and her husband have made their beds and now will have to lie in them, are actually children of parents who had affairs, who can relate to how the son might feel.

Personally, I think it's far more hard, ruthless, and very nasty to destroy a family through one's desire to cheat, not to lack sympathy for someone who does that.

You both made your bed and he's right to still feel guilty. If my actions caused a rift between me and my children I would never forgive myself.

Tell him to put on a happy face if your son is noticing his dad's mixed emotions, but otherwise accept that this is the result of having an affair and blowing a family apart. If he was unhappy in his marriage he should have been an adult and ended it long before he considered dating anyone else.

its a tale as old as time- older man, stuck in unhappy marriage has affair with much younger woman .
Often though the “unhappy marriage” is news to the first wife.
Of course it’s used to justify breaking up a family. Here one with a teenage boy.

People very seldom leave happy marriages. In fact I can honestly say I have never encountered a single instance of this.

People very often leave unhappy marriages, but for some weird reason, in threads like this we're all supposed to pretend that this is actually very rare, and that such marriages REALLY end because they're WRECKED by "cowardly pieces of trash" etc etc.

It's all very infantile, and really too silly to continue engaging with.

Just a guess....
when your husband's son was 17 (impressionable age, time of A levels or college) his dad had an affair with a much younger woman and shattered his family. In fact, you and your husband were both complicit in this. His mum meanwhile was left to recover and pick up the pieces for her and her son.

If the marriage was over he should have done something about it before jumping all over the better, newer younger alternative.

Now the son doesn't want a relationship with either of you and you're a bit miffed that certain milestones make your husband sad.

You reap what you sow - both of you.

You are very much out of order.

To his son you are a glorified homewrecker

It doesn’t make sense to me to think he is somehow being unfair to your son. Parents of more than one child always tend to "compare" their milestones - it doesn’t mean they are judging one child as being somehow inferior.

You might be able to stop your husband voicing his thoughts about his elder son, but that won’t stop him thinking them. Would you be content if you knew he was thinking about his first son even if he wasn’t talking about him?

If, in the future, you broke up and he had a third child, with someone else, would you expect him to never think about or mention your son?

Blimey OP, I've had affairs and done all sorts of bad stuff, but you are absolutely blind about the damage here.

The only thing that can help your DH is to repair the relationship with his son. It is a crack that runs through him as a father. Everything your little one does will remind him of the first time he fucked this all up.

Your husband and his son are hurt and broken. He needs to be trying every single day to repair that damage, through self-therapy and reaching out - even if he is continually rebutted.

There is no other path to healing. Supporting him to do that is the only reasonable response you can offer. You are with a broken man, and that damage will continue to corrode your life on a daily basis until some healing and reconciliation can be achieved.

It’s kneejerk misogyny to have sympathy with a 17yo whose life was ripped apart by his father and the op, rather than the op?!? Wtaf @BeanQuisine, I think I’ve heard it all now!

All those sneering "fuck around and find out!" are telling us what kind of people they are - hard, ruthless, vengeful and very nasty

incorrect @BeanQuisine. The opposite in fact. They are people who can have empathy with how heartbreaking this must have been for a 17yo.

Plenty of people have wrecked otherwise happy marriages by cheating.
A classic is a man having a mid-life crisis - he may be generally happy with his wife, but also feeling old and tired, bored, in need of excitement...and instead of talking to his wife about fixing those issues, he goes and has sex with a younger woman (and often regrets it, too late).

So many women on Mumsnet think their marriages are 'okay' or 'good', and their husbands have never told them that they're basically over because they're so deeply unhappy - then they find out their husband is banging someone else.

Anyway, yes, people who are married and cheat are cowards who lack integrity. If you think that's infantile, I can only assume you have a vested interest.

I think the wildest thing here is that your title is ‘older son causing issues’ . How the heck is this poor son managing to cause issues without even speaking? By existing?

I think it’s only natural to reflect on other children when a child reaches a milestone, I’ll quite often mention our older ones when our youngest does something for the first time ie “doesn’t he look great in his school uniform, do you remember when Fred started school and he did so and so”

For your DH those memories are tinged with a sadness because his family unit isn’t how it was in those days, the small child he loved doesn’t want a relationship with him. It doesn’t sound like he’s talking on and about his older one, he just looks sad and is reflective and you are being unreasonable to resent it especially because your actions, in part were the cause of the rift.
You are looking at it from an adult perspective, your step son although grown will have been dealing with the aftermath of your affair in his teens, going by the ages. He doesn’t owe anyone a relationship and he doesn’t have to just ‘get over it’.
He’s made his choice, as you and your husband made yours, it’s made your husband have lifelong regret which is only to be expected, he hurt his child.
Actions unfortunately always have consequences and having your Dad sneak around have an affair isn’t something all people will forgive and forget.
I bet his Mum didn’t know how unhappy the marriage was etc no one has to stay in a marriage that isn’t working, but the decent thing to do is end it before you jump into bed with someone else….

OP seriously?

As many others have said (without you wanting to hear them at all). People have been harsh because what you did was abhorrent and you are not getting that your affair had consequences.

You both did wrong. You knowingly broke up a family and didn't care about the consequences - keep telling yourself it was okay because the marriage was effectively over and it was a long time ago. The son is being unreasonable for ignoring him - are you willfully that ignornant? Good on the son. He may be an adult now but an affair wasn't a mistake. Forgetting an appointment was a mistake. What you did was long lasting horrible immoral thing. So the son 'forgives' his father and then has to spend time with his new stepmother and step brother - no wonder he wants shot of all of you.

Maybe your bigger worry should be how you explain to your son why his step brother won't speak to any of you. See how he reacts.

The older son saw his father cheat on his mother and have an affair. He saw you as the person who participated in breaking up his family and all of the family upset and upheaval. No wonder he wants to run a mile - what a brilliant role model.

I think your husband is showing signs of regret in your marriage when he compares the two children. And what parent wouldn't mourn the loss of a child. How self absorbed are you that you can't understand that?

Your affair had consequences (much like karma) and here you are and you are surprised?

But you are making it about you through pretending it should be about your son.

Stop justifying all of this and understand that your actions had consequences and these are them.

Agreed. No accountability for this pair at all.

I'm not sure if this has been said before, but I do think that you are missing something fairly enormous here. Your husband's son was hurt by his father's behaviour and undoubtedly felt abandoned, but what doesn't seem to be noted is that he is undoubtedly protective of his mother, who was so damaged by the affair and subsequent destruction of her marriage and family life. I know how my adult children are protective of me.

I second (third?) the counselling idea. Your husband can only benefit from getting some help. I'd imagine that he has some guilt to deal with, along with losing his eldest son and dealing with all that that entails.

You’re being very harsh on his estranged son. He is and always will be his little boy! I’m sure you will say that about your own child in years to come. that he will always be your little boy.

it doesn’t matter if he’s an adult now, he is still his child, his flesh and blood
could you suggest to your husband writing his son a letter to try to open up the lines of communication? Forgiveness would be very healing for his son, even if it only helps him to move on in his own life without a relationship with his father, it sounds very unresolved.
you need to have more empathy for both of them, you can’t have an affair with a married man and just expect him to move on and forget his other child exists

Yes, I agree... and I think you should definitely encourage your husband to try to see him WITHOUT you there.

How do you not get this? I don’t think it’s difficult so perhaps as the poster below suggested, you have had an affair yourself so are choosing to prentend a major piece of the puzzle doesn’t exist.

of course people can leave unhappy marriages. Here’s the order for you, nice and easily laid out…

1. im in an unhappy marriage
2. leave the unhappy marriage
3. begin new relationship

jumping from 1 to 3 is the problem.

The likelihood is that OP was closer to the sons age too.

Unfortunately you have chosen someone who's 'pre-loved' and you are facing the consequences now. You have such concern about your h's attention to his 3 year old son but had no regard for his first son.

You don't want your husband to be dismissive of your son's milestones but you and your h have been fully and brutally dismissive of his son by ripping his family apart at a quite sensitive age. It's one thing to leave the marriage but you and your husband are cheaters, you sneaked around, lied, had smug sex on the sly and god knows what else your h did to wreck his first marriage though his affair.

You have set your son up with a 'second-hand' daddy, so focus on supporting your h through his heart break and develop some emotional intelligence in the process.

OP, he was 17, a child, when his father blew up his life.
It is that simple.
He is unlikely to ever forgive and forget.

This very thing is happening at the moment to one of my son's closest friends.

3 son's aged between 15-19 and their father had an affair with a colleague, a shock to his wife.

The fallout is catastrophic.
The son's are refusing all contact and are so devastated.
They really loved their Dad.

The boys have very busy, happy lives, and even I am shocked to hear how now, 2 years on, there is absolutely no rapproachment whatsoever.

I suspect they will be like your husbands son.
Time often doesn't change perspective on this.

I can understand that it is very upsetting for you that your little boy will always be associated with sadness, shame, and possible regret for your husband.

The reality of choices he cannot change but now may fully realise the consequences of.

But this is both your burdens as a result of your actions.

Sounds like you and your husband are in the Find Out phase.

Actions/consequences.