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?

How has he caused the issues? By being born first? He’s not done anything wrong 🤣

I mean yes he should feel sad and guilty, that’s normal - if he didn’t that would be a bit weird. I feel bad for your son, so I think you should tell your husband to celebrate the son who’s still in his life and then he can go and mope in the other room later. He will probably feel bad about it till the day his other son comes round (which he probably won’t at this point) or till he dies.

Your dh feels how you'd feel if your ds became estranged from you in future

Your son is not a replacement for his son.

Your thread should be ‘ how do I help my husband & DSS rebuild their relationship’

Your husband is understandably sad at every milestone remembering his older son, you can’t make that stop & your expectation is unreasonable.

how are you expecting to explain to your son how he has a brother that wants nothing to do with him? I would be doing everything I could to try and build bridges

@Mummamia87 this is the consequence of your actions. Your H is no doubt experiencing deep grief from the loss of his eldest child and it will be those milestones of his youngest that bring this to the forefront of his mind.

He shouldn’t have had an affair.

YABU to think he can get over this. He won’t.

It is very sad for your little boy if his father seems disengaged but you didn’t seem to give much shit about his other little boy when you broke up his life. Funny how you only care about the effect on your own son (except that your first post is more about your feelings). If you need the point underlined yes it is very very shit when adults do things to cause profound hurt to children.

Yes you can and should do what you can to ensure your poor little boy is impacted as little as possible but you are so very very unreasonable to resent what you have caused. All you can do is to refocus your attention on supporting your son.

Well well well, if it isn’t the deep-rooted consequences of selfish and hurtful choices coming home to roost.

Your husband's son isn't causing issues - you and your husband hurt people very badly, and now that your actions are finally negatively affecting you, you're blaming the people you hurt for their reactions.

It's unbelievably selfish, and lacking in self-awareness and accountability.

Anyway, you haven't said anything about your husband treating your son any differently, or being any less excited to him about his milestones, so I'm not sure how it'll impact negatively on your son. Your issue seems to be that when he talks to you about it, he reminisces about his firstborn and feels sad, which makes you feel bad. So again, you're being selfish.

It's a shame that one day, you'll have to explain to your son that he doesn't know his older brother because you destroyed his family. It's also a shame that your husband's son will have children that grow up not knowing their grandfather. But that's the situation that you chose to create, so I'd suggest not being so selfish, and instead looking at ways you can support your husband in either reconciling with his firstborn, or coping with his grief and guilt.

Your title is odd - his son isn’t causing any issues - he doesn’t want anything to do with either of you. How is it his fault?

Your affair has now caused issues in your marriage.

Do you honestly believe his marriage was over? Middle aged cheats often say ‘my wife doesn’t understand me’. Did he tell you he had a ‘special connection’ with you? It’s so cliche. Did his wife know the marriage was over prior to the affair being revealed? The son’s behaviour suggests not. Affairs can cause a form of ptsd in victims of betrayal. His son may have had to witness the damage his father caused. Your husband will know the truth on this and it may be bothering him if the story he told didn’t match what really happened at home.

I know someone who was the child in a similar situation and she has never spoken to the parent again (40s now) , she thinks the parents behaviour was despicable and I doubt they will reconcile (parent has tried numerous times only to be met with ‘no I want nothing to do with you’). Her parent has never met the grandchildren.

Has you husband told you what he is feeling? Does he tell you what is wrong? Talk about his grief - maybe just missing his son. Or the guilt over what he did etc? What is he thinking? What help has he had at coming to terms with such a big loss? If he hasn’t spoken about this (maybe to avoid upsetting you) isn’t that his poor characteristics showing (conflict avoidance and people pleasing for example)? If he isn’t devastated and grieving that may be even worse as anyone who loses their relationship with a child they love would likely have this baggage for the rest of their life. Would he make a different choice if he could go back in time and live his life again? I have lost relatives (death) and I speak about them regularly to many people, no shame, no apologies. That talking helped me process my grief and keep the person in my thoughts. How is he dealing with grief knowing it was avoidable? Who can he talk to about his grief. (I am assuming he is grieving as I would be heartbroken if I lost contact with my child).

In my experience Cheats don’t like confrontation (they cheat rather than speaking up). They are happy to lie and skulk about rather than face the discomfort of speaking up. They struggle to emotionally self soothe and require validation from external sources. They are often avoidant or addicts. They don’t like feeling like the bad guy, they like being the knight in shining armour. People pleasers who hold resentment. These traits are not great traits for rebuilding the relationships the cheat destroyed or even having tricky conversations with loved ones.

The fact you are on here, blaming his son for your marriage/his parenting problems, rather than discussing this with him suggests he isn’t talking to you in depth about how he feels , his grief etc - could he be doing what cheats typically do avoiding difficult conversations / pain / arguements / honesty?

Bagging yourself a known cheat really isn’t a win for numerous reasons. Their actions cause so much pain for so many people not just the betrayed spouse. A minimum of 5 people are clearly affected by your husbands poor choices. Does his son have children yet? How does your husband think that will affect him? Not being part of his grandkids lives. Due to the age gap with his second child it may affect him badly as he may never meet your son’s grandkids due to the age gap. Have you talked about this? It’s very sad really. No man on this earth would be worth me risking losing my kids for.

I hope his first wife and son have found peace and contentment in their lives. Your husband may regret his actions - ask him - be prepared to hear the truth (though cheats are often comfy with lying to avoid confrontation) and suggest he has counselling. Do you ever ask about his son’s firsts or bring him into conversation? This really isn’t his son’s fault. His son may not have reacted how your husband envisaged - cheats often think everyone will be happy for them (the line you would really like my affair partner if you got to know her - is part of the script). His son lost his father and his family at 17 - he didn’t choose this.

I hope you all find peace going forward. Counselling may be a good option. Chatting to him openly is a good option but from
my friends experience you may find what your husband says uncomfortable- her parent regrets leaving. The loss of a child (and future grandkids, graduation ceremonies, marriages, daily life etc) wasn’t something they had anticipated while having the affair.

Just to add a perspective my DD was 17 when her dad had an affair and left. From mine and her perspective we had a good marriage and family life, exDH now says he was deeply unhappy and had decided to leave but whoops met someone before he had a chance. As those of us who've been down that path know, there could be a whole separate thread on that!

DD is completely non contact despite my assurance that I’m fine, that a relationship with both parents of any variety is a good thing. Her argument is two fold, 1) she believes when he chose to have an affair he chose against not just me but the family and so by definition her, and he has never acknowledged let alone apologised for that and 2) since then whenever he reached out it’s been about himself and what he wanted ie a reconciliation as opposed to be about her and what she wanted ie space and acknowledgment of the ripples the affair caused (not just emotional upheaval but practical she had to move house, disrupted her exams). And yes I’ve explained all of this to him in a neutral co-parent way, not as a "bitter" ex-wife, but he did changed nothing about his behaviour.

She’s still young, so things may well change but I can also see that she’s bedding in now and forming an opinion that she’ll never speak to him. That’s on him. And yes he’s grieving, he tells friends as much and I expect he’ll grieve for a long time but you know what that grief hasn’t made him change his behaviour.

so I say all this so @Mummamia87 can realise or at least can think that maybe the son isn't unreasonable to ignore him, maybe he's been waiting for years for an apology that is focused on him not on the father's needs, that yes people make mistakes but they are judged on how they clean up the mess they made.

Meantime yes I feel sorry for the young son, but honestly isn't it just another example of selfish behaviour by the dad? Same shit, different kid.

A mistake it missing your exit on the motorway. An affair is a choice.

The only way to "solve" this situation would be to successfully help / encourage your partner to reconcile with his son so they could rebuild their relationship. It doesn't sound like your partner's attempts so far have been effective and there is no guarantee that his son will ever be open to reconnecting. How would you feel if they were able to reconcile and you had to make room in your life for the original son?

if he does not want contact that has to be accepted.

But you aren’t accepting it OP, nor are you being accountable….otherwise you wouldn’t be blaming him for ‘causing issues’ ….as in your title.

He isn’t causing issues is he, he is staying away from you both so as not to cause issues. Your husband was the one who walked away from him. He caused the issues encouraged by you. Your husband abandoned him and instead, chose you and a new child over him. Devastating.
Imagine it happening to you and your little boy.

You also say, as do many posters here quite rightly, that you feel sorry for your own child as it’s not his fault. Of course it’s not your child’s fault. He shouldn’t be suffering through this.
But OP, that’s exactly what the ex wife was thinking/saying when her husband was about to walk out on them both. As you were gleefully delighting in having caught your new man, you were completely disregarding the pain of his wife and son’s suffering at the very same time.

It wasn’t then and still isn’t now, that boy’s fault.

Yes it happened a long time ago, but as your husband now knows, the guilt doesn’t go away, it only grows unless there is proper accountability and reparation. Strong emotions like that can’t be swept under the carpet. They leak out. And in this case, they leak out every time your husband is reminded about it…when you are celebrating your own son. That’s the burden you have to try to shoulder, without complaint, to make the best of it for your own little boy. I’m sure you are trying to do that anyway.

Other than wanting the consequences of your long-ago actions to miraculously disappear, I wonder ….what would you actually like to happen now OP?

Have you ever tried to contact your husband’s first son to allow him to express his pain and grief and to talk about to what degree your actions with his father screwed up his life. Have you genuinely taken any of that on board and felt sorry about your part in it.
Have you talked seriously to your husband about his deep guilt and tried to be understanding of it, relieving him of some of it, if you possibly can, instead of being irritated by it. And instead of feeling short changed by it?

I personally think that the more you both really get to grips with properly accepting your own part in past events, bringing them out into the open, the more scope there is for healing and happiness.
We all have to be deserving of the happiness we seek.

I think it’s very good thing that you are beginning to think about it all OP.
Wishing only the best for you all.

Speaking as someone whose husband abandoned her and their two teen boys for a much younger woman, with whom he started a family, I would say you're not being unreasonable in expecting your husband to have enough control over his emotions to compartmentalize. He grieves the loss of contact his first son. Yes, he did that to himself, shot himself in the paternal foot so to speak, but even so an estranged child is a lost child. So he's not unreasonable to be grieving the estrangement with his first son.

But he still has to be there as a father for this second son he chose to have with you. It would be very selfish and self-centered of him to allow his personal sorrows about his first child to overshadow his relationship with his second son, who didn't ask to be born into this shit-show.

Yours isn't some cosy, blissful little family; he's done it all before and is just sad with this second family. What a shame for you (not) that your family is suffering because it was built on lies and deceit. Don't you worry what your own son will think of you when he's older and learns that his mother and father are homewreckers?

Oh look, here's another one.

OP this is awful. You seem to have no empathy for anyone here.

Ignore all the unhelpful "serves ya right" posts, OP. Your husband's feelings of loss are understandable but he should accept by now that his son's hostile attitude is unlikely to change, and he needs to adopt a more realistic "que sera" attitude to that sort of rejection.

Yes, he'll always miss him but the feeling clearly isn't mutual. His son is a hard, unforgiving person, so it's unlikely he would have provided the kind of affectionate, supportive relationship your husband would like, whatever had happened.

Why not say ...
Yes, it's sad that you have missed twelve years more of DC1's milestones but at least you have happy memories of him up until the age of 17.
Please try to be positive towards the milestones of DS2; we don't know how transient his relationship will be. You will cherish memories of him too.

Sorry. No sympathy…. This is the very definition of FAFO. DH’s son was 17 when it all went down. Quite old enough to understand and form his own feelings. This was the consequence.

Whether his marriage was over or not when you got together is really nothing to do with you, without being rude.

I'm not going to make digs about how you got together, it's obviously still causing problems for you both. "fuck about and find out" seems to sum it up.

He's still had to go through a divorce and obvious huge turmoil with his son and presumably wider family. He's not going to be thinking "yes, at last! I get to be with @Mummamia87 and forget about everything that's ever happened before her" Obviously this is all of his own making, but did you not think there would be any backlash?
Was his son 17 when you got married? Have you ever met him or spent time with him?
You've been together a long time now, but this statement from you is so devoid of any feeling or empathy.

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.

Imagine if this was you down the line and you had no relationship with your son. I'd be devastated.
From what you've said the reason his son wants nothing to do with him is because of your relationship. He's allowed to miss his son without it meaning he loves your son any less.

My DH has tried to repair the relationship but he point blank refuses to enage. IMO (and I know this wont be welcome) I do think his first son is being unreasonable to point blank ignore him. He has not even given him an opportunity to apologise. He is an adult now and must realise that people make mistakes and no one is perfect.

Well aren’t you just a model of empathy?

Guilt by your husband which is 100% deserved.

If his son was 16/7 when you started shagging his father then presumably you’re only 10 years or less older than him? It wasn’t a much older my-wife doesn’t-understand-me married work colleague cliche was it? His poor wife and son.

You chose to get involved with a married man with a family which you helped ruin and damage forever and now you’re complaining about said family justifiably being upset at being damaged? Is that right?

You complain about the impact on your own son but couldn’t give a shit about the impact on his first one. You deserve to not have a rosy family life after deliberately ruining somebody else’s. Like others have said he didn’t need to have an affair and you don’t need to sleep with him while he was married. You could have waited for him to end it properly.

You’re experiencing the repercussions of your joint shitty behaviour and saying it was a long time ago is highlighting your self absorbed attitude and complete lack of empathy. It sounds like you don’t even care if your husband is actually sad you just don’t want him to do it in front of you and spoil YOUR moment.

Tell your husband that, why you sympahise with his feelings it's not fair on your son fo bring it up whenever he is pleased about something. It's not his fault.

What's done is done.

What an awful lack of empathy you have for the first son. You chose a feckless man with another family. You’ll always have these issues I’m afraid and I have no empathy for you!