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Relationships

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Original poster

How do you - if indeed you ever do reconcile your feelings towards OW, X & DC?

115 replies

SpandexIsMyEnemy · 16/10/2008 18:46

OW is a person whom XH was with before we split up (it came to light some moths after we split but he'd been seeing her for a while) she is in essence (althou not the only reason granted, but she is a big factor in why he left.
XH & I have always maintained we wanted to meet the respective partners, and both want to see how they interact with DS. but my feelings somewhat have changed for this.

XH initially started trying to be controlling and intimidating about the issues.

The longer this is going on (as in me thinking about things) the more i'm starting to think, I can't handle watching her (the woman who split the family unit up) walking off with MY (ok ours but you know what I mean) my DS, to play happy families with him. angry

i'm actually quite upset about it, as for her/XH - I don't care, but I can't stand the thought of her/them playing happy families with my son.

I'm with someone new, who's lovely, he's said he has no interest in meeting XH but XH is quite insistent, DP says he will, but only for me, and if XH shows me some respect. (not likely - why change the habit of 8 years! lol)

anyhow, there's also the angle of, neither XH or I have any rights over who the other goes out with, nor do we have any rights on the partners who is involved with DS's life - althou we've both said would only introduce if it was serious. (DP has met DS once for an hour to play football in the park - but he's forgotten as soon as he met him iycwim) DP & I are relatively serious anyhow.

I'm not too sure what i'm asking really. as long as DS is happy I am, it's gonna be hard enough listening to him telling me how great she is

OP posts:

CountessDracula · 17/10/2008 11:35

oh so legally you are not allowed to be an extended family

Sorry but the whole arrangement to me (from a child's perspective) sounds cold.

Anna8888 · 17/10/2008 11:36

Well we are hardly going to compare our relationships with DP... and she isn't very interested in her sons and doesn't like talking about them (even to DP)... I suppose that if she were interested in their education that we might potentially meet to discuss things like changing schools. But she isn't interested - she wants DP to do all that.

Anna8888 · 17/10/2008 11:37

I think you are right in that DP's ex is quite a cold person who doesn't do touchy-feely relationships with anyone.

CountessDracula · 17/10/2008 11:37

How sad

Anyway, horses for courses and all that

Anna8888 · 17/10/2008 11:39

Yes and no. In some ways it is a lot easier that she leaves so much decision making up to DP - it means we don't have to get into long tussles with her about that kind of stuff.

Swedes · 17/10/2008 11:42

I would want to ask her if her new DP is better in the sack than her exH?

Swedes · 17/10/2008 11:43

Anna8888 Don't you find it odd that your DP oncew loved this cold woman?

Anna8888 · 17/10/2008 11:44

Oh do you discuss your past and present sex lives with your exH, Swedes? . Can't you just ask the boys to pass the info on?

Anna8888 · 17/10/2008 11:45

Oh he is quite quite clear that he didn't, and that she didn't love him.

Original poster

SpandexIsMyEnemy · 17/10/2008 11:46

my DP is better yes than XH. in many many ways.

CD - this was the set up we were going for I think - the whole support to each other. XH can be - but he can also use that to control the situation to his own ends.

to a degree I don't think XH likes that I can read him still and his motives, where as he can't read mine at all anymore.

OP posts:

Original poster

SpandexIsMyEnemy · 17/10/2008 11:47

In bed I mean!

see there's also the element of she's already got XH away - if she met dp as well??

OP posts:

CountessDracula · 17/10/2008 11:52

How odd to marry someone you don't love at all

Are you sure he's not just re-writing history?

I mean, if I split with my dh (even if he ran off with someone else) nothing can eradicate the 20 broadly happy and loving years we have had together, all our shared experience etc. Yes I would be angry/bitter etc but time would heal that and surely better to look to the long term?

Anna8888 · 17/10/2008 11:54

They got married young in a kind of Jewish haze - not an English-type relationship at all...

Swedes · 17/10/2008 11:58

Anna8888 How sad to marry, live with and have two children with someone you don't (and never did) love.

Good idea re sending the boys with notes. My latest composition reads:

Dear H
You know those magenta furry handcuffs that you got as part of the divorce settlement? Do you still use them? If you don't may I have them back, please? If you do, are you using them this week? May I borrow them for a few days as things are becoming rather tedious in our bedroom.

Anna8888 · 17/10/2008 12:00

Swedes, it makes him very sad and cross with himself as he is fully conscious that he was very hesitant about having children with her (several years into the marriage). But that is how it is, and what religious upbringings can do to people...

Swedes · 17/10/2008 12:01

Why would they have an English-type relationship? Neither of them are English.

CountessDracula · 17/10/2008 12:01

Although English people can be Jewish

Anna8888 · 17/10/2008 12:02

The point about English-type relationships was just to clarify to CD that she was probably looking at the relationship from a modern English perspective - her own cultural prism - which wasn't actually at all appropriate...

Anna8888 · 17/10/2008 12:05

My MOL thinks I am awful for not being a (preferably Alsatian) Ashkénaze. But better English than a Séphararde . The racism has to be seen to be believed...

Swedes · 17/10/2008 12:06

My exH was my second ever boyfriend. I was only 19. We managed to stay together for almost 20 years and certainly loved one another.

Anna8888 · 17/10/2008 12:08

So you chose him because you loved him, not because he met your culture's expectations of what a man should be?

CountessDracula · 17/10/2008 12:20

I guess I was fortunate in that dh fulfils both criteria

Anna have you ever seen God of Carnage (Yasmina Reza play). It makes me think of you...

CountessDracula · 17/10/2008 12:21

(obv Le Dieu de Carnage for you)

Surfermum · 17/10/2008 12:22

Last night I phoned dh's x. I chatted to her about a house swap I am helping her with, asked her about how her new relationship was going and how things were with her eldest daughter who she had fallen out with.

When we dropped dsd off after our summer holiday we all went in for a cuppa, ended up staying for fish and chips and her mum and I shared a bottle of wine and had a good chat.

It never used to be like this. She hated me and then some - but since the ice has thawed she has been able to tell me that it was never about me, it was all her stuff. She had ended the relationship with dh to be with someone else, but she also realised that dh was never going to feel the same way about her as she did him. It must have been really hard for her to then see him meet and marry me. And once I understood that it explained lots of things and it was immensely helpful for her and I to have a conversation about it.

Equally we have been able to explain a few things that happened in the past that she had misunderstood. We've even had a laugh about the time I thought she was going to land me one.

But most of all I think it's important for dsd that we can all talk and be around each other. We all have a role to play in her life. Dsd has said how much better it is for her now we can all chat. It meant that when she was falling out with her mum and saying she wanted to come and live with us, we could all sit down and sort out what was going on. We have supported her mum when dsd has been difficult and vice versa.

CountessDracula · 17/10/2008 12:24

One of my ex boyfriends was best man at our wedding

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