Meeting the X
My partner and I have been together for 4 years and have two kids together. Just 2 weeks ago his Ex wife (who he hasnt seen or heard from for 6 years) has been in contact to meet. They have a child together, but divorced when she was 8 months.
I met him 3 years out of being divorce with her, and he was going through court order. He said he didnt want to fight and just let time heal. Because when they were together the X wife had a son with another man and the same thing happened, she gained custody, but it was a painfull experience to see his step son get affected, he didnt want a repeat of what happened to his daughter.
So every now and then he would just send her an email asking how his daughter is. Now that his daughter is 6 years old shes been questioning the mum about him, hence the meeting.
This has been such a heated topic everything we talk about it. Im not yet comfortable on meeting her, let alone having my kids meet her. Also my kids are only 3 years old and 8 months so they wouldnt understand the situation.
So my question is, when is the right time to meet. And how do you react to something thats been swept under the carpet for 6 years. Im having so much anxiety everytime i think about it.
He hasn't seen his daughter
He hasn't seen his daughter for 6 years? Why?
It was all too painfull
It was all too painfull fighting her through court. She had court orders against him. She oviously knew what to do because she had a son with someone else when she met my partner. And it happened to her with her mum taking her dad to court. So its a cycle of pain and court battles. So my partner wanted to change it and just let time heal, and let the daughter choose for herself. But oviously over time theyve tainted his name etc.
So instead of fighting her he said just let time heal. And now it has, shes apparently changed her perspective and now allowing to meet.
Never..
Never..
better for you to be an phantom, mysterious figment inside her head.
Please do yourself a huge favor. DO NOT, meet her. Wait until there is a true emergency and you have no option BUT to run into her.
***I am only talking about his X--the bm.**** dont do IT...just dont do it. You are not morally required to or legally required to. So there is your answer. Do not complain do not explain.
I’m imagining an infomercial.
I’m imagining an infomercial...
“Hey is your life going great but you want to eff it up?! Well we’ve got just the thing for you! Meet your partner’ ex! This ex will cause havoc and strain on your relationship with your partner! Once you meet ex, you’ll wish you never had!”
But in all seriousness, I wouldn’t. Good kind exes are hard to come by and by the sounds of her, she doesn’t sound at all like the good kind.
Interesting - so he watched
Interesting - so he watched her cut one father out of a kid's life, and so opted to not fight her - honestly, I don't blame him.
If I were him, I would ask BM whether or not she intends to allow him to have a relationship with the daughter and if she's willing to make it official in the court. If not, I would opt out of meeting the daughter entirely - it will too painful for both of them if BM is just going to use the child as a weapon, or restrict contact, or whatever.
Anyway - YOU don't need to have anything to do with BM. If and when she allows the daughter to have regular time with DH, then you can cross the bridge of your kids meeting SD.
Thanks for the advice, at
Thanks for the advice, at first i wanted to be part of it to fully support him. But at the end of the day i dont want my kids being part of it, because one day she can just snap. And because its not through court order the same pain can happen again. Atm shes on a high because of some sort of healing cinference, but when your on a high youre bound to go down. And it will not just affect my parner again but also my kids too.
Also everytime he meets her daughter the X needs to be there. Its as if he will be having two lives, i definately dont want to stop him seeing his daughter but to what cost.
If he is interested in being
If he is interested in being in his daughter's life, he should get a court order in place to do so.
Court orders don't prevent
Court orders don't prevent women like this from cutting the father out. If anything, it ramps it up and makes it worse. Sounds like he watched it happen to his stepson's father.
So you think he shouldn't
So you think he shouldn't even try once to get an order?
If she would agree to it. He
If she would agree to it. He's already witnessed what she's willing to do to cut a father out of the child's life, and he could pay thousands of dollars to get an order for very little visitation that she ignores entirely.
If he was going to do it, it shouldn't have been 6 years ago, IMO.
First, you never need to meet
First, you never need to meet this bitch. Second.... your DH is a ball-less idiot. He abandoned his daughter for 6 years.
No real man would do that. I feel sorry for the 6yo and for your kids being the product of this ball-less non man.
What the hell were you thinking?
smh
Spoken like a guy who has
Spoken like a guy who has never had to fight for his rights in court against a woman.
Well? You give your opinion
Well? You give your opinion based on your extreme situation but do not want to consider anyone else's (unless it mirrors yours).
That OP's husband didn't even try once for visitation (much less 50/50 custody) and just dropped the rope seems to me like he wasn't really interested.
Tog, you do not have children and didn't even consider yourself a step parent, more dad's wife, so I think it may be hard for you to fully understand the very primal feelings of a parent. Your husband tried so hard because he had to. I can't imagine just walking away from my child especially because it MIGHT be "too hard on myself to try".
Oh, BS. I totally supported
Oh, BS. I totally supported him in trying hard to fight for his son. But I saw the destruction that it wreaked on not only me, but my DH AND, most significantly, on SS.
Before I saw what a determined woman would do to "win" in court, I would have agreed with you - but my SS was damaged irreparably by what he went through. That's why when it was time, I encouraged DH to walk away and let go.
Rags and his wife fought very hard to push his stepson's father out of his life, so he should know exactly what he'd face. And he'd probably lose. In his case, he thinks he did his stepson a favor, and so would BM in this situation.
This OP did this for the CHILD's benefit, because he saw what this woman did to her other child when his father left. I don't think men should automatically walk away, but if they've seen one child get destroyed by a sick mother, why would they do that to their own child. That, to me would be selfish.
You did support him in
You did support him in fighting for his son, yes - and that is a great thing. And yes, at a certain point it is wise to stop constant battles. But you have said many times that you did not really participate in the raising of his son - you acted as dad's wife. And that is perfectly ok - but being a parent is a completely different feeling than being dad's wife.
Do you think your SS damage would be any less if his father never tried to see him or interact with him in any way? Your husband's son may very well figure out the truth in the future. But if your husband never tried to have visitation or any contact?
What about the "fathers are important too" movement? (For the record - I think good parents, moms and dads, are equally important. But bad parents, moms and dads, are equally bad and sometimes children need to be protected from that.) What about all the parent/step-parents on this board that have mentally ill/drug abusing/alcohol abusing/non-caring parents - should they get more visitation/custody? Should they make the children spend more time with the other parent that could be dangerous?
You say Rags and his wife tried to push bio dad out of his life. Where do you get that? They followed the court-ordered visitation; I do not recall him ever saying they withheld that visitation. But I do recall him saying that bio dad tried artificially lowering his income in an attempt to reduce his CS, not having proper clothing for the child, not spending time/caring for the child (instead his parents did), sending the child home filthy, making the child feel guilty because of child support, etc. Should they have tried to enforce more visitation to a "father" that didn't seem to give a crap about the child? Maybe not have him pay child support? You see on this site all the time, get a court order and follow it - so, what is it? Follow it, or not?
We do not know the situation with the BM's other child's parent - perhaps that "other parent" was a substance abuser, mentally ill, or otherwise unfit. Unfortunately, it does happen. OP's husband didn't even attempt one time to obtain visitation or any other contact with the child. Not one freaking time.
OP's husband should try to get an order, if he really wants to be involved in the child's life, good lord, at least once?
Is paying for the SpermIdiot
Is paying for the SpermIdiot's CO'd visitation travel costs pushing him out of my SS's life? I did that. We never denied SS a relationship with the SpermClan. Your incessent insistence on claiming I pushed my SS's BioDad and that clan out of his life never ceases to baffle me. It never happened. The only visitation that SS did not have with his SpermClan was visitation that they refused to take. When they refused visitation for a year or more, we paid for their travel costs so SS could see them even if they declined visitation. Funny how once we bought the tickets they got all excited about his visit. We did not make it a habbit, we forced them to pay CS and for their portion of visitation travel costs most of the time. SS needed to see them demonstrate an effot and commitment to him. We made sure he saw that.
So, exactly how did we "push" BioDad out of our son's life? I would love to know.
How is that pushing them out of his life? 'Splain' me this. Please.
As for losing, the only people that lose in blended family situations are kids whose parents give up on them and on seeing them. Kids whose parents fail to hold the opposition parent in compliance with standards of reasonable behavior and compliance with a CO. Kids whose parents fail to get a CO, etc, etc, etc.....
One thing is for sure. We never gave up on our son (my SS). Unlike his SPermIdiot and the SpermClan. And when they did give up, we made sure that did not last for long because we delivered when they refused.
Exactly! NC-dad is not always
Exactly! NC-dad is not always "innocent" and bm a PAS bio hag. Does it happen, yes. But one parent dropping the rope and being a deadbeat also happens.
An epiphany maybe?
tog,
I understand that you, your DH and your family were brutalized by a toxic BM. That DH was a good dad who could not successfully defend his rights with our severely flawed family law system as is the case with so many good dads who are victimized by toxic Xs with the cooperation of the courts.
It is understandable that you might transpose your own painful experience onto the experiences of my wife and I enforcing the CO that we lived under for 16+ years and did what was necessary to minimize the toxicity of the BioDad clan and counter the influece of their eternal family failure traditions on my SS and our family.
We never fought reasonable. We hoped for reasonable from them. We fought toxic. We did not initially drag them to court. They attempted to take custody of my bride's child. We fought that. We did not nail them with regular CS increases. In fact we went with the $133/mo order for 9 years because my wife did not want to increase tensions. Of course the 9 years that CS remained at a pittance never registered on them. Only that it was increased broke through their collective idiocy. We did not deny visitation though we did fight to keep it reasonable. Even at a reasonable level they could not manage to take it consistently.
I do not see your DH neglecting his child in the least much less to the point of having half inch long finger and toe nails, BO that would gag a maggot, diaper rash and rotten butt to the point of having a raw bleeding anus and puss filled welts all over his rump, etc..... This is what we were protecting SS from. The SpermIdiot was not involved enough to have caused it but he was also not involved enough to stop it.
If protecting SS from that constitutes pushing SpermDad out of his life, then so be it. But... it never happened. We did what we could to protect him and dedicated ourselves to raising him to excel in life and to exceed the standards that were never present in that half of his family.
I feel for your DH and SKid and the pain they have suffered. That you have suffered on their behalf.
It sucks that you all had to go through that.
No, to you meeting the ex, no
No, to you meeting the ex, no good will come of it if she is high conflict.
Also everytime he meets her daughter the X needs to be there.
So, this not about BM wanting to do what's right, wanting him to be a part of his daughter's life, this is about BM, period. She has done what she's done, and now the girl is asking about her father, and BM doesn't want to look bad. She is going to try to flip the script. This kind of motive rarely results in happy endings. She only has HER best interest in mind.
Of course, the final decision for HIM to meet up with them, is his, but you and your kids don't have to be a part of it, and shouldn't. BM has an ulterior motive, and it has nothing to do with anybody, except her.
As much as your DH wants to see his daughter, he needs to really think about what is going on, here. And who is really going to get hurt, in the end.
I agree. Honestly, I don't
I agree. Honestly, I don't blame him for walking away, knowing what BM was capable of. I'm not sure tearing a kid into pieces through court action and alienation is better than walking away from her.
If I were him, I'd insist BM agree to regular visitation before I even met the kid, and make it official through court.
I definately agree, but my
I definately agree, but my partner doesnt see that. After 6 years of not talking shes practically emailing him every day to make this happen. And his like a dog on a leash, bending over backwards so that he could have a relationship with the daughter.
I brought up the court order and he said he doesnt want that. To which i replied "then we wont be part of this". I definately dont want my kids attached emotionally, to when sh** hits the ceiling they will be affected too. Its too painful to see kids being affected.
I agree with you because
I agree with you because there will be a chance that you and your children could be manipulated or otherwise hurt. A court order should be a must if you are going to be involved.
And honestly, I do not think that it is healthy for your husband to only be able to see his daughter if he also agrees to spend time with bm. Perhaps for the first couple "meetings" as reunification with his daughter, but after that no.
Your husband should try to obtain a court order for visitation, within reason (don't drag it on for years, potentially causing more harm than good).
There is absolutely no reason
There is absolutely no reason for you to meet his ex. My SIL met my brother's ex after they'd been together for 20 years and that was only because they both happened to turn up at a sports meeting my cousin was attending. SIL said "hi", smiled and carried on with her day. Ex-SIL didn't even bother responding.
If your DH wants to see her, let him.