[Synicca]

I am dealing with this very issue myself with regards to the OW.

I have a D12 and she has met and stayed with her D while in the company of OW. Who lives with H.

I had this very discussion lastnight here. how to tell her the truth. without causing more
damage.

My D says the OW is ok, but that she deals with her because she wants to be with her D.
OW also has a S12.

very confusing! I am sure you will find many answers here.

Good Luck!

[StandandDeliver]

Thanks Syni, my S is much younger than yours (6), so he has a bit less say in things, but after his D's suggestion he apparently expressed some enthusiasm for meeting OW. Not that S understands who she is, other than Daddy's friend who lives with him.  I feel like the meeting is inevitable as H lives with OW, so will have both my kids every other weekend. I really hope that meeting her is a good idea as S is still having a v . hard time with his Dad leaving. I worry that it i too soon...

[LifeGoesOn]

I have very strong feelings against introducing a "friend" to my children while I am still married to their father. I have teens, who know what is going on and would not be kind to OW. H knows this and has never suggested it. (I suspect he thinks he could do damage control later and they could all be happy campers ) Unfortunately for the kids, this cuts into the time he has for them.

[In this for ME]

My teens also made a stand and ousted ow from the picture. And far enough away from it that she finally showed her true colors to exH that she was always jealous of them and despised them even before she ever met them. This may be true for a majority of these people the men in our lives get involved with.

OW broke every single thing regarding my life with ExH. Our marriage, our home, his mind, his finances, and his body,( I know these things were his choice)

 But ow could not break his love for his children.

As for these young ones you ladies have:
I have some expriance myself regarding an OW of sorts in my fathers life although he didn't leave my mother for her, he did screw around on my mother which I never knew until I was 13. It changed how I looked at my father. Not that my mother was a saint after she left him..far from it and she abndoned me many times in my life physically and emotionally.

This OW my father was involved with was very jealous of me she acted one way to me and another way to my father. She came into my life the first time at 6 then again about 12 then again 18 then around 23 and at 23 I finally had it with her and beat the crap out of her.

At 12 when I would vist on the weekends sometimes I would wet the bed. Classic stress signal. Sometimes the symptoms of stress in small children show itelf in  differnt ways. Children do not have the life experiance or coping mechanisims to process what is going on so differnt things happen to them. Technically we don;t either when it comes to this massive confusion.

I am dead set againest any children being exposed to OW during this ...whatever this is.

Now that the affair with ow is over I my exh and I finally talked and he told me if I ever thought about getting involved with someone else to please keep them away from the girls. (Duh!)

[Synicca]

Well, I had the convo today with my D about the OW. wasn't easy...She says she likes the OW but that
she wanted her D and I back together..( tears ) of course, holding back my own trying to explain how daddy
was confused and needed time to sort this out.

I also mentioned ( from advice here lastnight ) That what he is doing is wrong and that no matter what. You
must end a marriage before entering into another.

We had a long talk. My D still doesn't mind staying with H and OW...Ugh!

My problem now..Is I know they ( H and OW ) fight almost daily, do I really want to subject her to this? No!
I have more work to do..but this was a step.

[Shantilly Lace]

Well I knew ow.
My girls knew ow.  In some ways that made it sooo much harder as they knew her and liked her. So there was no fear there.  Confusion but no fear.
If I hadn't had known her I would have wanted to meet her first.
In Australia they give dad's so much more rights and I would have lost.  Knowing what H was like at BD saying "no" would have just had him sneaking the girls out anyway.
things changed fast (well fast for mlc) in that regards.  H started having tea a couple of times a week at home leaving once they were in bed.
He would bring them home early on days that he had them, most of the time.  Sometimes if he was cycling heavily toward ow then he would bring them home later.  When they first moved in together though i wouldn't see them till tea time or later and he would take them early.
It changed to taking the girls there later (8.30pm) as well.

And now?
3 of the girls haven't seen her since December 28th, the other two have seen her once.

I have never once put ow down.  The girls were confused about still liking her and i would tell them there is nothing wrong with liking her you don't have to like what has happened.

I look back at what happened, ow is a predator, she knew all about me, knew me.  She used my H as an exit affair from her turbulent marriage and I have just found out her and her H are doing the mandatory mediation needed before they divorce.  She saw (maybe still does) my H as a great catch, a good provider, a great partner and fantastic dad.  And he was (faults too there were faults too) but he was those things with ME and OUR family.

ow will be gone and she is nothing.

H is realising slowly ever so slowly that if she were his soul mate (becasue MAN she pushed that  - overheard phones calls ugh) why is he at home with me rather than with her?
Why when she pressured him to "give" me up and put boundaries or ultimatums on him did he come home?
and he even admitted it himself that he feels ill when someone tries to stop him from coming to me?  He gets sooo mad, he knows its not normal but....

It is a sticky situation and you need to be mindful of the law.  try and delay as long as possible, but you know within yourself if H will try and undermine you.  I tend to feel that I would like to be in control not H.

Buggy is one who was able to do the opposite to me.  She is worth reading too her strength unbelievable.

[StandandDeliver]

Thanks all of you, I agree that it would be better to wait, but on the otherhand my S is very curious about OW and can just imagine a refusal to let them meet be turned on me - S wanted to, D and OW were happy with it, but evil ex wife always trying to have her own way. I told S to be polite to her and let him know that I did not want to meet her because she was Daddy's friend, not mine. I will probably do what synicca suggested and let him know that no matter how nice OW is, what Daddy is doing is wrong because he is still married to me and that it is better to end a marriage BEFORE starting a new friendship with another woman. Maybe mention that Daddy is doing alot of confusing things right now, but that he still loves S and D and for now we need to be polite to Daddy's new friend.

Like SL, where I live Dad's have alot of rights, I can't dictate where he meets S and D (unless there is abuse) and so I think it is better to let the introduction go ahead - having made it clear that I have my own opinions about whether it is emotionally a wise decision for my S I will leave it up to H. In any case, I also think that the sooner OW is exposed to the reality of H's children (rather than the fantasy version of how wonderful it will be when they all spend time together - she is young and probably unprepared for the reality of temper tantrums and stinky toddler diapers) the sooner it will place strain on their "carefree", responsibility free "relationship". What do you think?

[Shantilly Lace]

yeah I do worry a little that now the girls don't go to ow that they are having more of a fantasy again but I would rather them home.
The other thing is that H came hom to spend more time with the girls and i am detecting frustration that he doesn't have timeto do anything on the weekends as they are at present taken up with ow.  BUt throughout this past week h had been saying he wanted to do.... list of chores but he won't get there and he knows it.

so real life still cuts in with him.

[Moving Forward]

My husband was introduced his OW to my daughter as 'his friend' and they went to her parents house for cloudy lemonade. That was the last week in July 2010.

I found out completely by accident in mid August 2010 that the weekend my husband was taking our children down to London (they were staying with good friends of 'ours' you know ...like family) they would be introduced to the OW and have lunch at a museum and the following day everyone would be going to a BBQ at a house of someone I didn't know.

My husband spewed all sorts of horrid stuff when I said that the children should know the truth and the lies had to stop. I ended up sitting with my children and explained that they would be meeting someon 'who was very important to their dad' and that 'knew all about it' and that 'I wanted them to have fun and that they knew where I was'

It was the worse weekend of my life - I spent most of it in tears - my children came home fairly unconvinced about the OW and that she was a bit dull!!

I try very hard not to focus on the time they have spent with their Dad and her (she hangs around like a bad smell apparently but doesn't sleep at his flat - but I think that's the next thing) but I try to be 'normal' and not avoid the topic - I try very hard to show them that I am ok and we are ok (me, my son & my daughter) and that it's better to talk about things.

Who knows if we are doing the right thing but I knew no amount of my crying etc would change the fact that my devious, sly MLCer and 2 friends had duped me and the OW was being thrust in my childrens lives (something whcih my husband was saying wouldn't happen for years!!) - I was not going to give the stupid woman any power at all.

She is unmarried, childless and an ex of my husband's from 25 years ago (when he was 15 and had just lost his Mum - which was terribly handled by his family) and tonight I hear she is going to bake with my daughter - and I know I'll find out all about it on Monday and I am sure the experience will not be as good as the times my daughter and I share baking - well she bakes and I clean up her mess! Those with dyslexic children will understand that completely!!!!

I believe that, with time, the shine will wear off having a relationship with my 2 kids who are secure and loved and bright and can talk about how they feel without fear, kids with good self esteem who can smell a bad situation when they see it and have a Mum who they know supports them through good times and bad (their lighthouse)

((hugs))



P
xx

Choose LIfe

[StandandDeliver]

Wow MF what a situation. My H only left us  2 and a half months ago, yes right before Christmas, nice. S  (6) first met OW this week for 2 20 minute drives and now he and his 1 year old sister are staying with them for the weekend. S seemed to like OW (I call her Lena, private joke, not her real name), which I expected from the initial meetings, but Lena (still quite young) has not had to deal with the reality of 2 young kids yet. I am hoping this weekend is a bit more of a trial by fire, although I suspect that for the next few visits (until S gets used to it) S will be on good behaviour (still shaky about his D leaving, so is scared to do anything to "drive him further away"). I am also aware that S may truly like Lena, but I don't really know if he has twigged that Daddy left us FOR her (he is only 6). As the kids will be spending regular weekends at their D's, it is probably better if S does like her, but we'll see how it goes. When he said she was nice he looked at me warily as if checking to see my response. I remained calm and I said, "good" and smiled. I don't want him to feel like his loyalties are torn between his D and me - this is not his fault and he is really too young to understand the dynamic.

As for me, I HATE it, but I know that after everything I have been through I can handle it, so I guess that is progress of sorts?