[Moving Forward]

Hey SnD,
The situation is horrid but you will grow through this trial, quite simply she will not - she is really a silly little trollop who is getting a broken man - she is not with the awesome guy that you had 2 amazing kids with is she??

You handled the first encounter well - my daughter said me that she can talk to me about Nicola as my 'smile is proper now and not all tight like before'...they don't miss a thing do they kids? I now practice my cool, chilled and relaxed look so that I don't spook her!

When I found my first MLC site - 3 months after BD - I read the following and it hangs by my pc so I know what I need to focus my efforts on:-

It is easier to build strong children than it is to fix broken men

Powerful stuff I thought - your kids will know you have stood firm and they will take their lead from you - they know their Dad is away in La La Land (my chidlren have both commented that their Dad's eyes are dull and he is not the same as he was before when he lived at home and that he just behaves like a kid!)

Smart kids we've got eh??

((hugs))

P
xx

[StandandDeliver]

Thanks MF. I have copied and pasted that sentence and will print it out to put somewhere as a reminder that my primary concern should always be my children.

My H didn't even tell me personally that OW was going to be there this weekend. His orginal plan had been that she would go back to stay at her mother's place for the first few visits as the kids got used to his new apartment and they would introduce her slowly at park visits over 6 mths or something. He seems to have completely forgotten that plan (or OW is controlling him - thinks that meeting the kids will further entrench her in his life, make her more valid or something). My 6 year old told me that Lena was going to be there (also a bit cagey when he told me) although I had suspected that was what was going on from the first meeting earlier this week.

Nevermind, my own personal joke about all of this is that my H is moving SO fast with everything he will have divorced me, married her, had a baby and divorced her by the start of 2012.

Honestly though H does seem to be in hyperdrive. Is it the hormones, the guilt, the MLC - a combination of these? I mean he says he is at the "start of a new relationship", but then do people normally move right in together, introduce children and still be married to the old relationship  at the "start of a new relationship"?

[Moving Forward]

SnD,
I don't know if we'll ever understand their haste to 'prove' their relationship is real and love (and that they are 'so over' their wife). The way I see my husband is that he is a teenager and behaves with the same HUGE sense of entitlement that teenagers display when they want something and they want it....NOW!!!!!!

How many teens end up living in crummy bedsits so they can prove to their parents they are all grown up and 'free'? My husband is that teenager in my view - the lies, the deceit, the entitlemet, not facing up to repsonsibilty etc. It is compunded by the fact that my husband lost his Mum when he was 15 and I ahve seen him act out like that teenager too. sad stuff.

The way I see it - it is good practice for when I reallt do have a teenager in the house!

Your husband didn't face up to thinsg properly and tell you with dignity - he crept around and decived you...typiacl MLC/teenager behaviour I am afraid - we are definitley seen as a 'parent' in all of this.

Try to stop rationalising the unrationable - just focus on what you can control which is YOU and your respones to the various situations you find yourself in - your kids will take their lead from you like I have said before.

Hope this helps a little bit?? I gave up a long time ago trying to work my husband and his antics out -  I just leave him to crack on  - he knows I love him and don't want this but slowly he is realising I am no longer sitting staring at the door praying he'll walk through it.

((hugs))

P
xx
Choose Life

[StandandDeliver]

Feeling a bit crap about the other kids with OW and H playing happy families at their apartment now, so dreaming of scenarios that would really f**k up H's life for a few days. Like when he brings them home (inevitably) feeling the need to tell me how well it went, I should tape a note to the door saying, "hope the kids had fun with you, because I am going on holiday for the rest of the week, so you and OW will have to look after them". Then leave him, their jobs, their cosy irresponsible life up the proverbial creek with having to stay home to watch baby and drive S back and forth to school. THAT would be a trial by fire. Only I know that he would just call his mother to drive 2 hours to stay have her look after them and the I would be the "IRRESPONSIBLE MOTHER!!!! " Shock, horror, gasp... I should wait til his mother is out of the country to pull that one.... i do like his mum, but she enables him alot.

[In this for ME]

My ExH is enabled by his mother also..and she lives on the same property in an apt he built.
Nice person really she is I used to love her like my own mother..but when it comes to him she does him no favors.

[Moving Forward]

SnD and ITFTLH,
I have two kids who are bright and articulate and we talk about everything - I know they think I am a bit goofy sometimes and I embarrass them but I really want them to be able to say anything at all to me and know they will not be judged for it.

The ability for them to say what they think will also work in their dad and OW situation - I am giving them the skills and confidence to say they are uncomforatble with xyz and have a reasonable discussion about things. The OW hears my children tell her how much fun I am, how happy I am, the cool things we do as a family, the places I go with my work etc. She hears how I take my kids to places and make things with them and also that I am still in touch with all of their family (wherever my husband and his OW are I cast a shadow I am afraid.....she'll never be rid of me - if their relationships lasts then I know I will have a much more successful life than them - a life which is built on respect and trust and love and not on lies and deceit (which is ther relationship isn't it!).

I am big on 'little daily reminders' and the following have got me through some tough times:-

"The best revenge is a successful life"

"My children only get one childhood."

"Love me when I least deserve it because that's when I need it most "(Martin Luther King).
 
My 2 chidlren spend all of their time with me (every other weekend with him) so their behaviour is a direct result of my input and influence and I will not have them feeling unable to handle things properly. It's all about their self esteem - which in my MLC husband is very poor and always has been in retropsect despite covering that up for a long, long time.

((hugs))

P
xx

[StandandDeliver]

MF, again, you are right. I need to focus on making our home fun and open (I have to admit that I have been more distant than I would like with the kids since this happened, although I have tried to ensure that we do fun things and go fun places. You are also right about the successful life quote. I am trying to get a job in the field I have always wanted to work in and I feel that if that happens (in fact just getting a job) will be good for my self-esteem right now, and give me other things to focus on and new people to meet. I feel like I am in limbo right now, waiting to move, job hunting, apartment hunting. I want a successful life but I am impatient!

[StandandDeliver]

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 just reread this post from SL and I agree, I must try to always be neutral about OW, and I think her idea of saying it is ok to like her and still not like the situation is good sentence to have up my sleeve...

[Moving Forward]

SnD,
There is a great book called 'The Secret' by Rhoda Byrne - google it and you'll find allsorts of stuff about about it - it's about love and building the life you dream of - fab stuff and amybe worth a £10 investment - it helped me at just the right time.

Ah pateince - yep that old chestnut - not had a lot of that until this MLC thing started - got loads of it now - all put to good sue too (well most of the time!!)

((hugs))

P
xx

Choose Life

[StandandDeliver]

Yup,  children and the OW again. I feel like I am in such a bind, because I HATE my little ones spending time there and I worry that all this "happy family" playing that they do will "legitimise" the affair that H continues to conduct with OW. He wants to have my baby to stay for a week at Easter (where I live I am obliged to allow this time) and now I discover that if he is not able to take all of the time off work he intends for OW to look after her (WTF???). I am glad that in a month I will be moving 2 hours away from H - he and OW will only be able to play the family stuff once every 2 weeks and during holidays. Which means that the rest of the time when H is missing the kids, he HAS to think about what he has done, what the OW represents and why his "real" family (ie the actual mother of his children and the children themselves) are now living so far from him.

Still, it doesn't make it any easier that he is exposing my children to his pathetic excuse for a R. I know I am supposed to see the OW as incidental, and perhaps if I didn't have children or they were old enough to actually hate her all by themselves I would find it easier to merely regard her as a symptom. I feel like saying to H, next time I see him, that as far as I am concerned no matter what happens with him and OW, I for one will never consider there R to be (or hopefully to "have been") legitmate. Am I fanning a fire if I do that, or am I making a clear boundary or truth dart?