I was so dizzy last night that I had no choice but to go to sleep early. Maybe it was the rains, and mold, or barometric pressure. Maybe it was that I hadn’t slept longer than six hours a night in weeks. My brain wakes my body up and I just can’t fall back into sleep. Maybe it was the hours of sobbing over the weekend.
Last week, there were four major incidents that made it undeniable to me that my ex’s girlfriend just isn’t going away. We have avoided talking about her because I am so angry about the affair we can’t get anywhere. I have worked so hard to figure out what is my business and what isn’t.
My son is my business: if he meets this woman, if he’ll be around her, if my ex is planning on moving in with her so visitations would be affected. But the details of how serious they are, how much time they spend together, or anything else that pertains to their relationship doesn’t actually impact me. And, I haven’t really wanted to know any of it.
But I have questions I just can’t make logical answers for.
I totally understand how and why my husband reached the conclusion that we should no longer be married. Recently, I read “Ten Ways to Marry the Wrong Person” and we fit almost all of them. So, the question of why he left is easy to answer.
I just can’t figure out why he stayed with me for eight months after he started sleeping with someone else. I can’t figure out how he looked me in the eye and lied to me hundreds of times. How he kept having sex with me. How he listened to my pleas for help with our son, for him to be home more because I was exhausted and burned out and needed him, and then said he had to go into work when he was actually with this woman, or said he’d fallen asleep after his club closed when he was trying to do paperwork.
I have tried over and over to tell myself that I don’t need to know, that I may never understand. And I just haven’t been able to get past it. I was packing up photos of us, cards we gave to each other for anniversaries, birthdays, postcards he sent while he was touring with a band. I wasn’t upset. I’ve loaded those memories of us into a box so that when he’s old enough our son can see how much his parents loved each other. I was fine looking at all that stuff.
It’s the damn girlfriend. And she doesn’t seem to be going away. He loves her. Which means that at some point, my son is going to be around her. And that either opens up a bottomless well of grief in me or makes me homicidal. This woman who had so little respect for my marriage. This woman who disparagingly referred to my ex being with our son as “daddy duty.” This woman who had known me for years and worked me with while I was pregnant. How can I make peace with her ever being around my child?
And my ex is doing things for her that I’d asked him to do for years. If I weren’t seeing him for child hand-offs, seeing the new wardrobe that actually fits and doesn’t consist of rock band t-shirts, seeing what he’s giving up or taking on, maybe it wouldn’t be so painful. As it is though, I assume it all has to do with her. It’s not a fair assumption probably.
When I can’t sleep at night, it’s not because I’m running memories of our first fifteen years together through my head. I am revisiting last fall. I don’t want to live there any more. The ridiculous thing is that if we had stayed together, I would have forgiven the affair already. The night he told me about it, I responded that the affair was a symptom of a much larger problem. And we did have much larger problems.
But the affair is actually a relationship, an ongoing seemingly healthy happy partnership by all reports. Is it that they have found something that he and I worked so hard for? Is it that he’s with someone and I’m alone? Is it that he trashed my respect and trust for him in order to be with this woman? I don’t know. But I have to find some way of accepting it and letting it go–whether they’re together another ten days or another ten years. I don’t want to give this woman any more of my energy. And I don’t know how to stop.
How have you dealt with people who have hurt or wronged you? How do you deal with them being around your child?
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Comments (24)
Other than the belief that what goes around will eventually come back around (a relationship built on infidelity has in my opinion less than 0% chance of going the distance) - I think you deal with it the best by being honest with yourself. And it really seems like you're doing that. You have to go through it, you have to get through the transition to make it to the other side. I hope that the pain will stop hurting so much soon.
As for having someone else around my child? I would be truly unhappy about it. Sick to my stomach, disgusted, and probably throwing-up. But I think your baby needs to be protected from your feelings about that. You can't share your pain with your son, it'll poison him too. I can't see there being any point by point direction on how to deal with this in a healthy way. I'm sorry you have to trudge through so much. Maybe letting it out here, with other Moms who sympathize (or some who can empathize) can be cathartic for you. I hope you can find a moment of peace, where you can let your shoulders down and breathe deeply.
I feel for you, so much. My situation is different (as all situations are), but when my husband told me how "cute" it was watching his mistress change our son's diaper for the first time it took all my willpower not to drive over and murder them both. While we're back together and I'm battling all the hurt I still have over the situation, had he actually pursued a relationship with her I would NOT have wanted her around my baby. What hurt me more than his disloyalty (which, like you, I chalked up to bigger problems) was that this [insert profanity here] was happily chasing after a married man. A married man who had a 3 month old son, and whose wife was pregnant with their second.
Unfortunately the other women in these stories don't see much beyond the excitement of their new relationship, aside from probably seeing the wives as obstacles. Think back to when you were first falling in love--it's intoxicating, it's hard to think about much else! They more often then not don't realize how their actions are affecting wives, let alone the innocent children that have their entire futures changed because of these women's actions. And if they are aware and continue anyway that's not the type of person & morality I want in my child's life.
I'm sorry that all that happened. My fiancé is seen as a bad man because he's legally married, but with me. He's seen as a cheater when people find out he's married. They were separated long before I ever even met him. He tried to work it out, for their daughter, but she tossed him to the curb. Now I'm seen as the 'other woman' by a lot of people. I know it's not the same, but she let her daughter around me, and has been nothing but kind to me. It's a very strange feeling e-mailing your fiancé's wife concerning their divorce. I know that I would have never been with him had their marriage had a fighting chance. I find it pathetic that some men and women can do that. I watched my step-father repeatedly back stab my mother with her 'friends'. I know that it's probably hard to hear, but you can do better if he can lie to you for months like that. At least you have your son, and his love. <3
@Clumsy_Alice@xanga - Sorry but I think that is also infidelity. You can have enough self control to end the marriage officially before getting with someone else. Can't describe it romantically enough or put a pretty enough spin on it for me. It is cheating.
"And my ex is doing things for her that I’d asked him to do for years." For me, this statement brings one issue to the front. It's impossible to look at the new relationship and not wonder why he's willing to do these things for her when he wouldn't for you. Makes you feel unloved or unworthy somehow even if that isn't at all what it means. I know it's not the same but I get this feeling with my dad all the time. He's slowly turning his life around in terms of drinking and other behaviors. He wouldn't do it for my mom, he wouldn't do it for my sister or myself, he wouldn't do it for his grandsons, but he'll do it for this woman he's now married. And he did it only months after he met her online like she's somehow magically or better or something. (can you read the bitterness there) It feels almost like I wasn't good enough to make him change. Like I am an unfit daughter or something and it makes me incredibly angry when I allow myself to sink into those thoughts.
In my situation, I resent my dad's wife for being there for my grandmother even just to buy groceries. I resent her for cleaning up my dad's house. I resent her for wanting to do things for my kids and treating them like "her" grandchildren (like I should be denying my kids the chance to have someone do something nice for them). I know it sounds ridiculous but for me, my dad's wife it like "the other woman" and I have a hard time allow him to just be happy. I have a very, very hard time allowing myself to heal from the years of hurt and dissappointment to allow him his happiness without messing up mine. I dunno - it's almost as if I had grown so used to the messed up relationship that I can't let a new one form.
I don't even know if this makes any sense. The best I can say is that if this woman is no harm to your child, if she isn't throwing your parenting rules in your face and telling you they are wrong or flawed, if she manages to not show jealousy over your ex's time with your child in front of your kiddo, then you may just have to just pretend it's all niceness and flowers. It's always going to hurt a little - if not your heart, then perhaps your pride - but any obvious reluctance on your part is going to rub off on your child. You don't want to be the reason your child thinks badly of his daddy. Your pain will dull over time and if the world is fair at all, you will also be able to find that adult person you would give everything for and who is able to give the world to you and your son in return.
My tactic, albeit in a different situation, is to put on the happy face as long as my kids are safe and to try as hard as I can to focus on the positive things happening like my dad trying to quit drinking, his clean house, and his ability to act like a little less of a jerk. In my case, there are good qualities of the "other woman" and I'm doing my best to allow myself to find them. I'll always be the hurt child waiting for my daddy to come to my high school graduation but that's my pain to bear, not my kids'.
Honestly, I can't imagine what you are going through. I would be completely pissed off and bitter about sharing my child with another woman. I would be especially pissed if the other woman was someone my husband cheated with.
I had wrote something else but my son has since gone to bed and I deleted it. I got a chance to read what you have written. I would be livid to have my son around some one with such a lack of respect for a marriage or friendship. I would try to be mature about it, but every time I saw her I'd be shooting imagining daggers at her and she would know not to speak to me about anything ever and that she should divert her eyes when I entered the room.
I TOTALLY RELATE!! Very similar to my situation except there was abuse in the relationship.
Just found this blog and it is a very good one I must admit! Sine good points mentioned here and I’ll be on the look out for your new content!
I've never been in this situation as the parent, and I hope I never am... but you never expected to be either. I have been the child in a somewhat similar situation, though. My mother was underage when I was born, and my grandparents told her she could marry my dad if he would settle down & keep a "real" job for 3 months. (He was trying to make it in a band at the time.) He couldn't let it go at the time. By the time I was 2, he had met my stepmother. No one really knows if it's correlation or causation, but he was also employed at a "real" job that he would end up keeping for 20 years, and had tamed his lifestyle. That was hard for my mom, and for me when I first learned the story. (Why would he give up his rock lifestyle for her, but not for his daughter?) Hand off time was hell for her, as well as for my mother. (Of course, my dad wasn't with her before he & my mom split up, so that adds a whole new dimension to this in your case, for which I am truly sorry.) I was 18 before my mom & stepmom could be in the same room at the same time. Now, though they're not exactly friends, they have learned to be nice to one another, especially for the sake of my kids. They were both there to coach me through labor (my poor husband was no good for that job) with both of my kids, they are cordial & polite at family functions.
I think time is the only way to begin to heal these kinds of situations.
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You've clearly been through a lot and this situation doesn't seem to be a short lived one. Though you make it pretty clear in the post that the main problem right now is your ex's girlfriend staying in the picture, make sure that that's what you truly feel. I only say this because I know that if I were in your position, I'd probably make every effort to lie to myself, especially if I would have forgiven the affair.
Best of luck. You sound like a really strong woman :)
I completely understand where you are coming from..i know it hurts and that hurt can't be taken away from you. But you can grow stronger and your wiser and you know what it feels like to be at your lowest. This woman is home wrecker she will always be..nothing is as good as it seems trust me. They started there relationship deceiving that will always stick with them. I'm sorry to say but what comes around goes around not that i wish anybody bad..but you gotta face the music sometime. As for your child..i felt the same way when my ex had my daughter with her and her kids. But she nor him were worth any of my time or energy..they hurt me once and i was not gonna give them the opportunity to take away myself esteem or my self power. That's his dad and unfourtnely he's gonna have to be around her to be with is father. it will get easier.
I am so, so sorry that you are going through this, and I ultimately wish you the best. If he loves her he will be around her. If he doesn't want to be a good father, then don't make him be. What I suggest you do is get on with your life. Move out and take your beautiful son with you. Find a man that wants to treat you right and be in your son's life. Find someone who wants to be that sweet baby boy's father. While yes, this isn't as easily done as said. You are a STRONG woman. You can and will make it happen if you want to. This is YOUR life. No one elses. Take charge. Excuse my language. But FUCK him and the whore. Live for you and your son and don't waste any more time or thought on those useless fools.
So I realize this is a ridiculously hard situation, but it seems that most of your grief at this point boils down to jealousy.
You admit that you realize your relationship with your husband wasn't working, and you worked with this woman in the past and respected her, so of course that feels like a betrayal, but you don't really list any reason for not wanting her to be around your child. Clearly you don't feel like she's a danger to your child in any way. I don't think you are actually concerned about anything bad happening to your child as a result of this woman being around.
What's upsetting you SEEMS to be the fact that your ex and this woman may have a healthier relationship that you were never able to build with him. That's completely understandable - but my best advice is for you to move on. Granted I've felt completely betrayed by people and had horrible relationships with people, but I know that whenever I let myself make myself sick with anger over whatever they did to me, it just spirals more and more out of control.I think you want to feel better. So try to focus on something more positive. Good luck.
it has been a hateful process for me. not that he has cheated and left me but the whole marriage was just running slowly down the toilet from day one. i knew we would have got divorced the moment we got married. [[ really a long story ]]
if he had a girlfriend, i would have hated her to this day. because the hurt is so much for me to live with, i want to put it on someone else.
but like you said, wasting your time and energy on someone else is not worth it. so i douno how it would have been like.
It's such a tough place and one of the toughest things a person can do is to suck up their feelings for the better welfare of their child. It's such a sick thing your husband has done, to cheat, to put you in the position you're in. Your child is YOUR child and it's natural to want him to yourself, ESPECIALLY away from your ex's mistress.
I say you're handling it quite well, thinking it out clearly and I applaud you for that. I'm sorry it has to be that way. Only time can make it better. I fully believe in karma and I'm sure he'll get his. Although that may not do too much for you right now, I feel life has a funny way of working itself out.
You're strong and wonderful, best of luck with it all.
Your story sounds A LOT like mine...so I know you're hurting. I too put on the brave face for my kids and keep any negative feelings for the mistress to myself when my boys are around. BUT, I am struggling with having her be the step-mom which my mistress is soon going to be. Ten years my junior, never married and unable to bear children, this home-wrecker will be a full-time, permanant fixture in my boys' lives. I just can't accept it. The divorce is bad enough. The lies, 13 months of being dragged along while he cheated and after he told me he didn't want me anymore, the betrayal, being made the fool, the verbal abuse, everything, is hard to overcome. Adding the fact that the mistress will soon be the step? It has been unbearable. She posts my kids pictures all over her Facebook. Uses my kids as her profile picture even and sees absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's a constant salt-in-the-wound situation for me. I feel your pain.
What i am working on and struggling to be successful at is praying that God carries my burden. I can't heal alone. It's out of my control. Intellectually, I get it. I know when I need to just move on and make happy. I've heard all the cliches and politely listened to well-intentioned advice. It really doesn't help in the long run because until I change my attitude and surrender the pain to a higher power, I am dead in the sand.
So, my advice? Talk to God. Only he can heal us. This horrible stuff is our lot but we don't have to stop living because of it. We are beautiful women who obviously deserved better men than we chose.
I am in this situation as well, exactly. My ex cheated on me with a girl who knew about us, met us, knew he wasn't available. My son is 3, his father and I have been apart for just over 10 months. His girlfriend goes out of her way to try to hurt me, publicly. My ex, went behind my back, and introduced our child to this person who has no respect for me or my son. I don't know what you or I can do. The mama bear in me wants to protect my son, from this person who clearly has no respect for me, whom I could never be around, and who so desperately wants to hurt me as much as she can. There seem to be no limits to how far this person will go to want to hurt me, and I don't trust her being around my son, I just don't trust her motives. I am not at all jealous that her and my ex are still dating, they have a relationship based on lies and cheating and are staying together because they think it hurts me. My ex sees our son so rarely, that his time with him, should be about him, not another person. A person who does not respect a child's family is not emotionally stable enough to be around the kids. The kids just do not need to know who that person is, it's enough for them to just comprehend that their parents are no longer together, and when they get old enough to understand that their family is no longer together because of an infidelity, it will effect their feelings towards the cheating parent. To have to expose them to the mistress is just too much. As a mama, you just want to protect your kids, protect their hearts. It has nothing to do with jealousy, and everything to do with respect and love. A women who knows a man has a family and still engages in an affair does not respect that child or their mama, and is a detrimental influence on the child. They have already hurt that child, and do not need to be involved in their life in any way. A relationship based on lies and cheating is not healthier than what you had with your husband, and it is most likely that they are staying together out of shame for their actions; and to spite you. This person broke up his family because of his affair, it is not that he loves this woman more, but if ends the relationship, he knows he made the biggest mistake of his life, and his child's life, so they have to give it a go, even though it will never work. He will cheat on his girlfriend, and the cycle continues. All we can do is create the most stable environment for our kids as possible, because the other half of it will have turmoil. If he had any respect for you as your child's mother, he would not bring the mistress around his child, as if she were some kind of worthy person to be in her life or had her best interest in mind in any way. I am sorry you are going through this, I know the stress and agony it causes and there just seems to be no way to do anything without seeming jealous. Really, have the cheating lying man,and good luck with that, but stay away from my kid!
I also wanted to add that I really related to this article about "home-wrecking" in Marie Clarie, give it a read:
http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/men/man-stealing-home-wreckingMy beautiful, amazing twin sister is going through a separation along these lines as well. When she married her husband 15 years ago, we found out weeks afterwards that he had had an affair and impregnated another girl. They didn't keep the baby, and my sister stayed married to the dirtbag for a long time...(albeit it was rocky and dwindled significantly over the years). The only good part was the two beautiful children that are now 6 and 10. The kicker is that when he finally left after years of verbally abusing her and the kids....he tried match.com and plenty of fish, then finding out that no one else out there wanted him, he went running back to his whore...
So this scumbag and the mistress devastated my sister's life all those years ago, and now it's thrown back in her face day in and day out......My sister is an amazing person and a wonderful mom...she is 34 years old, and has devoted her whole life to her kids. Now she has to share them with the two people that she despises more than anything!
I think that there should be ways for women to get restraining orders against these mistresses, just for the sheer emotional turmoil it puts the mom through. And no matter how you try to cover it up and put on a happy face, kids are pretty keen and know when there is underlying tensions or sadness in their mommy's eyes.
My sister has a wonderful guy friend who supports her emotionally through all this (although I am sure it is very difficult for him). He is wonderful to the kids, and very patient. So this is NOT a jealousy thing. My sister would not take that dirt bag back in a million years...but knowing your kids are spending time with their dad (which inevitably means his mistress as well), that certainly brings back the memories of all the pain to the surface every time her very being is thought of. How could it not??? It affects me the same way, I literally want to throw up at the thought that this wenchbag gets the opportunity to be around those wonderful kids; I can only pray that they do not learn anything from that immortal b**** and am desperately trying to find some way to minimize the amount of time they have to be around her. It physically pains me!!!
I really think dirtbag dad is jealous that my sister has moved on and is not devastated by not being with him. He continually texts her that she is a bad mom, was a bad wife, and recently said he wished she'd just die!!! I admit I send him some pretty nasty texts, because I want to stand up for my sister (who he constantly belittles, degrades, insults and it hurts her)....
Any advice....and please not the polite "just move on, suck it up" stuff, because I don't think, honestly, that this is going to get any easier to swallow?! Is there no way to keep your kids from being half-raised by a whore bag, immoral mistress?????????
I am so sorry that you have to go thought this. I am going
through the exact same thing. My ex and his mistress married last summer. It
hurt so much! I have a son and a daughter. The affair started while pregnant
with my daughter. I almost lost her due to the pain; stress and suffering my ex
and
his mistress caused me. I had to be in bed rest for the last month of
my pregnancy. Now it pains me to see that she is trying to win my
children over and act like she cares when back then she could give a S#(% about
my unborn child and my 1 year old son. There is no word to describe my feelings
toward her. HATE is not even a strong enough word! But still, because I love my
children more than anything else in this world, I keep this hate for myself and
try to take the higher road when she is around or when my children are staying
with them. I truly believe that what goes around comes around. One day my
children will know the truth about her and they will make their own opinion
about her and what she did. It continues to kill me to know that they like her
but I have to think about them and not me. My children are now 6 and 3 years
old and it still hurt every time they go to their dad's house or I see them at
school's events. I found out that if I act like she does not exist, it helps
me. If she is there, I do not even look at her, I do not acknowledge her
presence, I do not talk to her. If she talks to me I do not respond unless it
is in regards to my children's health or welfare (It pisses my Ex to no end!!!). My ex wants me to be friend
with her...My response to him was NEVER. I make incredible efforts to tolerate her presence and this
is as far as I am willing to go. I hope, like you, that these feelings I have towards her, him
and them as a tandem, will eventually go away...but is has been 3 years now and I do not
feel much better.
I
went to counseling and it did help. It was my counselor's advice to put
a mental wall between her and I. It stated that my hate, anger and pain
was to big to try to accept her and accept the situation right now and
that it would be best that I ignore her totally until I am strong enough
to deal with her and what they did to me and my children. My counselor
told me that it could take many
years to get over such deep pain,
betrayal and disrespect. Stay strong and hope that it will get better is
the only thing I can do for the sake of my children.
STAY STRONG.
@mjduvall - My exhusband married his mistress today at 5pm. Although we have been divorced for 9 years, I conceived our youngest daughter 3 years ago. His relationship with her was off and on for years. Of course during my pregnancy, his inconsistent relationship continued .And, at the time I didn't know he was dating anyone. I was so upset I almost lost my child. I had to be put on bedrest the last month of my pregnancy. And he told me she didn't want him to come to the hospital when I had my daughter. We have a teenage daughter as well. Thank God common sense kicked in and he showed up for the birth. Even after the birth of my child, he still wanted to be with me. During the time they were living together he called me from their house letting me know he wanted to be with me. Obviously they had another fight. Anyway, although I know I could never go back to him because he was physically, emotionally, and verbally abusive, it still hurts knowing he married her of all people. He couldn't find someone that was not from our past. And now, what hurts worse, is now my 3 year old has to know her as her stepmom. Which means his mistress/wife will now be a part of my daughter's life. Today feels like a funeral. It is killing me. So now I live in a 2 bedroom apartment with our girls living paycheck to paycheck while they have built there 5 bedroom dream home. He also has a convertible bmw and a second car. But, he expects me to buy a car for our teenage daughter. He's selfish obviously and controlling. That's why I don't understand why I'm so upset. She, his mistress/wife, is finally getting what she wants. I know how it is to be married to him. So, I should not be upset. She will finally know how it is to be his wife. I just want the pain to go away and the harsh feelings I have for his mistress/wife. I want to move on with my life. I'm tired of the pain. But the wounds are so deep and intense right now. It's going to take time. It's nice to know I 'm not alone in this. My oldest daughter went to the wedding, but my 3 year old stayed with me. If my 3 year old was not with me today, I don't know what I would have done to myself.
My boyfriend met this lady at a night club. She has a mental illness. He told me that he loves me, he does not know what happened to him, and he felt lost without me. He does not love or want to be with this woman but for some reason he said to me he Could not leave her house. Someone told me that she had put something on him to keep him away from me. That was how i search and found Priestessifaa@yahoo.com, she did a spell that reverse the whole thing back, and my boyfriend Showed the door to escape out of her house. Our relationship is stronger than ever. He is here with me, and she moved to Palemo, Sicily. Thanks priestess.