What should college dc be told about our divorce? DH is cheating and leaving to pursue a relationship with his mistress.

[Anonymous]

OP I was like you at the demise of my marriage. Practical and unemotional and logical, just trying to figure out what the best path forward was while trying to minimize the collateral damage to my son as much as I could. I have never uttered a negative word about his father (well at least not while he was around) and I never lost control during the separation and divorce. I encouraged a strong relationship with his father and new wife and have always offered to take the back seat for him to spend time with them.

This approach has paid dividends in ways I never imagined. I am extremely close to my son who is now an adult. During college I visited as much as he’d allow me to. His dad started family 2.0 and his focus was with the new family. So I went for parents weekends and mom’s weekends and fraternity parents weekends and football games and anything and everything I was invited to. I always offered for him to invite his dad first and if he couldn’t make it I’d go. His dad could never make it.

The divorce actually strengthened my relationship with my son. As much as it sucked holding everything in I think it helped my son by not having to deal with a crazy woman who had nothing but bad things to say about his dad. As much of an idiot as his dad became it’s still his dad and he still loves him very much. And I encourage that love and relationship all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I was like you at the demise of my marriage. Practical and unemotional and logical, just trying to figure out what the best path forward was while trying to minimize the collateral damage to my son as much as I could. I have never uttered a negative word about his father (well at least not while he was around) and I never lost control during the separation and divorce. I encouraged a strong relationship with his father and new wife and have always offered to take the back seat for him to spend time with them.

This approach has paid dividends in ways I never imagined. I am extremely close to my son who is now an adult. During college I visited as much as he’d allow me to. His dad started family 2.0 and his focus was with the new family. So I went for parents weekends and mom’s weekends and fraternity parents weekends and football games and anything and everything I was invited to. I always offered for him to invite his dad first and if he couldn’t make it I’d go. His dad could never make it.

The divorce actually strengthened my relationship with my son. As much as it sucked holding everything in I think it helped my son by not having to deal with a crazy woman who had nothing but bad things to say about his dad. As much of an idiot as his dad became it’s still his dad and he still loves him very much. And I encourage that love and relationship all the time.

Thanks for this. I hope you came through it all better and stronger. I've always been mindful that raising an only child necessitated being extra mindful not to trash talk the other parent no matter how pissed I was. I grew up with lots of siblings, as did my STBX. I just knew dc did not have the sibling support system and I always tried to respect and encourage dc's separate relationship with his dad outside the family unit. The opposite is not as true but whatever. I refuse to put our kid anywhere close to the middle of this mess.

[Anonymous]

I was the kid in this scenario. Just tell dc the truth. And don’t rely on your spouse to do that. One of my worse memories was my dad like trying to explain that their sex life was bad. No child adult or otherwise wants to hear jack shit about their parents’ sex lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was the kid in this scenario. Just tell dc the truth. And don’t rely on your spouse to do that. One of my worse memories was my dad like trying to explain that their sex life was bad. No child adult or otherwise wants to hear jack shit about their parents’ sex lives.

I don't know if you read that DH took it upon himself to inform dc right away. We didn't have a discussion about it. He just did it. DC said dh told him that he had not been happy for a very long time. I asked if dh told him anything else, which he did not other than "we love you and we're here for you" so I told dc that dh has a girlfriend and left it at that. I'm so sorry your dad brought up sex with you. That's so so bad. I'm not going to be that parent. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was the kid in this scenario. Just tell dc the truth. And don’t rely on your spouse to do that. One of my worse memories was my dad like trying to explain that their sex life was bad. No child adult or otherwise wants to hear jack shit about their parents’ sex lives.

I don't know if you read that DH took it upon himself to inform dc right away. We didn't have a discussion about it. He just did it. DC said dh told him that he had not been happy for a very long time. I asked if dh told him anything else, which he did not other than "we love you and we're here for you" so I told dc that dh has a girlfriend and left it at that. I'm so sorry your dad brought up sex with you. That's so so bad. I'm not going to be that parent. Ugh.

I was in your DH’s position a year ago. I had felt dead for years, getting accolades all the time at work but my SAHM DW criticizing my efforts at home. Finally I met someone better and told her that I was divorcing her.

But she couldn’t look at all she did to ruin our marriage. We told the kids we were divorcing and cried and whatever. But once she saw pictures my girlfriend and I took when she was my friend and I took her to Europe for a conference, she went off the deep end. So I had to introduce my kids to my girlfriend so they could see she’s really cool and at her age understands my kids a lot better than my ex.

Now my ex refuses to build and maintain a friendship with us. It’s so selfish and immature. You’re supposed to make things as smooth as possible for the kids’ sake, but yet again my ex’s selfishness rules.

[Anonymous]

My parents divorced while I was in college. I think you're handling it fine. The toughest thing is the "how do we tell the kids" which he already took care of. Your kid isn't naive, he will be able to put 2 and 2 together and would have the second he found out dad had a girlfriend with or without you telling him. The best thing you can do is keep doing what you're doing now. Don't say anything nasty about his dad, don't try to come between them, etc. Just listen and be there for him. It's a betrayal for your son too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was the kid in this scenario. Just tell dc the truth. And don’t rely on your spouse to do that. One of my worse memories was my dad like trying to explain that their sex life was bad. No child adult or otherwise wants to hear jack shit about their parents’ sex lives.

I don't know if you read that DH took it upon himself to inform dc right away. We didn't have a discussion about it. He just did it. DC said dh told him that he had not been happy for a very long time. I asked if dh told him anything else, which he did not other than "we love you and we're here for you" so I told dc that dh has a girlfriend and left it at that. I'm so sorry your dad brought up sex with you. That's so so bad. I'm not going to be that parent. Ugh.

I was in your DH’s position a year ago. I had felt dead for years, getting accolades all the time at work but my SAHM DW criticizing my efforts at home. Finally I met someone better and told her that I was divorcing her.

But she couldn’t look at all she did to ruin our marriage. We told the kids we were divorcing and cried and whatever. But once she saw pictures my girlfriend and I took when she was my friend and I took her to Europe for a conference, she went off the deep end. So I had to introduce my kids to my girlfriend so they could see she’s really cool and at her age understands my kids a lot better than my ex.

Now my ex refuses to build and maintain a friendship with us. It’s so selfish and immature. You’re supposed to make things as smooth as possible for the kids’ sake, but yet again my ex’s selfishness rules.

Lol. I'm sure that's what your kids got out of being introduced to your much younger mistress -- that she was super cool and understood them better than their mother.

[Anonymous]

This happened to me!

It was horrible and traumatic and messed me up for years.

OP, it’s not your fault. And of course DH will be a coward. But the only advice I have is that the only way out of it is through it. Don’t go into the gory details (let DH do that). It’s a messed up situation but it’s not your fault and DC will eventually get that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was the kid in this scenario. Just tell dc the truth. And don’t rely on your spouse to do that. One of my worse memories was my dad like trying to explain that their sex life was bad. No child adult or otherwise wants to hear jack shit about their parents’ sex lives.

I don't know if you read that DH took it upon himself to inform dc right away. We didn't have a discussion about it. He just did it. DC said dh told him that he had not been happy for a very long time. I asked if dh told him anything else, which he did not other than "we love you and we're here for you" so I told dc that dh has a girlfriend and left it at that. I'm so sorry your dad brought up sex with you. That's so so bad. I'm not going to be that parent. Ugh.

I was in your DH’s position a year ago. I had felt dead for years, getting accolades all the time at work but my SAHM DW criticizing my efforts at home. Finally I met someone better and told her that I was divorcing her.

But she couldn’t look at all she did to ruin our marriage. We told the kids we were divorcing and cried and whatever. But once she saw pictures my girlfriend and I took when she was my friend and I took her to Europe for a conference, she went off the deep end. So I had to introduce my kids to my girlfriend so they could see she’s really cool and at her age understands my kids a lot better than my ex.

Now my ex refuses to build and maintain a friendship with us. It’s so selfish and immature. You’re supposed to make things as smooth as possible for the kids’ sake, but yet again my ex’s selfishness rules.

You’re upset your ex-wife doesn’t want to be besties with your AP?

[Anonymous]

I was in your DH’s position a year ago. I had felt dead for years, getting accolades all the time at work but my SAHM DW criticizing my efforts at home. Finally I met someone better and told her that I was divorcing her.

But she couldn’t look at all she did to ruin our marriage. We told the kids we were divorcing and cried and whatever. But once she saw pictures my girlfriend and I took when she was my friend and I took her to Europe for a conference, she went off the deep end. So I had to introduce my kids to my girlfriend so they could see she’s really cool and at her age understands my kids a lot better than my ex.

Now my ex refuses to build and maintain a friendship with us. It’s so selfish and immature. You’re supposed to make things as

Please please let this be satire because it is almost impossible to believe that anyone could be this self-absorbed and lack self-awareness to this extent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was the kid in this scenario. Just tell dc the truth. And don’t rely on your spouse to do that. One of my worse memories was my dad like trying to explain that their sex life was bad. No child adult or otherwise wants to hear jack shit about their parents’ sex lives.

I don't know if you read that DH took it upon himself to inform dc right away. We didn't have a discussion about it. He just did it. DC said dh told him that he had not been happy for a very long time. I asked if dh told him anything else, which he did not other than "we love you and we're here for you" so I told dc that dh has a girlfriend and left it at that. I'm so sorry your dad brought up sex with you. That's so so bad. I'm not going to be that parent. Ugh.

I was in your DH’s position a year ago. I had felt dead for years, getting accolades all the time at work but my SAHM DW criticizing my efforts at home. Finally I met someone better and told her that I was divorcing her.

But she couldn’t look at all she did to ruin our marriage. We told the kids we were divorcing and cried and whatever. But once she saw pictures my girlfriend and I took when she was my friend and I took her to Europe for a conference, she went off the deep end. So I had to introduce my kids to my girlfriend so they could see she’s really cool and at her age understands my kids a lot better than my ex.

Now my ex refuses to build and maintain a friendship with us. It’s so selfish and immature. You’re supposed to make things as smooth as possible for the kids’ sake, but yet again my ex’s selfishness rules.

Your wife was critical so you deepened a cool work friendship involving fun exotic travel. Then got a divorce.

Sorry but living with someone for decades and putting up with their idiosyncrasies and raising kids is never going to be as cool and fun as a household-responsibility-free vacationing work friendship.

No wonder your ex-wife is so mad. All the energy you put into your fun relationship could have been directed towards your marriage.

It's particularly insensitive to say your new gf is better with your kids than their mother.

[Anonymous]

PP. Are you that guy that is dating the hot younger lab researcher who dumped his wife because she was sad about a parental death for too long? You sound like that guy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something like this happened when my parents split and I was the college student. For a long time my mother was incandescent with rage and really hard to be around. I didn’t know about the affair until she moved in with my dad. In the interim he was much easier to be around. Therapy is a good idea.

You had absolutely no sympathy for your mom, huh?

Kids (and most people) care about how they are treated. No one wants to be around someone who is raging for long. Parents make big exceptions for their kids, but kids aren’t supposed to have to parents their parents. They aren’t supposed to be doing heavy emotional lifting to manage their parents. I didn’t assume PP lacked sympathy, just that it was difficult to be raged at and around.

As much as I am furious right now, I would never rage/trauma dump on my kid. This is not their burden But they also deserve some version of the truth which is that this was not a mutual decision. They can put two and two together and as I said earlier, it's going to be obvious pretty quickly that Dad has moved on with someone else. I want to protect my kid but this is going to rock their world. But everything we would have done as a family over this break is now not happening. Most of their close HS friends will not be around over Thanksgiving. We've always had some Thanksgiving weekend family rituals that we have done for years that they always look forward to. I just need to figure when and how this news should be presented. It seems like the two best shitty options are 1. I tell them ahead of time what's going on and let them decide if they want to fly back for break or 2. sit down as a family when they get home, let dh break the news with me present so he doesn't get away with not being truthful that this was a unilateral decision. It's so fresh and new and I'm trying to manage two things right now - processing it myself and helping our kid process it. DH has been emotionally absent for years. He is blaming his decision on me - as I said to him the other day "you can point all the fingers you want at me, and I can certainly point plenty of fingers at myself, but you are not owning a single part of this in any way." Ugh. FML.

I would say to sit down as a family when they get home but allow them the space to process the information - they may have questions all at once, or need to think about it for a little, they may want to be social with other people or they may not want to feel like they have to put on a happy face for others. In my opinion the key is that they are able to have some control within an overall situation where they have little control. They also should feel like they have a home to return to and whatever the relationship between the parents they aren’t put in the middle and can still have a relationship with both parents.

As for the STBX pointing fingers at you regarding the decision to end the relationship, my grandma would use that saying “when you point one finger, there are three fingers pointing back to you." You can take on your own stuff but don’t take on his inability to be accountable for his own actions. Sorry you are going through this and hope you have the support you need between friends, family and therapist (to help process feelings).

[Anonymous]

I was in your DH’s position a year ago. I had felt dead for years, getting accolades all the time at work but my SAHM DW criticizing my efforts at home. Finally I met someone better and told her that I was divorcing her.

But she couldn’t look at all she did to ruin our marriage. We told the kids we were divorcing and cried and whatever. But once she saw pictures my girlfriend and I took when she was my friend and I took her to Europe for a conference, she went off the deep end. So I had to introduce my kids to my girlfriend so they could see she’s really cool and at her age understands my kids a lot better than my ex.

Now my ex refuses to build and maintain a friendship with us. It’s so selfish and immature. You’re supposed to make things as smooth as possible for the kids’ sake, but yet again my ex’s selfishness rules.

MD here. You have a personality disorder.

You stepped out of your marriage, and blamed your wife's criticisms at home for it, so you could start a relationship with a subordinate at work. You casually label her as "better" than your child's mother.

You blame having to introduce your kids to your AP because your wife saw pictures of your child-free European trip.

You assign the entire series of events, including the rocky path forward, to your ex's selfishness.

You're lurking on a parenting board and unironically piping up with your story. You're likely a troll (I always wonder what people like that get out of these made-up posts). If not, you are truly a cautionary tale of a man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I was in your DH’s position a year ago. I had felt dead for years, getting accolades all the time at work but my SAHM DW criticizing my efforts at home. Finally I met someone better and told her that I was divorcing her.

But she couldn’t look at all she did to ruin our marriage. We told the kids we were divorcing and cried and whatever. But once she saw pictures my girlfriend and I took when she was my friend and I took her to Europe for a conference, she went off the deep end. So I had to introduce my kids to my girlfriend so they could see she’s really cool and at her age understands my kids a lot better than my ex.

Now my ex refuses to build and maintain a friendship with us. It’s so selfish and immature. You’re supposed to make things as smooth as possible for the kids’ sake, but yet again my ex’s selfishness rules.

MD here. You have a personality disorder.

You stepped out of your marriage, and blamed your wife's criticisms at home for it, so you could start a relationship with a subordinate at work. You casually label her as "better" than your child's mother.

You blame having to introduce your kids to your AP because your wife saw pictures of your child-free European trip.

You assign the entire series of events, including the rocky path forward, to your ex's selfishness.

You're lurking on a parenting board and unironically piping up with your story. You're likely a troll (I always wonder what people like that get out of these made-up posts). If not, you are truly a cautionary tale of a man.

Pp, this is a repeat poster. He’s posted about this saga so often I can’t decide whether he is a very committed troll or just deeply damaged.