SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Just need to get this out.

My extended family is pretty much all adults these days (with a few teens/young adults) - there is only one child, a little girl a few months younger than OC.

To be completely blunt - I avoid being around her because she is a trigger. She is an awesome little kid, so cute and giggly and funny... but 99.9% of the time I spend around her, my mind drifts to my ex, and wondering what his daughter is like, and if he's having fun being a dad. I get very depressed, because I am afraid I will never get to be a mom.

I think my family is starting to pick up on me distancing myself, and I am running out of excuses to avoid family get-togethers, holidays, etc.

I am not close to my family in the sense that we ever really talked about what happened with my ex. They know we split, they know why, they know he has a daughter - that stuff has been talked about minimally. The "facts", if you will. But I never really talked to them about how I felt. About how hard it was emotionally to accept this happened. About how it really effected my outlook on life.

I really don't want to talk about those things with them. But I feel like I need to explain my behavior. It's not their fault that I feel like this. I am also afraid of being told it's been 4 years and I need to just get over it.

I just feel like I am not really handling this in a good way.

It's extra hard around the holidays because everyone is so festive and I'm just a big grump about it.

((((whalers)))) You don't owe anyone an explanation, honey. Especially if they are less than supportive of you as it is.

I'm sorry for the trigger.

((Whalers)) I agree with NIK, you don't owe anyone an apology. You are right, they probably wouldn't understand even if you told them how you felt. People who haven't been through any of this just can't understand. Hopefully they never will, because I wouldn't wish this pain on anyone! (except WH & OW, they totally need to feel this full force!)You don't have to explain and you need to do whatever is right for you to keep you in a good place.

You aren't alone. You really aren't. There are quite a few of us that feel that same way.

I am currently separated, I have a step-son (I always call him my son even though I met him when he was 8. I only call him my step son to clarify a little on posts like these). We have a pretty good relationship, but I think if I were to divorce his mother that eventually he would want nothing to do with me after awhile. I don't know though.

Anyways my wife and I had always planned to have kids, we hadn't since we were married (two years now) and we are in our mid 30s so with all of this crap we are now dealing with chances are I probably won't ever have a kid I get to raise from being really little and experiencing all the firsts. Don't get me wrong, I don't view my son as anything other than my son, I protect him, I take care of him, I try to teach him everything I can. I just never got to experience the really younger years.

Now I walk down the street and I see people with really little kids pushing them in strollers and just hanging with them and I get really sad, because I will probably never have that. If I reconcile with my wife, or if I divorce and move on into another relationship I'll probably be too old to ever experience that with one of my kids.

I even started to break down the other day while at Target. I was in the Christmas aisle looking for some special Lego (I'm still a kid at heart :) ) and I was just surrounded by parents and their kids all having fun and a grand time talking about decorations and their plans. It isn't too manly for a guy to break down in public so I got out of there pretty quickly.

It's just a rough time to be in the situation we are. I have my own apartment now that we are separated and you really wouldn't be able to tell it's even Christmas looking at my place. I have a little Lego Winter Village setup but that's it. No tree, no presents lying about. I'm just not feeling the Christmas spirit this year.

Thanks NIK and NotFixable for the validation that it's ok to feel this way.

And omgnome, so sorry you find yourself in a similar place. It really sucks.

Oh Whalers, my heart breaks for you. I totally understand what you are saying. And it is most definitely ok to feel this way.

I wish I had some healing words to comfort you. But all I can offer are hugs.

(((((Whalers11)))))