Look, I get it if many of you are triggered that a FWH got a divorce from his FBW, married and had another child with his FAP, and that he speaks well of her even after she cheated herself. But if you don’t believe me about what I say about my life, and you refuse to listen to what it is I’m actually saying, then there is no point in this conversation. I politely ask that if that is the case for you, that you stop reading and replying to this thread.
I would like to again remind you that the following are scenarios that do, in fact, happen in real life:
- A BS is a good partner/parent AND their WS betrays them
- A BS is a bad partner/parent AND their WS betrays them
- A BS is just an okay partner/parent AND their WS betrays them
Notice I did NOT make "Yeah, the WS may have betrayed their spouse, BUT the BS was a nasty piece of work" part of that list.
I have not once attempted to justify or excuse my infidelity and subsequent behavior in this thread. Again, I am not telling you these things about my XW nor my CW with the intent to justify or excuse myself or CW’s actions as an OW/WW. I am speaking the truth about my life and the people in it for the purpose of providing context for the impending situation at hand. Again, if you are unable to recognize it as such, I ask that you stop reading and replying to this thread.
ONCE MORE, the following is not justification for my infidelity or to paint myself as a victim. It is an elaboration on the circumstances before and afterwards for the purpose of providing context only. I do not need to be berated for my past decisions or have my words twisted. I live with my regrets every day. That being said…
My father was extremely abusive to myself and my mother. He would beat me, and if I cried he would beat me worse until I stopped. He did things like make me chug a gallon of water and not permit me to go to the bathroom, and then when I urinated in my pants, he beat me for it. He made every effort to instill in me that emotions other than anger were for women, and he’d be damned if he raised a weak son. My mother couldn’t protect me because he would beat her, and she didn’t have the means to leave him for a long time. She sank into depression, and for much of my childhood, was checked out of life, and I was deprived of her attention and affection. That is what I had for a model of parenting and romantic love between spouses.
Looking back, my relationship to XW was rocky from the start. At one point, I was working three jobs while in college in order to make ends meet, while XW was unemployed, partying multiple times a week, and buying drinks for all her friends. CW once asked me why I proposed to her, and all I could answer was that we had been dating for a couple years and it just seemed like that’s what people do. Everything had to be XW’s way, and there were nasty fights if I protested, some of which resulted in having objects thrown at me. This reinforced to me that my happiness didn’t matter and conflict was best avoided, so I started keeping my mouth shut, no matter how much resentment it built. She would make major decisions on her own without discussing them with me, like going to law school when we were already struggling financially, getting off her birth control without telling me when she wanted to conceive our children, and raising our children with her religion instead of mine or allowing them to choose for themselves.
We rarely had sex, and when we did, it was me initiating it and her rolling her eyes and saying things like "Lets get this over with." Instant mood killer. She did her best to make me feel undesirable and like a pervert for wanting vanilla sex with her. I tried communicating with her to make it a better experience for her, but she refused to discuss it. I tried changing my body be more attractive for her, and she just told me I looked gross. I asked her to give me some sort of sign that she might be open to sex so I wouldn’t be "pestering her" for it and getting rejected or demeaned. That resulted in no sex whatsoever. She would say things like, "If you just did the dishes, maybe I would feel less stressed out and want sex…" So I ended up working long hours and doing almost all of the work around the house, and that did not improve our sex life either. Naturally, the more time I spent making money and doing chores, the less time I spent caring for our daughters, which XW complained about as well.
I asked her to go to MC multiple times with me to work on all these issues. We would go to a couple sessions and then quit because "the counselor made her feel like the villain" or "that one just wanted to talk about your childhood," after one asked me about it and marveled that I hadn’t killed myself or gone to jail yet. As I mentioned in another post, towards the end of our marriage, I was feeling suicidal, numb, angry all the time… I wasn’t exactly an alcoholic, but I did often binge drink. I know these things affected my ability to be a good partner to her, and a good parent to our children, and that couldn’t have been easy to live with. We were completely dysfunctional.
We also never touched each other affectionately, and hardly ever verbally expressed love for one another. That just wasn’t done in our FOOs. She said she only felt loved when I bought her things, which just made the relationship feel transactional. CW thought I didn’t even like her very much when we first started dating, because I didn’t tell her, touch her affectionately, or initiate sex. She basically had to re-train me that these things were okay and actively desired by her, and that she felt embarrassed by expensive gifts. She finds new and creative ways to compliment me daily, and our sex life is good, even after her A. She also got really frustrated by my conflict avoidance. While there are still some lingering vestiges of that, she actively encourages me to express my feelings even when we disagree because they matter to her, and we feel that I have made much improvement in this regard. I have gotten to the point where I can cry in front of her. She isn’t disgusted or put off by it. She just comforts me and tells me she’s proud of me for being vulnerable.
She isn’t perfect, by any means. Besides her infidelity, she did ask me to choose our relationship over my children’s feelings many times during the first few years after the divorce. I deeply regret not putting them first, and again, this doesn’t excuse it at all. I was just so afraid of losing her and going back to the way I felt before that I chose incorrectly. We rushed introductions to my daughters and moving in together, forcing our relationship on them. My eldest was understandably unhappy, and tensions were high. CW tried unsuccessfully to improve their relationship, remaining polite to them, trying to give them what space our house would allow, and doing things like getting them thoughtful Christmas presents and making them elaborate birthday cakes, even when she couldn’t claim credit for fear of my eldest rejecting them. She sincerely apologized to them several times for doing things the wrong way. Of course that didn’t change the fact that she was my AP and my eldest didn’t want a stepmother. It didn’t help that XW was whispering things like— and I quote— "Daddy cares more about his dick than you" in their ears and trying everything she could to alienate them from me. That was what made me resolved never to speak badly of their mother in front of them, and I haven’t, thought it has been very difficult at times. They fight often. I got my eldest, and eventually D, into therapy for support, though the latter took a lot longer because XW told her therapy "doesn’t work."
At one point CW told me that she wanted a child, and that if it wasn’t in the cards for us, she would have to move on soon. I knew our family situation was in no condition to bring another child into the world, but I gave in. Three years of trying went by without success. Then when Covid lockdowns happened and we were all cooped up in the house together, it finally occurred to CW that maybe having a baby wasn’t a good idea right then, and she stopped seeking treatment for infertility. A couple months later, however, she unexpectedly conceived anyway. I couldn’t bring myself to tell my daughters. CW got halfway through the pregnancy before they found out about it, and it was only by accidentally discovering an ultrasound picture. My eldest was distraught. My poor middle child (D) kept her feelings to herself and tried to console her sister, often serving as a middle man between me and her.
When XW found out, she convinced them that with a new baby, I would have zero time and attention for them, that they would lose sleep from the baby’s crying at night, and that CW would be nasty to them because they weren’t her biological children and would just be in the way. So about a month before their sister was due, they suddenly packed up their things and went to stay with their mother full time, despite the 50/50 custody agreement. I was blindsided and devastated, but I didn’t feel that I could force them to stay if they didn’t want to be there. I arranged to spend as much time with them outside of our home as my schedule would allow, but obviously that was limited. CW was left alone to care for the baby a lot, but she was understanding and good natured about it. She was just happy to have her.
I thought that they would come back to live with us someday, especially when XW started seriously dating her fiancé and force-integrating their families similarly to the way I had, but they didn’t. Eventually my eldest graduated and moved far away for school, CW struggled to keep up with our large home with a toddler to look after, and D wasn’t coming to visit except for during the holidays anyway, so we moved to a smaller house. The market wasn’t great and the only suitable one we found was about 40 minutes away from D’s school. She has her own friends—with whom she mostly drinks, at the literal facilitation of XW— and spends a lot of time with her similarly-aged STB step siblings, with whom she also drinks. Our house is dry, and I won’t buy her alcohol. So I haven’t been seeing her very often, though not for lack of trying. She does love her younger sister/my youngest daughter and makes effort to spend time with her. She likes to show her off to her friends. I’m not certain, but it may be that she wants CW at her play so that she can wrangle her younger sister if she struggles to sit through it, that way she can still come but won’t require me to be distracted from her performance. I’m not going to ask about it. Whatever reason she has is valid.
As for CW and my eldest’s relationship… It got a lot better after CW declined to visit her with me at her university . I wanted her to come, but my eldest didn’t, and an argument ensued. CW helped me to see that after being forced into having not one, but two step parents, her faraway campus most likely felt like her sanctuary away from it all, where she could make her own decisions and be left alone if desired. She said she also probably just wanted to spend one-on-one time with me, and that CW didn’t want to interfere. I think hearing about that, in combination with therapy and time, helped her to see that CW does care about her, and that she isn’t her enemy. They actually have a lot in common and enjoy talking to one another.
That’s all the more I’ll say about it, and probably the last time I’ll respond here. I’m not interested in being attacked and accused. Thank you to those who have helped me come up with a plan to navigate the upcoming meeting as fairly to all parties as possible in light of the mess I put us in. The rest of you… Good luck on your journeys.
[This message edited by darkdustythoughts at 4:13 PM, Monday, February 2nd]
