u, it is awesome to hear from you and get an update. Sounds like things on your end are progressing. Just keep working on you! I especially love the bit about how your relationships have flourished with the changes you've made. That is what DBing is all about, becoming the best version of yourself you can. Sometimes the MR comes along for the ride, sometimes it doesn't. But as your update shows, the light at the end of the tunnel, one way or another, is real!
Great work here!
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
Update ~ I always appreciated seeing "there is life after D with kids" posts from people like Gekko, Maika, etc. so here we go.
Things are going mostly great. I had the kids for a week off from school and took them skiing and snowboarding for the first time, which they all loved. I won't be working from home much longer, but for now it's been nice picking the kids up after school and getting some extra time with them while I work a bit in the late afternoons.
On a personal level, I ran a marathon recently after 6 months of training, something I thought I would never do. I'm planning to make a kitchen table in the next couple months during some free time. Things are going great with GF (also a parent of 3). She lives about an hour away, and we both are content with how things are given the realities of parenthood. We fill our free weekends mostly heading out for adventures. What I appreciate the most is being with someone who can communicate well, and the fact we both are in it for the adventure and not adding the pressure of expectations.
I was considering buying a house this spring to give some stability for my kids but the market here is crazy and I'm not comfortable putting all my savings into a house. For now I may rent for another year and wait until I'm more settled with finances. It's going to be tight but in 4 years my spousal support obligations expire and things will be much easier.
Things with XW are unchanged. We still exchange the kids at locations with cameras, primarily at my insistence given all the false allegations during our custody case. I think it makes things rough on the kids (not seeing their parents talk) and I'm hoping things gradually thaw for their sake. The kids don't talk much about what they do with XW (although the youngest let slip that BF has moved in). They tend to tell XW everything that happens at my house, and usually every 2-3 weeks I hear a complaint about something or other. I'm happy they feel comfortable sharing with their mom. The oldest 2 are in IC, but it is hard to tell how they feel about things, especially D8 who has some strong emotional outbursts from time to time. My approach is to just be consistent and solid for them as best as I can.
From time to time we go to coparenting counseling, usually initiated by XW over some perceived major issue. I don't mind going, but her approach seems to be to try to convince the counselor of her rightness, rather than trying to work together towards a solution. Recently, he suggested we have a short conversation in front of the kids, which we did -- she started telling me about her family and I mostly nodded and said "Oh" or whatever. We text or OFW about the kids once or twice a week. We still allow each other to video chat with the kids when they are with the other parent. XW often runs her calls up to an hour, sometimes having the kids read her books. I think it's too much and encroaching on my time with them, but haven't decided how to approach it. At times I have long calls with them, but usually it's a short 5 minute check-in... I'm usually busy with something or another.
As for my feelings, I would say I'm 90% indifferent with a 10% mix of residual resentment, not about the D but for how it actually transpired and the fallout on our kids. I'm a much happier person now. I'm a much better father now. I love my time with my kids, and I love my time without them. Things aren't perfect, and I often feel like I have no clue what I'm doing with life, but mostly I'm staying in the moment and enjoying the unpredictability of life.
Great update! Love it. Your XW is a piece of work. But you are managing that well. I agree 100% with you to keep meeting publicly to do the exchanges. She has shown herself capable of false accusations, and you have to protect yourself against that. Safety and security sometimes requires inconvenience. But this could be preventing more false accusations! So kudos for sticking to that.
The coparenting counseling bugs me. I feel like this is again her way of making things difficult for you. I will say, a lot of time exes that pushed for D and followed through get upset when the the LBS post-D moves forward with a new R. If things with the GF get serious, be prepared for your exW to get even more difficult. But you are handling all of this way better than I would!
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
As for my feelings, I would say I'm 90% indifferent with a 10% mix of residual resentment, not about the D but for how it actually transpired and the fallout on our kids. I'm a much happier person now. I'm a much better father now. I love my time with my kids, and I love my time without them. Things aren't perfect, and I often feel like I have no clue what I'm doing with life, but mostly I'm staying in the moment and enjoying the unpredictability of life.
Hey U I could have wrote that word for word accept maybe a change to the percentages and I have a somewhat of a clue what I am doing lol.
Why do you think your exw is such a pain in the arse?
Glad you checked in. Always good to read an update from folks and see how sitches progress over time.
Love the skiing/boarding with the kids, as well as the ability to work from home for more time with them around school (I can relate!).
Congrats on the marathon...that's a big accomplishment.
How did you meet GF being an hour away? Good you two are able to understand where you are in life with the kids and enjoy your weekend adventures.
Best of luck parenting w/ExW. Hopefully as you say things will thaw over time and the two of you can better collaborate when it comes to the kids. How are they handling everything btw? It must be tough for them.
Originally Posted by unchien
As for my feelings, I would say I'm 90% indifferent with a 10% mix of residual resentment, not about the D but for how it actually transpired and the fallout on our kids. I'm a much happier person now. I'm a much better father now. I love my time with my kids, and I love my time without them. Things aren't perfect, and I often feel like I have no clue what I'm doing with life, but mostly I'm staying in the moment and enjoying the unpredictability of life.
This is a great summary. Love the attitude and perspective! Keep it up.
Originally Posted by SteveLW
I will say, a lot of time exes that pushed for D and followed through get upset when the the LBS post-D moves forward with a new R. If things with the GF get serious, be prepared for your exW to get even more difficult. But you are handling all of this way better than I would!
Interesting. Have others here experienced that? I'm not there yet; it'd seem like it'd be a non-issue w/ExW moving OM2 in off the bat and them living together for a year and a half now, but who knows.
Me:39 Ex-W:37 M:7 T: 9 S:6 D:3 BD/IHS/Confirm EA/PA: Feb '20 OM1 affair ends: May '20 W/OM2 & moves out: June-July '20 W files for D: Jul20 OM2 confirmed: 9/2020 Divorced: May '21
Interesting. Have others here experienced that? I'm not there yet; it'd seem like it'd be a non-issue w/ExW moving OM2 in off the bat and them living together for a year and a half now, but who knows.
Yeah I know of a story where a LBH's new GF took his daughter to get her nails done and the WW went completely off the rails. Also my BF was dating a WW psycho and her ex got a GF and she flipped $hit and ending up going back to her Exh and remarrying him. Then of course she started contacting my BF years down the road.
The coparenting counseling bugs me. I feel like this is again her way of making things difficult for you. I will say, a lot of time exes that pushed for D and followed through get upset when the the LBS post-D moves forward with a new R. If things with the GF get serious, be prepared for your exW to get even more difficult. But you are handling all of this way better than I would!
Funny you mention it. My kids have met GF and her kids a couple times now and XW threw a minor fit. First she demanded I run a background check on GF, and contacted the coparent counselor to complain about how I treated her OM in the past.
The issue with OM in the past was that, while XW was withholding the children from me for 10 days at a time, I found out she had someone hanging around the kids who had been charged with a felony. I simply asked her what that was about, and she reacted like I made false accusations and allegations and denied it was him. She mentioned almost asking for a RO because I was "harassing" him. Of course it WAS him (some minor things from 20 years ago which she could have easily explained).
For anyone who has been through a custody case in family court, there is a lot of mudslinging. At one point, my youngest D (age 5 at the time) started coming to my house asking if it was okay for her to touch her own arm, her leg, wherever. XW started bugging me for helping her wipe after going to the bathroom. Sometimes D5 would have nightmares and crawl into my bed, which XW complained about. XW said D5 had redness in certain areas. I had already seen enough false allegations, so my L updated the court pointing out that it seemed XW was trying to lay the tracks for some absolutely egregious allegations, *OR* even worse that something might be happening to D5 that I was unaware of as I didn't know about the people around my kids... well, XW acts as if I made some sort of formal accusation about OM directly, when all I was doing was preventing some bogus allegations.
Anyways, that was 2 years ago now, but OM has moved in and she still makes comments from time to time how I mistreated him. So I think she has a little vindictiveness about it.
Originally Posted by LH19
Why do you think your exw is such a pain in the arse?
The obvious gut reaction would be that this is a way to keep the relationship going.
But... I think she is just a very controlling person (or, as my IC would say, she is not "controlling" but she exhibits controlling behavior... whatever, semantics). She's always been that way. I think there is a lot of insecurity underneath it all, but I spent too much time in the past trying to figure it out and don't think about it much anymore, and at this point I'm just glad to be away from it.
Originally Posted by BL42
How did you meet GF being an hour away? Good you two are able to understand where you are in life with the kids and enjoy your weekend adventures.
OLD. Dabbled for a while, had one relationship for 2 months, took about 6 months off, then found current GF.
Originally Posted by BL42
How are they handling everything btw? It must be tough for them.
As far as mom and dad not being together, they seem completely fine. I think life is hard in other ways though. I remind myself all the time how hard it would be if I had to pack up my stuff and go between 2 houses every few days.
Sometimes they want to be with their mom when they are with me, and I think vice versa as well at times. Our oldest 2 have IC going which is great (although hard to tell if it helps). The youngest seems completely fine. And then there are some things I see going on with my kids which may be completely unrelated to the D. For instance, S10 goes to a very small school and doesn't have many friends and seems sad about it.
I agree with our coparenting counseling that not talking when we exchange the kids must affect them. I have no desire to talk to XW, but I do want my kids to be as emotionally healthy as they can be. I will probably bring up this issue at the next session. It's hard... XW claimed I was yelling at her in an exchange during our court case, which was not true. I don't trust her. I want to be in front of cameras at our exchanges, and I don't want to interact with her and have her claiming something else happened. But, I also have an iron-clad custody agreement now and at some point I probably don't need to be so guarded. If the accusations come, I have a good L.
Originally Posted by BL42
Interesting. Have others here experienced that? I'm not there yet; it'd seem like it'd be a non-issue w/ExW moving OM2 in off the bat and them living together for a year and a half now, but who knows
See above. Of COURSE it's an issue. When my GF met my kids, XW went a little bit crazy. My L (a woman) used to tell me that I should tell XW, "Oh, you two should talk, you would really like her!" and that would inflame my XW haha
And of COURSE I was not supposed to take any issue with a divorced man with no kids without a steady job moving in to the fancy house with my kids while XW was arguing I shouldn't be spending more than 20% time with them.
Logic does not apply...
Anyways... I mostly ignore XW at this point unless we are conducting the business of raising our kids. She can make her own decisions.
The coparenting counseling bugs me. I feel like this is again her way of making things difficult for you. I will say, a lot of time exes that pushed for D and followed through get upset when the the LBS post-D moves forward with a new R. If things with the GF get serious, be prepared for your exW to get even more difficult. But you are handling all of this way better than I would!
Funny you mention it. My kids have met GF and her kids a couple times now and XW threw a minor fit. First she demanded I run a background check on GF, and contacted the coparent counselor to complain about how I treated her OM in the past.
The issue with OM in the past was that, while XW was withholding the children from me for 10 days at a time, I found out she had someone hanging around the kids who had been charged with a felony. I simply asked her what that was about, and she reacted like I made false accusations and allegations and denied it was him. She mentioned almost asking for a RO because I was "harassing" him. Of course it WAS him (some minor things from 20 years ago which she could have easily explained).
For anyone who has been through a custody case in family court, there is a lot of mudslinging. At one point, my youngest D (age 5 at the time) started coming to my house asking if it was okay for her to touch her own arm, her leg, wherever. XW started bugging me for helping her wipe after going to the bathroom. Sometimes D5 would have nightmares and crawl into my bed, which XW complained about. XW said D5 had redness in certain areas. I had already seen enough false allegations, so my L updated the court pointing out that it seemed XW was trying to lay the tracks for some absolutely egregious allegations, *OR* even worse that something might be happening to D5 that I was unaware of as I didn't know about the people around my kids... well, XW acts as if I made some sort of formal accusation about OM directly, when all I was doing was preventing some bogus allegations.
Yes I've seen this several times. They always use the kids. "I don't want OW around the kids!" Wait, you left for another person, but now are going to object to me introducing someone new into the kids lives? It is crazy, but I've seen that a lot with WASs.
Good job on getting in front of the false accusations. And good job on warning other LBSs about the possibility. It is like I told another poster last week, be wary, be alert, and protect yourself.
M(53), W(54),D(19) M-23, T-25 Bomb Drop - Dec.23, 2017 Ring and Piecing since March 2018
Hey U! Sounds like you have come a long way and are doing well overall. What a journey. I smiled reading over your last couple updates and am happy to see you succeeding.
H37, W37 D4, S2 ILYBNILWY 9/19 BD 9/19 EA discovered 10/19 Currently in limbo, no D or S process initiated
Last week D6 was really upset at bedtime. We moved to our new city before she turned 2, but she was telling me I was "always mad" in our old city, and never liked my job. Then she asked if I ever loved mommy, and if so, then why did we one time go in a separate room and "mommy thought you were going to hurt her." Unbelievably inappropriate. She said her Mom told her these things.
I brought my concerns to XW about the messaging, and she called me "horrible" and "emotionally abusive". She said she never said those things to D6. We had an agreement for me to have the kids next weekend when I have family visiting, but XW said she will no longer honor that agreement now.
D8 and S10 are in IC. They are quiet and reserved about things. D8 clearly has some emotional issues going on, having outbursts from time to time but refusing to say how she's feeling, for instance.
I'm concerned about all the messaging to my kids. Even though my XW freaked out in denial, I still feel right in pointing out the behavior so hopefully she thinks twice next time she decides to put our kids in the middle or discuss inappropriate things with them. There is no other explanation for D6 saying these things to me. And XW's reaction was so strong and defensive and diversionary that it tells me what I need to know.
I'm really sad for my kids, and knowing that some level of this stuff will continue throughout our lives. I do believe that just being the best dad I can is all I can do -- I just wish my XW could let things go so our kids could be more emotionally healthy. Or that I could do something else.
Sometimes I think about talking to my kids about some things, but I am very very cautious about putting them in the middle of adult topics that they don't need to be exposed to.
