Oh, not nearly as heartless as what has happened to my ds and me MANY times at bedtime! I try to reason with him and it just spirals out of control..he gets more unreasonable and I get more frustrated until I'm saying, 'KNOCK IT OFF!!!'

Oh, yeah, THAT is a good way to put one's kid to sleep.

I LOVE the 'tell me in the morning.' Sometimes he tells me 'I won't remember!' To which I reply, 'if it is still important to you in the morning you WILL remember!'

SW we have a lot in common, lol! Thanks for sharing that

Been several months since I updated this. Kept taking ds to counseling and he has seemed much better. They put him on Zoloft and he is much calmer. However, in the past week he has spiraled down further into a depression and his counselor had me take him to a child psychitrist. So working through all of that and had to discuss it with XH.

He, XH is pretty upset by it. He told me yesterday that if he had known the divorce would do this to our son he would have just 'stuck it out.' I said, 'well, I divorced you remember? When you say 'stick it out' do you mean you wish you had not had sex with other women?' He said 'yes,' that is what he meant. Strange to me how his characterizations of how our marriage ended is so far from the reality. He said he was looking for happiness because he and I fought all of the time. Ok, whatever.

I told him I KNEW these type of problems were bound to come up after a divorce and that I would have NEVER divorced him if he would have just been faithful. Then he proceeded to tell me it was my fault he cheated. Ok, whatever.

At 12:47 a.m he texted me to ask how our son is doing. VERY strange for a man who practically got a court order to keep me from texting him after 10 p.m. I texted him back this morning and mentioned that the text came through in the middle of the night...he said that was when he texted it! That he couldn't sleep for worrying about our beautiful son.

He feels certain that it is MY fault that our son is in a depression. Because I won't accept OW in XH's life and be all friendly about her. XH says ds would be fine with OW if I was---that ds only dislikes her because he thinks I want him to. I said, 'You insult our son's moral compass.'

So nothing much changes with my WXH. It is still all about him and how nothing is really his fault. But he is starting to really really regret being divorced from me and ds suffering like he is.

Ds told him a few weeks back that he likes it when OW isn't there....and XH said, 'well, what will you do if I marry her?' Ds said, 'Kill myself.' I don't know how XH can continue to see her knowing it affects ds the way it does. Hopefully, it will eventually be a deal killer for XH and OW.

Waywards may love their kids
but not as much
as they love themselves
though ironically they harmed themselves by the affair.

It is totally like any other addiction. The high is more alluring than stopping the cruelty all around.

It is just such a selfish characteristic. It makes me crazy. XH kept telling me last night that I just didn't 'give him a chance.' I said, "You didn't want a chance! You did nothing to show you were sorry....you kept seeing her and you are STILL seeing her.'

He also told me about going to a wedding this weekend (without OW) and how he got hit on by at least two women but he went home alone. Gag. I said, 'well I'm sure OW appreciates your faithfulness.' Double gag....dripping with sarcasm.

Dh told me last night to try to not defend myself with XH. Just take XH's 'version' of how our marriage ended and say, 'ok. gotta go now.'

I didn't ask more questions of him because I don't like to encourage his gut spilling to me, but I am very curious why OW wasn't with him. It very much seems to me like they are not a 'real' couple....they spend more time apart than together or at least what I know of it....and I know more than I want to because of my former neighbors who tell me stuff.

XH is skipping his vistation this weekend---he got confused on what his weekend was (we had to do some switching and I think he honestly did get confused) and scheduled a trip out of town. He told ds he wouldn't have him this weekend but didn't tell him why. All this after XH has 'talked' about taking ds on vacation for months now. He even scheduled vacation and then backed out immediately...which was fine because ds didn't really want to go anyway.

The more I leave XH to his own devices the more he hangs himself, so to speak.

:)ing Woman,
I'm very sorry to hear of your son's situation. I hope you can get him the help he needs.

It occurred to me that you tend to get into quite some depth of conversations with your ex. I don't see it as healthy to speak with an ex about ANYTHING that doesn't directly relate to your shared child. I can say from personal experience that I have resisted temptations in the past to get into adjunctive conversations (as has the ex, fortunately) and I have noticed a lot more healing when I can follow through with that. Conversely, at first I didn't know where to set that boundary and I remember having more difficulty with some of the aspects of divorce/separation etc.

I think we've already talked about Plan B... for YOU. And your HEALTH. And the health of your relationship with your husband. Maybe you don't see it as a possibility. But, I wonder if really watching the subject matter you get into with the ex isn't a good idea. Really watching it and limiting it.


It seems that his affair is crumbling. And that could be a good thing for your son. However, I would not make that much of your concern as you don't have much control over it.

just some thoughts SW.
Opt

Point taken. You aren't the first person to tell me that. In my defense, I have been working VERY hard on that and most of the big conversations we get into I've posted here....it isn't like it is an every day or even every week event. He works very hard to pull me INTO conversations. Two weeks in a row he jumped out of his truck to give me some fresh produce that he bought from a local organic farmer. I tried to refuse but he just insisted....said he had bought too much and it would go to waste.

Often when I drop off ds he will be waiting in the driveway and just jump into some trivial conversation with me about his work, or whatever.

This latest conversation was of course necessary....about our son. And since I had kept most of it from him (at ds's request) for months, there was a bit of catch up to do. That conversation naturally went to cause and where the blame lay....

I too can see I heal much better with less contact with him. Last night for instance, his casual comment that *I* caused him to cheat on me....just infuriated me. The conversation ended shortly after that comment because he had arrived at his house and ds was there waiting on him....when I hung up I was so angry I wanted to begin a furious texting war, but took a deep breath and called my dh instead.



Yes I do agree on both counts...that the affair might be crumbling and that I have no control over it either way.

Talked to ds at length today. He thinks I am sad. I asked what does he think I am sad about...he said OW. I told him I am not sad about her anymore...that time heals some sadnesses..but that just because I am not 'sad' doesn't mean I accept what she has done.

I find it insane that XH thinks it is ok to keep her in ds's life. I had this analogy in my head....it might not be perfect, so maybe an analogy pro can help me...

Say XH owns a store of some sort. So he hires a young pretty girl (and let's pretend ds is a teenager) and ds digs her and they start dating. XH discovers this girl is stealing from the store. He confronts her and fires her...tells her to not come back to his store. XH tells ds, 'she is a thief! She stole from me!' Ds shrugs and says, 'so what? I like her. And further more I'm bringing her to Sunday dinner whether you like it or not.'

That is how it feels to me for a man to INSIST that it is ok to bring the OW around his son...

SW, your x isn't that powerful. You know who is in charge.

Zephaniah 3:17 NIV

17 The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.

I know your x is a pain in the butt, but you will deal with him less and less. You know he's full of it, that he doesn't even believe the stuff he says, He's an impotent little man that ruined his life and the one person he still has fooled, can still get some rise out of, can still rile up, is you. You're getting your son the help he needs. Let this man lie his little lies to himself.

I wish your ex a great life. I honestly hope that this will be his bottom, that he will see that God still loves him, and puts his life back together. But not at your expense, SW. You can't save him. Never could. Give him over to the one who can. Let him go, every morning if you need to.

Smiling Woman, you need to learn some techniques to make these conversations stop. There is NEVER a reason to talk to your XH unless it is an EMERGENCY. And by emergency, I mean there is something the X needs to know about your DS and there is a reason why he cannot talk to his dad. For instance, if your DS was injured in a car wreck and XH needs to know so he can go to the hospital.

When you drive up to custody exchanges, do not get out of the car and do not roll down your window. If XH seems insistent, open the window just enough to tell him to send you an email.

If he tries to have a phone conversation with you, tell him that you prefer email. All decision-making communications SHOULD be made by email so that you have a written record of what was communicated and decided. Even if your XH isn't a jerk, it's helpful to have something to check if you can't remember everything about a conversation. You should also save copies of everything you send, so if you can't remember if you told XH about grades or issues at school or whatever, you can refer back to what you sent.

This is what I do. I am almost always there first waiting to drop ds off. When we see him on the street I tell ds to hop out and I am backing out of the drive before XH gets his truck in park. That works well. About 90% of the time he doesn't walk ds to the door when he returns him to me.

And when he does manage to get at me, I just try to be polite and end the conversation quickly.

I do believe the recent situation with ds warranted speaking directly with XH. A texting conversation ensued yesterday afternoon which was how to help ds and it by necessitiy involved speaking of the divorce/ XH's adultery etc. I showed the texting exchange to my dh and he was in total agreement that the conversation was necessary due to what is going on with ds. He was very pleased at how I handled myself, refusing to get pulled into the SW/XH portion of the past but rather focusing on how the betrayal has affected our SON. Basically, to sum it up, XH feels that if I would give my 'approval' of XH having a relationship with OW that all of ds's problems would be solved.

NED you are correct that he is a little little man full of lies that only he believes. I however, am only affected by the lies to the extent it affects my son.

I don't WANT to save him. If ds didn't have to deal with him, I wouldn't care what XH does.

I can't figure out how to make ds feel better about a situation that I don't think anyone should have to tolerate.

As adults would any of us maintain a relationship with a person who has so deeply hurt us and continues to show zero remorse or repentence?

SW I just saw this. I think I was 10 and my brother 8 when my Dad left us for a home wrecker who made his life miserable for years. My Mom was honest with us about what happened. My brother and I loved our Dad even though we knew he was lying to us. Have you read the article on the site Infidelity: The Lesson Children Learn? In time your son will learn to detach in love and accept his dad where he's at. Maybe he's already getting there. I know it felt at the time like we were betraying our Mom by not holding a grudge against our Dad, but I'm glad now that I didn't hold a grudge.