Marriage Builders
Posted By: alis When they marry their affair partner - 10/17/11 05:19 PM
How do you deal with this? I am the adult (27) child. My mother had a ridiculous internet affair with a man younger than me online (Facebook, no doubt), who lives in Africa (I'm sure it's a scam but she has met him in person), and 3 weeks after the divorce from my father was final, she married this guy.

She keeps trying to push him into our lives, making repeated attempts by trying to "friend" us on Facebook (I explicitly told him he was not welcome in my life). I have no respect for her anymore. But I also don't want to expose my child to this ridiculous situation and want to allow him to have a relationship with his grandmother (he is 16 months and unable to understand anything anyways).

Help? It makes me fearful/question my own marriage, how any marriage can possibly last, even though I have no reason to. My father is an alcoholic and while I had told her to divorce him since we were children, she would only do it when she found another man willing to marry her.

Does MB have material to help adult children of adulterous divorces? How to get over the anxieties and not let this interfere/cause anxieties in our own marriages?
Posted By: alis Re: When they marry their affair partner - 10/17/11 05:24 PM
And reading through the threads here from WS's is making me angry. It's all "me me me", I wonder if any of them really understand the long-term damage they do to not only their own marriage but their children's future relationships as well. As a child, it makes you think, "why bother... my partner will just do this to me anyways". Ugh. Having a bad day about this, sorry.
Posted By: jessitaylor Re: When they marry their affair partner - 10/17/11 05:28 PM
alis,
we can't be accountable for others and if you read the material on this site and follow the plan you will have a great marriage one that doesn't have room for an affair..........
you are lucky to find it first.........take the opportunity......
if you don't want your child exposed then that is okay you are his mother, your mother will have to learn to respect that...
Seems crazy but she is a grown woman that makes her own choices......
Posted By: MelodyLane Re: When they marry their affair partner - 10/17/11 07:21 PM
Originally Posted by alis
And reading through the threads here from WS's is making me angry. It's all "me me me", I wonder if any of them really understand the long-term damage they do to not only their own marriage but their children's future relationships as well. As a child, it makes you think, "why bother... my partner will just do this to me anyways". Ugh. Having a bad day about this, sorry.

alis, I so sympathize with you. My father was a serial cheater and it really is a sickening spectacle. Affair marriages RUIN the cheater's relationship with their children. And your situation is no different. The best thing you can do for your mother is to make it clear this is not acceptable and that she can't bring this scumbag around your family.

And no your partner won't do that to you if you put your marriage first and establish good boundaries. Get the book, His Needs, Her Needs and follow the program in it. Good marriages don't happen by accident, they happen by design. You already have a real good start on that because you are doing your best to put your marriage FIRST.
Originally Posted by alis
And reading through the threads here from WS's is making me angry. It's all "me me me", I wonder if any of them really understand the long-term damage they do to not only their own marriage but their children's future relationships as well. As a child, it makes you think, "why bother... my partner will just do this to me anyways". Ugh. Having a bad day about this, sorry.

Alis,

please check out my wife's thread in recovery.. Her username is grace4me. She's doing it right. That is a woman to be loved, cherished and held onto (as I am sure are many other recovered Wayward spouses here). Three years after my own DDay, I can encourage you and tell you this... After 22 years of marriage and suffering through 2 affairs, there is no place I'd rather be.

Read the articles here on the site. There is awesome stuff on protecting marriage and keeping it great!

CV

Posted By: schoolbus Re: When they marry their affair partner - 10/18/11 01:14 AM
alis,

Tell your mother that you love her, but not her new husband.

That love may be unconditional, but relationships ARE conditional.

That one of the conditions of the relationship with your child and her will be that your child will NOT meet her husband. That condition is made because you, as the parent, believe that her marriage is setting an unhealthy situation for YOU and YOUR CHILD, and that you do not want this to set a precedent for your child growing up.

Even though your child would not understand it today, does not mean that in two years he won't.



It is perfectly okay to set your own boundaries for your own child and family.

It is perfectly okay to set boundaries for your family.

Your mother wants everyone to "be friends". Tell her that this will never be possible. That her affair made it impossible. That was HER ADULT CHOICE, and the result of her adult choice has consequences that have affected little children.

Then, tell her you love her, and does she want to visit your child for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, and does she want to make cookies?

Because she has NO choice in your boundaries.


YOU set them. PERIOD.

That is, IF she is even welcome at all!!!!!!! You figure out the conditions, you set them, and then have the conversation.


Oh, and FWIW, her marriage probably won't even make it two years.

SB
Yes alis, I can understand your situation.

Might I suggest Alanon? It is for the family of alcoholics, and helps children also understand the dynamics.

First of all you hate your Dads drinking, and now you hate what your Mom has done.

You probably went through periods of trying to save things also.

Now you are a 27 year old woman with a child of her own, and still emotionally attached to what you would have to classify, as a disaster of a marrige, between your parents.

Good news is, there is help out there, and understanding, that that is/was thier lives, and yours will be different.

BTW, SBs advice is spot on, you must set your own boudaries, for yourself and your child, and don't let the waywards ruin your life anymore.

God Bless
Originally Posted by MelodyLane
And no your partner won't do that to you if you put your marriage first and establish good boundaries. Get the book, His Needs, Her Needs and follow the program in it. Good marriages don't happen by accident, they happen by design. You already have a real good start on that because you are doing your best to put your marriage FIRST.

Amen
Posted By: kaycstamper Re: When they marry their affair partner - 10/19/11 03:19 AM
Your mother went out and found a guy before she divorced your father because she was unhappy in her marriage and too gutless to go it alone. Why she picked someone from another continent half her age God only knows. She has inflicted enormous damage on her family and I am so sorry you are all having to go through this. Please don't let her actions superimpose themselves on your marriage, your marriage can be as great as the two of you want it to be and one has nothing to do with the other. As the others have suggested, you determine your boundaries, whether your mother spends time with your child or not, and if you do not want your new stepfather (I know, hard to call him that) in your child's life, she will have to see your child alone and that is only part of the price she will pay for her ludicrous decisions.
I was your age when my dad married his OW. I made it clear that she was never welcome in my home. If I called and she answered I simply asked for my dad with no pleasantries involved, though my brother was flat out hostile to her and told her not to pick up the phone that he was calling his dad.

I never went to visit unless she was gone.

The blackout continued for a good two years. He asked us if there was ever a chance we would hang out with them. I told him there was no chance at all, ever. I said that she could suddenly grow a halo and start floating and performing miracles and I still wouldn�t let her into my home.

Set your boundaries. Hold her to them.
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