Been asking my kids why they are not spending much time with their mom. They said she is watching OM's kids. WW doesn't have that much time off and would rather babysit OM's kids than spend time with her own. Is this a common thing? Does the fog affect their judgement when it comes to their own kids? I don't mind so much that my girls aren't spending time with their mother, but I don't like the reason why...

My WW was lying to her kids anytime she needed too. Oldest child finally said to me, "If your own mom lies to you, who can you trust?"

Unsure about your WW not wanting to see her own children but yes the fog is so great, the WW's take no prisoners. Everyone becomes victomized by their ongoing actions.

WS's are running from responsibility. Watching someone ELSES kids is not as demanding as watching your own. Plus she probably feels like she's helping him out.

For the most part I wouldn't suggest trying to decipher a WS's frame of mind. They are scared, needy, angry, and trying to run away from themselves. Most BS's try to compare a WS's current behavior with their past behavior and try to understand how the WS can live with themselves and the choices they're making. But the WS is in a totally different frame of mind and DOES NOT see things clearly, or even the same as they normally would. Call it fog or alien abduction or whatever - the WS WILL NOT act normally or rationally until the fog lifts.

Hi Lost-Without-Her,

Good News/Bad News:

Good News is it's not that uncommon so you can take some 'comfort' maybe that it's just the addiction/fog?

Bad News is it's really despicable and probably hte thing which will tempt us the most to LB (which probably has a lot to do with why the WS does it? - that trying to bait us into argument so they can say "see we just can't get along"?)

My WH is doing the same sort of thing. Well, he's not babysitting her kid as far as I know but he acts as if the OW and her kid are his family now - not us. Our daughters are supposed to have the control over the visitation - the separation papers say: "at the daughters' disgression". But the OW only allows my husband to see his daughters for a couple of hours Wed. & Sun. AND he has to keep his cell phone on so she can check up on him. But when their father is with the OW and her kid, his cell phone is off and his daughters can only leave messages for him. One time our youngest left him a message and he didn't call her back until 4 days later!

MY WH told me had was "over you guys" (daughters too - not just his wife), had "closure", and had "gotten on with his life"... one week after he moved out. But he knows he will never be able to get over the OW. AND he says that even if they do break up he will have to stay in contact with her because (get this) he has become attached to her little girl!

He also told us that if we got back together we can't go places like the mall together because OW is a "mall rat" and it would be upsetting for them (OW & her kid) if they ran into us - her kid would probably run right up to him and want him to pick her up... (I told him that would be OW's fault if she didn't keep better track of her kid than that in a mall. PLUS he wasn't worried about being seen in public with OW and her kid - how that might make US feel!?!?!?!

Seriously, if I hadn't learned about affairs, the addiction, the fog, how they WS's all say and do the same thing (like they're all using the same script), I know I would have given up a logn time ago! And that, knowing it's not uncommon behavior for a WS, is the 'good news'...

One more thing:

I think it's incredibly selfish and irresponsible for the adulterers to expose their children to the OP. I told my husband (I know - LB'ing) that the OW was an unfit mother to allow a married man to sleep over with her child in the house and to let her child get attached to him.

I'm not sure everyone's comments here give me any more hope than I had before, but my WH is doing the same thing, except that his kids are teens so he really doesn't have to spend any time at all with them if he doesn't want to. And he hasn't.
His own 14-yr-old DD is currently having so many emotional issues that she has been cutting on her arms.

But he'll play taxi driver and haul OW's one-year-old back and forth to her ex's place for every other weekend visitation, and he will transport her 9-year-old daughter from grandpa's (he has custody) to OW's to visit each week. And he even acts proud that the girl is eager to see him an throws her arms around him.

It is heartbreaking.

LL

My h lived with OW and her kids. During that time he had almost nothing to do with his own. I wasn't the only one thrown away in this.

It's even harder for me to understand when a mother does that. For most of us there is nothing more important than those we brought into the world and we can't imagine ever turning our back on them.

In an earlier conversation with my WW, she said that it will take time and the girls will get used to OM and the situation. Well, my girls, yes they are older, said they will never live with their mom if she moves back in with OM. I think WW thinks that if we get a DV, things will all normalize and everything will be better. Somehow I don't feel my girls will ever accept OM. Maybe I'm wrong, but who knows. I won't stop my girls from seeing their mom, but I won't let her force them into doing anything they don't want to do. It is pretty sad. At first I thought she'd really get lonely for her kids and want to spend more time with them. It doesn't seem that is the case... I guess I'll never understand how affairs change people......