Hi all,

Need some advice here. My STBX will feels that it is OK to bring whoever she wants around my son. She just started dating this guy and she is bringing him around my boy....she see nothing wrong with what she is doing!!!!!

when we first separated we had agreed not to bring anyone around our boy for at least six months. The time limit was negotiatable but I felt it was better for our son. I have stuck to that rule..I'm not dating anymore but I stuck to what we had agreed.

Am I being totally unreasonable here??

I really wanted things to be better for our sons sake, but she just keeps on with this kind of s***

She just met this guy...but her reasoning is that "it just feels right"

I am so tired...I cant keep this up anymore

Anyway any input would be appreciated

Jason

No, you are unreasonable at all and you wife is completely OUT OF HER MIND! She has no business bringing her boyfriends around your son. She could not be more wrong about this. Not only is she still a married woman and shouldn't be dating, but one of the most damaging things a woman can do to her son is to subject him to a parade of men. A divorced woman should never subject her children to any new man in her life until the relationship has progressed to the point where marriage is being discussed. Even then the introduction must be very well planned and slowly executed. I do not recommend that it happen without the assistance of a family therapist. This can be very traumatic to children and expecially so to boys, who see their father being replaced. I know this for a fact because my mother did this to me and she had no idea of how badly she traumatized me. I had to get therapy as an adult to learn how to deal with it.

Unfortunately, there is very little you can do to stop her, especially after the divorce is final. Your wife is just showing that she is selfish and isn't considering the welfare of her child. What you don't know can hurt others. Make an apointment with a family therapist for you and your wife. Let the therapist tell her how wrong what is doing is. She won't believe you.

Sorry but that's a crock in my opinion <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Don't take my word for it. Ask a child psychologist or family therapist. I don't care about your opinion on this. You are just wrong and you don't know what you are talking about.

Likewise for you...you seem to think you know it all on these boards and you are certainly NO expert....just a bitter person from what I can tell.

No, I don't know it all and I am not a bitter person at all. But my hackles will ALWAYS come up when I see parents selfshly making mistake I know are going to emotionally harm their children. My parents did everything wrong that a couple can possibly do when divorcing and they caused me and my siblings no end of grief. It took us years and a lot of hard work to get over the damage they did. So I will challenge the thinking of anyone I see making the same mistakes. If you don't like that, well, that's not my problem; it's yours.

Now why don't you offeer unseen2 something useful or stay out of this thread.

I have to agree with Check and unseen here.

I have seen situations where divorced mothers parade different men around their children and how it screws them up. Especially boys.

If you are not a male, you cannot possibly understand how damaging this can be to a young boy. The end result is almost always the same. These boys grow up to not only disrespect or even hate their mothers, but other women as well. And that will correlate into failed relationships, which will affect most areas of their life.

Will this be the result? Maybe not. But it certainly can't help and you only get one chance to raise your children the right way.

This certainly applies to girls, as well. Since I am a man, I truly can't comment on how that personally affects them.

Unseen, there is little you can do but be the best father you can be. The more presence you have, the better the chances this will not affect your child.

This is the best advice there is....Kudos to you HL!!!

I choose to not respond to the other as I won't contaminate Unseen's thread with bantering with someone not worth my effort.

Unseen...I don't condone your wife's actions at all!!...Unfortunately there really is nothing you yourself can do to control her actions. The only thing you can do like HL said is be the best daddy you can be and hope for the best. Children are able to adapt to many situations and with you as a role model for him I'm sure he will be just fine. His mother will be the one to lose out in the end should he grow up and have resentment for her actions. He can become a happy healthy man with the right role model...which is you and always will be you.

I personally have raised a son without his dad from 18 months old to present day 14 years old and he is one of the best young men out there....just the other day he seen a girl who is a friend of his being sexually harassed by a young man and he stood up for her and defended her honor which he didn't need to do but knew it was the right thing to do...(despite the fact that he has met a few of the men that I have dated and we hadn't gotten to the point of talking marriage) So there is hope...Have faith and do the best you can possibly do for you and your son. Also should this become a constant habit of her bringing new men into your sons life at a rapid rate you might want to take custody of him if that is feasible for you.

God Bless and Best of Luck to you and your son!
Ronda

Hi Jason,

There may in fact be something you can do while you two are married, such as seek custody of your son. However, once the divorce is done, unless there are specific orders in the divorce decree there is little you can do.

However, knowing you and your W for so long, perhaps there is another approach. Ask her of what good is it for your son to meet the "man of the month" and become even more confused than he is about his situation and position in her life.

I would hope that her good intensions for your son would come to the surface and she would have the good sense to protect him from further upheaval.

I would suggest further, that IF her son loves her, her bringing new men into his life and then ending the relationships with them will confuse him, hurt him if she is hurt, and make him wonder if women can be trusted if she is not hurt. I don't think she wants to confuse your son more than he is right now.

So ask her if she could provide some stability for him while he is with her, by not bring new men into his life while at the same time dating once she is divorced. It has to be her choice, but I think she equates him meeting these new men with somehow a temporal but stable existence. For you son this is not true. So appeal to her as a mother to protect her son, and you will protect him when you start to date.

I cannot tell you how sad I am about all of this. I had such high hopes for you two when your W first came here all of these years ago.

God Bless,

JL

JL,

Its good to hear from you, I wish it was not under the cercumstances but good none the less.

Carrie has really gone downhill since she left,there is no reasoning with her anymore. I tried to get my point across that what she was doing was bad for our son. The problem is that she sees nothing wrong with what she is doing. She has totally justified and rationalized her behavior as ok. I tried to take any "us" issues out of the conversation, it's not about us anymore it is what will be best for our boy.

Oh and as a side note, when I went to pick him up yesterday the bast*** was sitting with my boy on his lap. She knows how I feel bout the situation and it would have been easy to not have that happen when I showed up. Andy looks up at me and says "Look daddy its the new guy"

anyway.....

All I know is that she has burned her last bridge. When this guy turns out to be an abusive POS like the last "Nice" guy, she is on her own.

I will do what it takes to ensure the saftey of our boy. And frankly I no longer care bout her feelings in this or any other matter.

No more doormat....

Thanks JL I'll ttyl

Jason

Check, Allurin, Husband

Thanks for your words, Its good to see that I'm not Wrong in my thinking. It just seems like now she is using my son to hurt me. I really thought she was better than that.

As I said in the response to JL she has burned her last bridge, I'm done being a doormat for her.

Thanks,
Jason

hey there Jason....

it has been a long time indeed....

last time I was talking to Carrie..(a post at this site almost a year ago)...well...there were 'problems'...but I, like JL, never expected to see you 'here'....


I am so sorry for the confusion and pain that Andy is being exposed to....


I can't believe he is 5 already!!!


I can't agree with the way Carrie is acting.....and like JL again..I agree that you must have something in the divorce decree to reflect this....


Dewt and I are discussing a 'morality clause' in our D agreement....stemming from horrible things that occurred with our son as well.....

I was the WS this time (2004)....(dewt was the WS in '99)...but Dewt had 'sleepovers' with his girlfriend....knowing that our son barely spent a whole night in his own bed.....

he met this woman online 2 months after he left and our son was introduced right away....

to hear that my son was' cuddled up' between the two of them made my blood boil...I had followed all of the 'rules' set out by us as parents...OP was NEVER to be around our son....Dewt and I, like you and Carrie had an 'agreement'...I couldn't believe he would break it....repeatedly.....then after breaking up with his gf of one month, slept with his ex-wife with our son in the next room....


all I wanted to do was break down his door, grab my son, and kick him in the shins....

I was so hurt to see the rules so carelessly broken....when I had followed them all....


you stand there and think "what the ****** are you doing?"


so you are not alone...I understand where you are coming from....and I understand the reactions and emotions you are feeling...


but you need to center yourself and think of Andy....get away from the name calling and remember that your boy is watching you and learning from you...



I cannot and will not trust Dewt again...not in that arena...hence my decision to include the morality clause....


no partners to be introduced to our child until they are 'significant others'....as in, significant enough to be moving in, etc....well after a 6-month time....


no sleepovers at all with gf's if our son is with him.....

if he needs to 'get some' so badly...well, he can drop off our son to me and then he can party allll night....


these are the kinds of things that are being added......

a simple handshake and/or trust and belief that your ex will act morally no longer holds....


at least not for me....

and these 'oopses' as Dewt phrased them...are simply too damaging for our son to endure...the damage of his parents infidelity and subsequent seperation are damaging and harmful enough with out us further adding to his confusion and pain...


even though Dewt only dated this one woman for 1 month....our son really liked her...liked her kids, etc....when they broke up, he was truly heartbroken...it was so sad to see...and I had to comfort him as best I could.....



in my life, someone has to EARN the right to be introduced to the center of my universe....and I am picky..so it may take a year or so of 'seeing' someone......no way befroe that...even if I feel they are the 'right' person or 'perfect' or 'great with kids'...even if they have children of their own....

it just won't happen....


we, his parents have put him thru enough...and I for one, refuse to inflict any more damage than I already have.....


I am so sorry for your pain, Jase....I had really hoped you and carrie would be okay...


Dylan

Hi Dylan,

Good to hear from you again, as I said JL I wish it was under different circumstances but good anyway.

I plan to meet with a lawyer next week to get some of these issues worked out. I really like the idea of the moral clause.... this is something I will definitely look into

I really don't know who she is anymore. I was really making an effort to try and move past all she did to me. I was even a shoulder to "cry" on when she broke up with the abusive POS she was seeing (the other "Nice guy")

What she is doing now is more hurtful than the affairs were.

The "good" thing is I think I'm finally getting that emotional distance I need to move on. I still love Carrie, I was still willing to try after some time had passed. I know now that there is no chance of reconciliation... ever. This person she has become is not a person I could love.

I mourne the loss of the woman I loved, I believe that she is gone for good

She is disregarding the welfare of her son to make her life easier. I guess I should not be too suprised by this considering what she did while I was deployed.

I guess what surprises me is her capacity for self denial. I wish I could have recorded all the "reasons" she gave why it was OK to do what she was doing. To play them back to her and hope that she would hear.


anyway.....

Now I'm just rambling

TTYL
Jason