Longhorn, you can't know what damage would have been done to your children if they had lost their mom. I absolutely agree with you that having a parent engaged in an affair is a BAD situation for a child. However, losing that parent altogether is worse. This is one of those situations where the BEST is no longer available -- and the question is which of several bad options is the least bad. It's rotten to be in a situation like that, and yet all of us who come here are already in that situation.

ManInMotion, I am not a WS, nor am I an advocate for adultery. However, it is a common and unfortunate mistake to assume that a person who is having an affair is a bad parent. They may very well make bad choices at times. They may also be distracted and not focused on their children.

The fact of the adultery ALONE, however, does not make someone a bad parent. You have to look at the overall life of the child, not the adult, to determine whether the child is getting good parenting. And if they're getting bad parenting, it is NOT appropriate to end the relationship as a first alternative. The internal relationship that a child has with a parent is incredibly important. That's why even children who were abused still want -- decades later -- the love and approval of their parents.

True healing comes when a parent learns healthy and good parenting, not when they're tossed out of a child's life. Severing a parental relationship is only appropriate after all other measures have failed, and only when a child is so severely endangered that it is more damaging for them to be in contact with the parent than not.

I completely agree, J. You explained it very well.

Lori

Well said, MIM

Longhorn, I'm sorry you're not able to view the situation more objectively. I watched my own ex do some of the dumbest and most destructive things you can imagine. Some of them were directed at trying to sever my relationship with our daughter.

She made some -really- bad parenting choices in months just before and after we separated. Among them were leaving me with our 2 month-old daughter for hours at a time without a way to feed her (that happened several times), denying me contact with our daughter, and attempting to sever our relationship. It was also, of course, harmful to our daughter to deny her a home with both parents in it, and it was very risky for her to allow our daughter to build a relationship with the other man when it wasn't clear that the relationship would be permanent. It appears that the risk paid off -- my ex is now married to the OM, and it appears that they are settling into a happy and long-term marriage.

The harm of those bad parenting choices is something our daughter will live with for the rest of her life. However, since that time, my ex has generally made good parenting choices and has been a good parent. Our daughter -- healthy, happy, active, strong, and secure -- is the evidence of that.

I ended up choosing to protect my relationship with my daughter over protecting my marriage. It's a choice that I hope no one else ever has to face. However, I would say that all of us who are parents have a responsibility to do everything we can to make sure that our children build strong, stable, healthy, and happy relationships with BOTH of their parents. Even when we're so angry with the other parent that we are unable to speak coherently, it's still our responsibility.

"PERMANENTLY harmed" ... justJ

I think, and our culture used to reflect that, ideally, children should have 2 mature adult male/female legally married parents ... a mom and a dad

sadly, that ideal standard has become less and less valued in American society

but to say that you know a kid will be permanently harmed if this does not occur ... when you & your former wife planned to have a child who would grow up without a daddy ...

I think you just said you & former wife planned permanent harm to a child ... ??? .... unknowingly ??? ... clearly, I do not understand your position here.

have you changed your position about fathers being unnecessary to a child?

this gentleman/father/husband did not plan to adopt a child knowing that child would be missing a mother .... he is trying to deal with a rotten situation and protect his child from being harmed as best he can

he is obviously concerned about 2 things

1. abduction
2. exposure to OM/infidelity

and then you offer your opinion that what he is planning amounts to PERMANENT harm ... I was taken aback and stunned at the voracity of your accusation knowing your history ....

he is planning no such thing

he intended a mommie and a daddy

and the "PERMANENT harm" comment really gets my quills

Pep

and I would have to agree with this comment you made J, although I think we might disagree with exactly which adult behaviors constitutes deliberate or indirect harm

In my opinion, planning to deny an infant a father at birth, constitutes harm

Pep

Dear me, Pep, I think you're missing the point entirely.

If a child does not have a parent of a given type, then they do not develop an attachment to that parent, and thus there is no possibility of harm from severing in the attachment.

On the other hand, if a child has already formed an attachment to a parent of ANY kind, then that child has the right not to have that attachment severed.

As for whether my own daughter has been permanently harmed by not having a father raise her? Looks like she's doing fine to me.

wonderful!

and I think CompletelyLost's daughter is going to be just fine as well.

let's encourage him, not scare him half to death because of your own point of view that fathers are not required for a baby..

Pep

this FATHER intends to protect his child from his wife's harmful choices
he is not trying sever the child's mother from her life

she is choosing to do that herself

Pep

Excellent posts, Pepper. JJ implies other people are not objective in their viewpoints while it's clear she is the one without objectivity. Very sad. JJ has hijacked CL's thread so she can spread her agenda but I won't cooperate further in that. I've put this individual on ignore. I advise everyone else to do the same.

she is not a troll

she does advocate non-traditional values

and those values reflect in her advice

and that's fine with me

but the receivers of that advice ought to know they are getting NON-traditional marriage advice from a woman who has never been married to a man

I only think this is worth mentioning when I see her point of view actually attacking a man/husband/father

and scaring him half to death !

Pep

Okay. I view drive-by visitors from other websites as trolls, but I'll defer to your expertise in such definitions. Post edited. She's still on ignore.
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I will respectfully disagree with that. An absent parent is by definition not around to provide their children with examples of sneaking around, cheating, dishonesty, entitlement and the rest of the baggage that comes with an adulterous relationship. If my FWW had chosen to continue her A after D-Day, I would have likely asked her to leave, rather than continue to inflict the A's evil effects not only on me, but our children.

Dear me, what a funny description! I registered on this board more than three years ago and have posted nearly 2,000 times since then. That's about 800 posts more than Longhorn, and I've been here for 2 1/2 years longer than him. That hardly makes me a "drive-by visitor from another website." It makes me sound like an alien! Hee.

Oh, and by the way, you're not allowed to mention or advocate for other sites on this part of the board, and I don't. In fact, I have never been warned or questioned by the moderators with regard to that issue in the entire time I've been posting here.

As to being an advocate for non-traditional marriages? I guess I'll put it like Bill Doherty did. (Look him up on the web; he's a very well known marriage advocate who I met at the Smart Marriages conference two years ago.) He said, after the Unitarians decided to support gay marriage, "Now that we've decided that gay marriage is a good idea, can we talk about how MARRIAGE is a good idea???"

As for scaring a man half to death? He hasn't posted that I scared him. So... completelylost, did I scare you?

By the way, Pep, where did you see a reference to him being worried about his wife abducting their daughter? I didn't see that, and you're correct that if it's a real concern (as opposed to one created by fear and threats-in-the-moment), that is certainly a good reason, as I mentioned, for supervised visitation.

and your response?

he may be causing "PERMANENT harm"

not true

his whole being is to do what is best for her

this is a real DAD

not someone who visciously is trying to keep a mommie from a child

She may have a right to that kind of parent. The husband also has a right to a faithful WIFE, but that is not reality in this situation.

I disagree. An absent parent is better than an ALIEN parent especially if that parent might possibly abduct her. A parent in that position is selfish and does not have the best interests of the child at heart.

JustJ, you already know that the Harleys do not support non-traditional marriage. Therefore, gay marriage information or advocacy is not relevant on this MB board. That discussion is better kept to your board which will not be named.

Pep, I took the "says she'll try to" to be a comment about a court-based custody case, not an abduction. I'd like to hear what CompletelyLost has to say about that part of it. The rest sounds to me like a man who is not willing to treat his daughter's mother as an equal, responsible parent. It may certainly be that she should NOT be treated that way. However, he's not the one who should be making that determination. If it comes to needing to make it, I really hope that a court, with the help of a guardian ad litem, a child psychologist, and a few other professionals, make an objective evaluation of what is best for the child, without regard to a legal snafu that sent an attorney to jail.

Susan, you're late to the bonfire. I've already been burned in effigy, and that particular gas isn't actually flammable anyway. Have a really good night, though! You know where to find the marshmallows. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

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