....

You were arguing with a three year old. YOU grow up. I know it's painful, but she is THREE. Not even three yet!

Hold your tongue around that child, please. There will be a time when she is older to discuss this with her. Now is not the time.

Gonna definately have to agree with CWMI on this one. Why on earth would you want to fill a child with hate, there ain't a good reason to. What ever happened to be the bigger person. The OM in my case threatened to kill me, scared my X so bad that she left with the kids. That was years ago and to this day, I've yet to say a bad word about him to my children, they are old enough now that they've formed their own opinions about our marriage, divorce, and the OM. OH and guess what, their opinions that they arrived to all by their lonesome are all pretty much spot on and they arrived at them without my having to resort to spewing hate.

Also, you do realize that you are allowing that woman to live rent free in your head.... Time to evict her....

thank you both for your reply. I do appreciate your brutal honesty. You are correct i did handle that poorly. It may not have come across as the way the converstation actually happened.

You are correct i need to just get over it and what happens with DD accepting her or not is apparently out of my control and she can make what ever decisions she chooses apparently. I am sorry if i upset anyone in the process wasn't my intention three's out from the discovery of the affair and i do still have a lot of hate, maybe it was the fact the OW was on the phone and occupying my then H time while i was going into the OR or the fact he took our 6 day old DD to meet her. None of that should matter now as i need to let those choices go and forget about it. Something i have been working on and have a lot of work left to do.

Again thank you for your time in posting.

StrongerthanB4, I didn't see the original message so i am not sure what the issue is, but if you imagine you can just "get over it" you are dreaming. Adultery is as traumatic as the death of a child, physical assault or RAPE. We wouldn't tell a rape victim to just "get over it" would we?

At least I hope we don't.

Hopefully you told your children that the OW is the enemy of their family and WHY adultery is immoral. Otherwise your cheater husband will be teaching them that adultery is right and justified. It is our parental obligation to give moral guidance to our children.

If we do not teach our children right from wrong, then we are guilty of gross neglect. That is a form of child abuse. Leaving a child to figure out right from wrong is child neglect. A healthy child who knows right from wrong will NATURALLY hate immoral, evil behavior. If they don't then the parent has probably neglected his moral obligation to his child.

p.s. if you dont' teach your child right from wrong, your wayward husband will teach them that wrong is right. You are the only defense they have from his immoral teachings.

If you want to screw with a kids head, expose them to a wayward [who will give them wayward "moral" lessons] and then give them NO moral teachings. That will keep them morally confused well into their adult years!

Melody thank u for ur reply I deleted the orginal post out of embarrishment. To.give you the gist my DD 3 goes to my XH and his OW appartmentt every Tuesday to wed and then every other sat to Sunday. Well last week when I was asking how her time at her father' was she started talking about the OW. I stopped her and told her we do not talk about her here. She nauturally asked why and I told her I did not like her(OW). My dd ended up telling me I had to and she was gonna tell her daddy and I would be in big trouble.....I stopped the conversation there. wait I did tell her that the OW was the reason her daddy left at one point. What wasn't in the orginal posat was that my dd has asked b4 why her daddy and his ow never came over to visit. I may not handle everything just iright but I am trying. My dd thinks that the ow is her mommy at her daddy's house. I have corrected her and he was told through our I'M to do the same thing. The correction is as such...that she only has one mommy and one daddy..yadda yadda.

I do get strong emotions invoked in me when I hear her name and it upsets me that my dd has some sort of bond with her, mainly for the reasons above. I try toanswer my dd as truthfuly as her age allows. Maybe that is wrong but I also want her to know from the start that a releationship like her father has with his OW is not right either.

I have been following ur thread on ur son....and frankly that is what I worry about....I was just loooking for guidance on how to handle this. I go to counseling and try to work through it all...I just don't want. Her to repeat her father's cycle.

As for saying ne thing mean or disrepectful about xh or ow infront ofmy dd...never happen...I don't feel me telling her that I dislike someone is consider as such. That is the most I have ever said that was an ill word about either of them.

Well, unfortunately, your H and his skankho are teaching your children that adultery is an acceptable lifestyle. If you are not honest about their filthy lifestyle, or if you help the them whitewash their crimes, your children will grow up like I did and my son did believing that wrong is right.

It is GOOD that your children understand why you don't like the OW. If you don't tell them that, they will take your silence as ENDORSEMENT, which is about the worst lesson you can give them. If you liked someone who did something so horrific to your family you will morally confuse them.

You are in a tough situation. And while you can't call the SKANK names, you can tell your children that she is an adulterer and how much pain their adultery has caused. Of course, a 3 yr old is not going to understand this yet, but she sure will when she is older.


Of course you do. As you should. Just as a rape victim has strong emotions when she sees her rapist. People who are assaulted have a reaction when they are reminded. In your case, you are assualted over and over again.

I am so sorry for your pain.

Dr. Laura show [4:25 min into segment - 5-15-08]

Caller: Husband had an affair with good friend for 2 years. Her H ws one of his "buddies."

Dr. Laura: Do you have minor children?

Caller: Yes, we both do

Dr. Laura: They are willing to hurt your kids? Why are they willing to break up the families?

caller: Basically, they said they are not "happy."

Dr L: So that is the explanation for being willing to hurt their kids? They are doing this to be "happy?"

What can I do to possibly help you?

Caller: I need to know what to tell my kids.

Dr. Laura: THE TRUTH. They are breaking up 2 families because they have decided.....

See, I am not of the school where you stand by and do pretend with kids where this is all ok. Because this is NOT OK.

The most important story is that this is NOT OK. sit down with your husband and tell him you are going to explain to our children, in a factual, non hysterical way I am going to explain to the kids the horrible thing you are doing to destroy their family. That you are "not happy" is not sufficient reason to destroy 2 families and I am going to make this clear to them because I want them to grow up understanding this is WRONG.

That is my advice. And i think everybody should be clear this is selfish behavior that is WRONG, vows were made.

Not being "happy" is something you work to turnaround, not something you destroy a family over. If both of these people were to hear this was going to happen they will have second thoughts.

DO not think for a moment you are doing wrong by telling your children this. It is your moral obligation to teach them right from wrong. EVEN when it demonstrates a parent has done wrong. The parent cannot be whitewashed and get away with that - THAT IS WRONG and that does not teach the children

I really hope alot of people hear this. Alot of ppl want to whitewash what they are doing. Kids should know that is your attitude.

But to tell the custodial parent: hey don't make me look bad for my own selfish gain is ABSURD! and is EVIL! We are going to make wrong seem ok. Kids will lose any sense of right and wrong. Kids will be taught that anything is ok as long as it makes me "happy." Kids lose any sense of right or wrong. "well, it makes me happy to use drugs" when I am 12 It makes me "happy" to get on my knees and give 4 6th graders oral sex. That is what they teach their kids.

This is what happens when you whitewash wrongdoing to make no body feel bad which is why I get called MEAN. I get called mean because I say the truth. "Its MEAN to say something is right or wrong; its mean to make somebody feel bad!" Its MEAN to say the truth. People get shut down when they get called "judgmental" when they say the truth. The intent is to shut you down. Well, I don't shut up. Kids don't learn important truths when they allow others to shut them down. We don't help our children when we don't say the truth and support them in saying what is right and wrong.

Dr. Harley on telling the children:

here



here

here

here

StrongerThanB4,

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you setting boundaries with your DD about what conversations are acceptable in your home...YOUR SANCTUARY.

You have been through hell these last few years, and it is healthy for you to have these boundaries.

It sounds like you were speaking to her in age appropriate terms.

This child is two years old and they were arguing about whether or not Stronger needed to like the OW.

That's age appropriate?

I think the OP would be the best judge of what the child can understand. Her judgement is the best, not ours.

The OP was explaining to the child WHY she does not like the OW. That is HER JOB. A 3 year old can understand that her mother does not like someone. That is not above her comprehension.

Can you just take it from those who saw the OP that it was not an age-appropriate handling of the issue?

Stronger, nobody here wants you to stuff it...if you've worn out your RL people, vent here. Vent here, then speak to your DD.

What was not "age appropriate" about it? All I have seen are posts telling her she shouldn't even be telling the child...AT ALL. That she is "filling her with hate" for telling the truth. huh? THAT does not support the notion that this wasn't "age-appropriate."

All I see here are posts telling her NOT to say anything to her child about it and that advice is inappropriate.

So what was inappropriate? Besides the advice to not the tell the child?

She was arguing with the TWO YEAR OLD that she didn't have to like OW because OW was a bad person.

No, an adult should not enter into arguments with a 2yo about who should like whom for what reason. fwiw, I didn't tell her not to be talking at all with the child about it, but that now is not the time. This is a toddler.

She can get her point across without all the 'bad evil person, yuck! I hate her!' stuff. The child is, unfortunately, without a choice in the matter, and Mom can either be firm and upstanding, or venomous.

And how would you suggest she tell the child that the OW is a bad person and is not a friend of the OP?

Absolutely!!! That OW helped destroy that child's family - she IS her enemy, and there is nothing wrong and everything right with Stronger letting her DD know this...I would not appreciate not being told if I was snuggling up next to someone who wrecked my family - sure the little girl doesn't get all of that right now, but someday she will very much appreciate being given the facts...The truth serves to protect a child...

I don't know Stronger's DD, but I can tell you that our DD was very verbal and cognizant at that age - She could absolutely have understood being told why the family split up in an age appropriate manner...

Something along the lines of: Married people are not supposed to have boyfriends or girlfriends. Daddy chose to do something that is wrong - He got a girlfriend while we were married. The girlfriend knew that Daddy was married and broke the rules anyway. This is why Mommy and Daddy are no longer married, and why I do not like girlfriend/OW.

Stronger, you did nothing wrong...(((((Stronger)))))

Mrs. W