This post is about me[M39], my ex wife [F39], our two sons [M7,M9] and the affair my ex wife had that resulted in the end of our marriage as well as a third child, we’ll call Max [M5].
I’ve been thinking about posting something like this for a few days, I have to admit that reading the recent post by
u/throwawaynocollege01 is the thing that’s pushed me to sit down and try to type this out. I think that what I want to talk about is parenting stuff, but I’m going to start by talking about the affair and dissolution of our relationship.
My wife confessed to the affair about a week after telling me she was pregnant. So, you know, a week I’d spent excited, about what I thought was going to be my child. Turns out, no. It was an emotionally pretty traumatic time. I might have been able to work through the infidelity but made the ultimatum that she had to end the pregnancy. She was philosophically opposed to abortion and I knew this. She stuck to her morals in that particular instance and so I initiated a divorce. She has since married her affair partner.
Regarding custody of our sons, there was a period of more conflict and resistance, I took the boys in the initial period of Max’s infancy, and in the initial highly emotionally injured state I was in I sought full permanent custody, but I wasn’t likely to be successful and I was eventually persuaded that despite the breakdown of my relationship with her that it’s in my sons’ best interests to have their mother in their lives. Today, to the amazement of everyone else in my life, my ex and I remain co-operating partners in the parenthood of our children.
For the last two years we’ve shared week to week custody of our two sons. This upcoming school year Max is going to be old enough to attend the same school. About a month ago I got sat down by my ex, her partner and all three boys and they all want Max to travel back and forth with the boys each week and effectively live with me 50% of the time. Seriously.
There are some arguments for it, admittedly. The 3 boys are friends and brothers as much as I resent it, splitting them up regularly does seem like a weird sibling dynamic that could have poor consequences. I’m angry with my ex for broaching the topic with the boys before me, but it’s also an entirely reasonable thing for the boys to have an opinion on. I agreed. What was I supposed to say? No? Why Not? I can’t say “Because I hate that Max exists”. So, I said ok.
I do hate him.
I know he doesn’t deserve to be hated. I know he’s no more responsible for the circumstances of his conception than any of us. But knowing that doesn’t seem to matter. He’s a walking talking reminder of all the worst emotions that I’ve ever felt. I’m coming to end of his second week staying with us and the boys, we have moved him into my home and made space for him. I hate the sound of his voice. If he needs help in the kitchen, I am immediately annoyed with no good reason. I’m constantly angered by his limitations, limitations that are entirely in line with being a 5 year old, things I would never get angry with my sons over. I’m short tempered and just energized with this useless visceral anger.
I feel like the last years of my life have been a carousel of humiliations and degradations. The only way I’ve been able to keep everything together is constantly repeating to myself that pragmatic argument that no matter how authentic my grievances are and no matter how justified I am in my anger, it doesn’t help me or my sons for me to devolve into an embittered rage hermit. Just hold my tongue, breath deep and force myself to do the thing that will actually help. So I remain in regular contact with their mother, and I talk to her politely, on the topics that I have to. Since recognizing that I don’t have the legal power to exclude him from my sons’ lives I have been cordial with Max’s father. That I’ve been able to do these things has been the only thing about myself worth feeling good about.
But maybe it’s not worth feeling good about. Maybe I regret being civil. Because in Max’s presence that pragmatic argument is just not enough. It’s like all the anger I’ve set aside through sheer force of will returns at once and possesses me while I have to talk to him. I thought I was doing the right thing, but if I had remained combative and negative, I never would have ended up in this position.
What do I do? I’m constantly thinking I want to back out, to say “no, I can’t do this, I’m sorry”. But how could I justify that? No one else in the situation will be happy with that. The boys certainly don’t understand why there would be a reason for them to be treated differently based on their parentage. My oldest has told me so explicitly, in a moment that made me feel both proud of him and ashamed of my own anger. Their mother and her partner would be upset. Part of me doesn’t care, and bitterly assumes they’re just trying to get some free time for themselves out of this, but I’m trying not to dwell on that. My ex makes good arguments that this is in the best interests of all of the children. But part of me just remembers how long she lied to me and how totally I trusted her in that time.
It seems like the only thing to do is the same thing I’ve ever done, suck it up and get over myself and my anger. But if I do that, then I have to actually do that. Even if I’m being a responsible babysitter for Max right now, he deserves to live in a home where he is loved, not merely tolerated. Can I do that? Maybe I can’t do that. I’m scared of a path forward where I can’t work up the nerve to backout of this arrangement and consign myself to getting over it, and then I actually don’t get over it, but rather dwell ever angrier with how my life has turned out and take it out on the undeserving around me.
