What to tell the Ex Wife / Mother of my children

[SailNdom]

Any suggestions on what to tell the ex wife and how to tell her?

The main problem is we have two children, one 11 and one 9 years old. I have primary custody and they are with her the usual visitation thing... evenings/weekends.

I know for a lot of things we can just say it's family business and we just don't need to talk about it outside the family but I'm quite sure the subject of their "new mom" will come up at some point and I certainly don't want to put them in the position to lie to her.

My main concern is I don't want her to flip out and try to use it as grounds to try and get custody. Normally I'd say that was pretty unlikely, she didn't ask for custody the first time and nothing like that has come up over the last several years. She basically knows that she can't handle them on her own. But she did get pretty upset when I married my current wife as she is quite a bit younger and polygamy is pretty far out there to most people so I just don't know.

Almost all our communication is usually text or email, I don't think I've actually spoken to her in about three years. But it seems like emailing this type of news could go bad if she forwards it to her lawyer.

 

[FollowingHim]

It is hard to advise anything because it sounds like the situation is likely more complex than you describe, and there could be other factors at play that would need to be considered. I say this because it is very unusual for a father to receive primary custody of children, and unusual for a mother to be unable to handle a very small number of children, only two, on her own.

If the underlying issues here are something like drug addiction or psychological issues, these will alter her judgement, and I would be loath to recommend anything without being able to take this into account. On the other hand, if the underlying issue is poor lifestyle choices, there may be illustrations that can be drawn from in her own life that would help to explain the situation and demonstrate up-front that she has no moral or legal grounds for objection. Or if there are no such issues and I'm completely barking up the wrong tree, the approach might be different again.

I would also consider carefully the circumstances of your divorce, whether it was truly valid, and whether this understanding of polygamy means that despite the fact that you are remarried, this does not remove the possibility of reconciliation with her. If she was so upset when you remarried the first time because she actually seeks reconciliation, this could actually be the best way to present it, because it makes it positive. But this is obviously very situation-dependent.

Please ponder your specific circumstances very carefully, and if you want to discuss it further it would be helpful to know a little bit more. If there are details you need to mention in order to discuss this properly but that you cannot reveal here for some reason, feel free to start a private conversation with a group of people you believe could give valuable feedback and share this there.

 

[mystic]

You could have the children call her "aunt" and leave it at that. Or maybe just call her by name. To anyone who happens to notice, she's someone who lives in your house (if she does); no big deal.

 

[The Revolting Man]

Finally a conversation I can speak to with credibility! Usually in these posts I'm just speculating but when it comes to angry ex-wives and ugly custody fights I am a past expert.

My suggestion is don't tell her until you're on the boat and sailing away. But seriously, take my ex-wife....please!

But seriously for real, is there anything to tell her? Do you have a second? Can I discourage you from having children of that age try to absorb a new "mom". It would be better to treat the second as your wife and only require courtesy and respect from the children. Mom is a pregnant word. It would be different if they were younger.

Good luck.

 

[SailNdom]

Well here's all the other details I can think of. Thanks for your replies so far!

Our son has Asperger's which makes him a handful and he just does not respond to her when it comes to discipline. She's also battled depression for most of her life so that makes it harder as well. If it did come down to a legal fight I'd have the fact that she didn't even try the first time and there were a couple of documented neglect related incidents that would help my case. One was a citation for leaving our son in the car in the parking lot when he was about 4. The other one was when she left her loaded revolver out where he could reach it (he was about 3) and he found it and fired it. Fortunately no one got hurt but there were enough witnesses to hold up in court. Yes, her irresponsibility was one of our big issues.

She doesn't have much of a lifestyle now, she just lives with her parents, works and watches TV. Plus she'd have to come up with a retainer and she lives far enough away where they'd have to change school, quit all their activities etc. so she's have a pretty big uphill battle but we all know how much polygamy can be frowned upon.

The divorce part is a can of worms. I understand what you are saying now about if it is a valid divorce, but I wouldn't have back then. To be honest she probably would have been interested in reconciliation a few years ago but I'm pretty sure that door is closed. She's pretty anti-religious as well so she wouldn't care about or understand any of this. And of course my current wife would probably shank one or both of us if we even mentioned that idea lol.

There is certainly bad blood related to that happened with the three of us. This was back in my Godless days. The marriage wasn't doing to well so we had the bright idea to add a live in girlfriend. Well as you can imagine it didn't take long for things to fall apart between my ex and myself and we were soon separated then divorced. The "girlfriend" stuck around we fell in love and she is now my wife. We had our own problems at the beginning and when they were at their worst we ended up trying the Love Dare. She was young but her catholic school background helped a lot and we ended up turning our lives around and getting on the right track. In fact if you've seen the movie Fireproof you'll probably remember the cross scenes, I tracked down where that cross is and arranged it so I could propose to her there.

Anyway..... So when the ex saw we were getting married she was convinced my plan all along was to just find a replacement and get rid of her. That wasn't the plan but there was no convincing her. So she's going to be pretty sensitive to another woman around the kids and there's not going to be anyway to hide it. She is probably going to assume it's the same situation. Who knows maybe she will just wait to see if history repeats itself.

I did think of just a basic cover story as ZecAustin suggested but with the background we have I don't think it would work so well. Plus our 11 year old daughter is a little Sherlock Holmes, NOTHING gets past her, she notices every little thing and is always asking questions. I feel sorry for her future husband, he isn't going to get away with anything lol

Oh and somebody asked if I have a second yet... I found a good prospect and things are going well, getting close to time where it would be appropriate to meet the family.

I'm in Texas BTW if that matters.