When the Ex Finds a New Mate

When your ex finds a new lover and introduces that woman/man to your kids, how do you feel? Is there jealousy, concern, uncertainty? Do you want to warn this woman/man about all the horrible things that your ex did to you before it's too late, or do you snidely sit back and just watch history repeat itself and be thankful it's not you again? It's a tricky one as there are so many scenarios...

I've heard of all types of stories from new step-mums coming in and claiming your child as her own, and even being affectionate to your child in front of your family and friends and fighting black and blue to dishonour the person you are so that she can step in and replace you, effectively... through to women meeting the children for the first time and completely disgusted by the way the father has treated his children in front of her, that she's claimed that she's sick and walked away, before it's all too late.

I think for most single parents, the first reaction is concern. Concern about how serious the relationship is, concern about how involved this new person will be in your lives, concern about how the dynamics will change within your relationship with your children, concern for your children about how they will be treated, concern that he or she could actually live an unruly life and show your children things your don't want. Negative thoughts are always going to come into play, because you know how much time and effort you put into your kids, how much your ex does or doesn't and you don't know if the change will be a good thing or a series of trips down to the Family Court.

In someways, you want your ex to be happy, so that all the negative thoughts he thinks about you will disappear and there won't be that underlying resentment, but in other ways, you pity the fool who is with him. But you analyse that person to the nth degree, as if you were dating them, because you only want the best person to be there for your children.

And you do the same when you search for a mate... you are critical, look for every little sign that screams at you telling you something's not right, you question things, you demand honesty and it's really hard to allow yourself the freedom to actually enjoy someone's company without thinking 'is this person going to be good for my kids as well as for me?' And they maybe awesome for your kids, but lacking things for you, and then you struggle with 'settling' all over again. You don't want that...

But all in all, all you want is to ensure your children and in a safe, loving environment. You don't want animosity, you want fairness in everything - responsibility, finances, love and commitment to and for your children. And if this new person comes in demanding a new set of stakes, then the war starts all over again, and that's when the fairness goes out the window. Oh, the heartache...

The unhappily married man...

When I split with my husband, I played with the anonymous internet dating websites. It wasn't that I was attracted to one status of man over another, however I managed to have the more interesting conversations with 'unhappily married men.'

Most of the men had been in their relationships, marriages, for fifteen plus years, but even though they were unhappy, they would prefer to have intimate conversation with a stranger than tell their fears and passions to their wives. But they wouldn't dare leave their wives, they wanted the unhappiness to continue, because they were too gutless to start a new life with shared custody of the kids, alimony, child support and a chance to find true happiness.

As I go through the turmoil of financial separation, child custody and the constant uneasiness of the whole situation, you can understand why it's hard for them to leave. Being the main bread-winner of a family is the worst position to be in in a family separation, and most of these men are in this position. The Family Court in Australia does not acknowledge that the other partner has a university degree, has the ability to make a decent income but doesn't because they want to persecute their former partner by making them pay for everything for the term of their children's childhood, and the Family Court expects that every each person in the relationship must live the same lifestyle they were accustomed to in the marriage. How is that actually ever possible?

So these men feel trapped in their marriages, trapped in an unhappiness of nagging, lost sexual appetites, routine and nothing to look forward to. So they get lost in their work, their kid's sporting activities while the conversations they have with their wives are monotonous and argumentative.

In Australia, the statistics are 60% of all marriages are broken up because the wife chooses to leave, with most wives knowing that they will be significantly worse off financially, 35% of all marriages are broken up as a joint decision, and only 5% of marriage failures are men leaving their marriages. I'm sure the statistics are similar in other westernised countries, however their seems to be harsher penalties for men who don't live up to their family responsibilities, including jail in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Beyond Blue, Australia's main charity for depression, states that one of the symptoms of depression is living in a long-term abusive or uncaring relationship. So you can understand why these men stay in their demoralising marriages, become depressed and start to cheat to make themselves feel desirable again. They choose between going down the spiralling vortex into a deeper depression, or find a new happy place to ensure they don't become depressed.  I'm not saying that I agree with what they do, I just can understand how they get there... because I was the main breadwinner in my marriage, I was treated with no respect and I was constantly demoralised, and some how I thought that the Family Court would commend me for being the financially responsible one and for being the parent who stuck by my children when their father didn't want to spend time with them or contact them. But they don't.

So behind all the walls of illusion, there are probably many unhappy marriages between your friends and family, most that go unspoken. But if you really care about your friend or family member and notice a change in their behaviour, change in their attitude or change in how they interact with their partner, be the best friend you can be, and just ask them how things are going, show that you care. Because talking about it is the first step to future happiness.