Setting boundaries when husband cheats with baby mama?
Forums:
Once a spouse cheats with their baby mama, what boundaries are reasonable to set going forward? I have read different articles and there are so many opinions about it. No communication? Limited? No boundaries? Texting only? Emails only? Communication through a middle man? There are so many conflicting ideas about it and I just wanna hear from other step moms! The twins are 7.
Hahahahahahahahahaha OMG
Hahahahahahahahahaha OMG award to OP for lowest self esteem EVER.
Harsh yes, but totally
Harsh yes, but totally necessary. OP needs a wake up call. I don't think subtle hints and hand holding are what they need right now.
And it is a forum... if she is so determined to stay with a cheater than she will ignore my comment away anyhow and carry on trying to chase a man who doesn't love her in order to feed whatever damaged need or belief she has inside.
Instead if wasting time
Instead if wasting time trying to figure how to keep your husband out of BM's bed, why you don't love/respect yourself enough to kick them both out of your life? What woman wants to spend the rest of her life babysitting her husbands?
BM will always know she can have your husband any time she wants him. She will view you as weak and desperate for putting with a man you treated you this way.
Exactly. Why would you WANT
Exactly.
Why would you WANT a man of such poor integrity?
And do you *really* tell yourself he will never do it again? Really?
Are you one of those women who blame the other woman for "seducing him"? Oh please.
He's a cheater. He showed you that. If you want to stay, then by all means stay. But know he's a cheater and accept that he will always have a side piece, and that the place you chose in his life was to turn a blind eye and shut up.
Or, you can stand up and leave for someone with some character.
All the women on the planet
All the women on the planet to cheat with, he picks BM. As if cheating wasn't bad enough. He had goes and pick the one woman who he knows will have a field day rubbing this in the OP's face. He gave the one person who most likely didn't respect their marriage, the green light to continue doing just that. Hell, he made it clear to her that he doesn't respect his wife or the marriage.
^^ That. ^^
I agree with everyone here.
I agree with everyone here. I'd leave him and not put yourself with constant torture, trying to "babysit" his and her interactions. You deserve better - anyone deserves better than that!
I'm generally a pretty
I'm generally a pretty forgiving person and usually give people a second chance (but no third chances). But my husband knows that if he has any sort of affair with BM then our relationship will be irreconcilable.
If you are more generous than me then you need to work out what you are comfortable with. I have seen another SM on here insist that all communication is via email and that she have full access to the email address, I don't remember if she had any other stipulations. That was when she thought that her partner was having an emotional affair with BM, I don't remember if she found out if he was actually sleeping with her.
Agree; it may depend on why
Agree; it may depend on why and how it happened. Where you separated, for example? If you weren't, I would divorce him; a betrayal is already hard enough to "digest" without a child to remind me of it for the rest of my life. But it's YOUR life, not mine, so it's your choice.
To clarify, this incident
To clarify, this incident happened very early in our relationship (2 years ago, & we had only dated 2 months) when hadn't made any serious commitments (ie. Living together, engaged, etc). He did not sleep with her, it was just an emotional thing (she definitely let me know about it, assuming we were serious) and he claimed it was the only way to see them. They had no custody agreement then, so she basically ran the show. I decided to move forward with him and we both said we wanted to get serious with each other. Since then, he has given me no reason to doubt him. They have been in non stop custody battles and their hate for each other is very apparent (she even tells the kids she hates him and I). He has kept it to email only, to make me feel more at ease, and to make it easier to print things for court. She is insisting on texting or talking on the phone now though, so he can't print things, and claims he is failing to properly communicate, by only using email. I don't see it that way, because all matters are discussed and if it's an emergency, she can call. I just want to know if I'm being unreasonable about not wanting them to text or talk on the phone. Im not worried about her in the least bit... A lot has come to light about her in the past 2 years, and I know he would never do anything with her again. I just feel like it's a respect thing towards me, since it already did happen.
Thanks for making things
Thanks for making things clear: knowing myself, I would have done the same thing, so I fully understand you. Nevertheless, I think that contact should be strictly by email or text (it's also written and you can see it as well as an email; in addtion, he may choose not to reply). Phone talks or chats over a cup of coffee?? No way in F!%#&# hell!
I think I've heard that you
I think I've heard that you can get apps that will let you download text logs so that you can record them and print them out. Otherwise he can block her from sending messages to him and then not answer the phone when she calls and let it go to voicemail. He listens to it, if it is an emergency he can respond, if not just ignore. If she phones too much he can block her from calling too or get a restraining order or modify the court order to restrict them to communicating only via email. Many people on here have done it.
There are programs that load
There are programs that load and print texts. He purchased that but during their heated convos, it would jumble the texts that were sent during the same minute. He hates confrontation so he opted to change his #, give her mine for emergencies and communicate via email only. This definitely prevented or lessened her from starting arguments. I just know how I feel about the situation and with her threats of saying he isn't communicating properly since its email only, I wanted input to see if I was being unreasonable. Good to know others share my feelings, and that other men have decided to use email only, without facing penalties for it.
Yep, it has even been ordered
Yep, it has even been ordered by judges. You might also want to look into using "our family wizard" (google it). That is often also used when there are communication issues, many people find it useful. Again, this has been court ordered before as well.
She is just manipulative and
She is just manipulative and starts drama. Plus she tried faking texts from him by changing someone's name to his name in her phone. She then had a convo with this person and screen shotted it. Then went into her contact info and did a screen shot of his acual info. But never removed his name and let the convo show just his #, because it wasn't him. She's pretty insane. That's why he switched to email only, because she can't try to fake that and cause doubt in court. And they were never married... She was a fuck buddy gone wrong.
I think that
even if you remove the fact that bm and your man had an affair, you still need to set boundaries. I believe all blended families should have boundaries. I think if you are dealing with a manipulative person it's not unfair to go ahead and block all social media contact, use a 3rd party email system such as "talking parent" and make it known via email that the only time a phone number is to be utilized is in the case of emergency or a pickup change that has to happen right away. Ignore all other contact. She is a power hungry person and if you don't feed into that, she doesn't know what to do.