Hi Kat...I decided to come over to your thread for a response.
I'm just about crying to read what is going on here. But sadly, I've seen this type of thing before.
In my own case, maybe because I am a mommy or maybe because I am a child of divorce, I just never ever put my own selfish stuff before my kids'. I always made sure their needs came first, and their needs included my TIME alone with them, my attention, my adoration on THEM, etc.
Sadly, when I was married, I also put their need ahead of my ex-h's needs, that was one of my biggest marital mistakes. But my point is that even though I used to be a cheater, it didn't make me also become a bad parent. I don't think the two things go hand in hand in all cases, but maybe I am more of an exception. Maybe most cheaters have other flaws that will cause them to not be great parents.
My ex-h has lots of siblings, and a couple of them began affairs, left their wives, and then married their affair partner. My ex-h's parents were never divorced, so when his brothers left their wives, they had no experience with divorce. BOTH of the brothers said many things like "oh the kids will be just fine, what's the difference to them as long as I am happy?" And when confronted with the fact that the rest of the family was not going to be happy that they ditched our beautiful sister-in-laws to hook up with these skanks, their response was "but its MY family, they will stand by ME".
They were both wrong. The entire family hated their new skanks (and yes, that is actually what they called these new wives, LOL!) The family stood behind the ex-sister-in-laws. Their kids were not "just fine". All of the kids are grown now and having lots of issues. They did grow up fine in some ways, their mothers made sure of that. But they basically lost their fathers to a skank. There is no way that this cannot be traumatic to a child, boy or girl, no matter what age! Even a divorce where there is not a new partner involved is hard enough...but to throw this on the pile is just devastating to a child. I don't envy your position, because you will be the one who gets to deal with the kids' issues as they move through life and never really get over what their father did to them....
So my ex-h came from this dysfunctional, non-divorced family which LOOKED like the perfect Brady Bunch picture. But it wasn't. And his brothers actions really proved that to me. My own ex-h, well he was no saint either. He was behind in his child support when I met him, and I should have known what this would mean to me as his wife...yet I was only 19 at the time I met him and bought his lame excuses for being late on the support. What a champ. In hindsight, that was all I ever needed to know about him.
I know I was the one who cheated, but seriously, there are many things that he did to me and to our children that I don't drum on about very much in public forums. This is because I still have respect for him as our children's parent and I still hope for the best for him. But honestly, no one in my family nor any of my friends ever felt he was a good father or even a good person. I know that's no reason to cheat, but I'm just saying that it wasn't like he didn't contribute to our problems in a much bigger way than I normally disclose.
I wanted to say too that I have been where you are with the bankruptcy, and it was horrid. I was married at the time and my ex-h didn't do anything to help me with it, just stood back and watched me deal with it all and pretended it didn't affect him. Thanks, ex-h, for letting me do all the hard work, once again. But hang in there Kat, it DOES actually get better once the thing is filed and done.
So in closing, all I can say is that - thanks to your ex-h and his new skank - you have a future full of kids having issues on your hands. I will pray for all of you. Eventually it will be better than now, but there will always be things in your kids' minds and hearts that can't be erased.
If one day you meet a new man that you feel is worthy of marriage, I will pray that he can be a father figure in a healthy way to them! That has been one big blessing from my finally leaving my ex-h....I met the man of my dreams who ALSO ended up finishing raising my son with me. His own father abandoned him, apparently to punish me?, but his new step-father is more of a man than his father ever was, and my son actually DOES say this out loud to me now....one day your kids will tell you straight to your face that they now understand what you went through, what their father did to them and to you, and they will appreciate you directly for how you've handled it all.
