CS, I agree all of this is fracked up. I agree determining where your legal obligations are very important. I can only imagine the drama and pain you feel.
Putting these aside for a minute let us realize your daughter will have a half sibling in about 8 months. For a child as young as she is that is pretty exciting. How the adults around her react to her excitement is important. The child itself is innocent and deserving of love. They are close enough in age they will be playmates for a time. There is time to think about how you’ll handle this new person in your daughters life. Even though it is very early I bring it up now b/c none of us knows with certainty where we will be tomorrow let alone a few years from now. Months from now please remember this child is innocent.
I’ll provide an example of why I am going here. One of my SILs was married with three children. She and my BIL divorced for a variety of reasons some of them IMO very justified, none of them IMO beyond growing out of. After about a year they were discussing a reconciliation and MC when she became pregnant. The child is of mixed race, a deal breaker for my BIL to ever have any type of relationship with him.
The first ten years or so of this now young mans life were hell principally b/c of the prejudices placed in his three older sisters minds by my BIL. The eldest blamed him for the failure of her mother and father to reconcile. The youngest three yrs at the time climbed into his crib and bit him a couple of times a month for months.
He graduates HS next year. My BIL will not speak cordially about or to him. His half sisters and he now have a much better relationship. He has had his struggles, and I wonder how much better his life could have been if the resentment and sometimes hatred had not been directed at him.
BITS Me 55, ACK, when did that happen? Doesn't feel like 55 D 30 S 27
You create your own universe as you go along - Winston Churchill
