I am struggling with the kids and their involvement with affair partner. If anyone on here has experience with this, I would love some advice.
I have experience with it, my son was 9 and my D's were 14 and 17 when my ex left and when she started bringing OM into their lives. Here is my advice- do nothing. Unless there is something wrong with OM (mean/ abusive/ etc.) then let it be. I assure you, your kids are going to give your W plenty of grief for it. I never said a thing to my ex (still W at the time), but man I heard stories from my kids and from my ex about convos that were taking place and wow, they did not mince words, LOL! Especially D14, she really let my ex have it. Anyway as a result of the kids my ex started bringing OM around less and less. Eventually they broke up. Just worry about making yourself the better choice, the spouse only a fool would leave.
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To me, STBXW is sick in the head for bringing him to pick up the kids. And also sick to be involving them in her affair.
Not at all. She just thinks she's madly in love and she wants him to be part of her family. Is she rushing things along too quickly? Oh yes, she absolutely is because she doesn't realize it but she's still firmly in the infatuation stage. Once it passes she may discover she really doesn't love him. But she's not "sick in the head" and as long as you think like that it will manifest itself in your interactions with her in ways you can't predict.
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This all started while still married.
I think it's Cadet that says "most people are divorced at BD, they just don't know it yet." The piece of paper that says you're married is really just a legal document. If you think about it, you're not really married anymore except on paper. That's not to say you can't have a relationship with your W at some point in the future, but your old M is dead and gone.
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These kids had hope that their mom would come home and were thrown into a relationship with a stranger and his daughter.
Yes, and the kids will resent her for it. But that's between them and her. If they talk to you about it you should do two things- 1) validate their feelings (that's not agreeing or disagreeing with anything they say about your W, it's just acknowledging their feelings) and 2) reassure them that no matter what, you and your W both love them very much and will always be there for them. DO NOT try to use them as tools to send a message to your W or teach her a lesson, it won't work and it will harm the kids.
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I am also dealing with STBXW parents putting everything on me.
Blood is thicker than water. In times like this, the family will ALWAYS rally behind their own. Don't take it personally, it's just an unfortunate byproduct of what we're going through.
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It baffles me about the amount of pain all our kids have to go through and these wayward spouses don't care.
Oh they care, they care a lot more than the LBS realizes. WAS's punish themselves constantly about what they're doing. They just don't show it openly. She is in a lot of pain right now. Try to be mindful of that in how you treat her. She's suffering, you can easily make it better or make it worse.
