Ex and His Affair Partner Just Had a Baby. Ouch.
She’s moved on with her life, but her ex just had a baby with his affair partner/now wife. Why does this news hurt so bad?
***
Dear Chump Lady,
It’s been nearly eight years since D-Day and why does it still hurt so bad?
During my daughter’s first year of life (she’s nearly nine now), I made discoveries of the affair. This resulted in a lot of pick-me-dancing, disingenuous (from his side) marriage counseling and all of the trauma that comes with that.
He eventually left me for his 25-year-old affair partner.
We were in our 30s and he would say things like ‘You’re just not spontaneous anymore.’ (Kind of hard to be spontaneous when someone has to look after our baby while he is out doing tequila shots at the bar with her.)
Anyway, two years ago, we both remarried. (Him to AP and me to a wonderful man). In no way do I want to be with FW, but I’m having trouble trusting that they both suck. So, of course the thoughts of how ‘happy’ they are as a married couple began popping into my head. Maybe I was the problem all along?
Also, within the last year, they had a baby.
I’m happily one and done, so am in no way envious of the baby situation, but I can’t help but feel resentful of her getting all of the things I never had when my baby was young.
I was discovering text messages and late-night meet ups with ‘the guys’ on sleepless nights. I was taking my baby to the park alone, looking longingly at couples with their kids and feeling depressed. She seems to get the ‘new and improved’, more mature version of him who is too tired to go out for tequila shots.
A photo popped up on social media the other day from the baby class group I used to attend and there she was with her baby, beaming away. She could care less that when I was at those classes all those years ago with my baby, she was texting my husband and making googly eyes at him at work.
I thought by now the karma bus would have arrived and I previously considered myself at Meh, but this new baby has opened up old wounds.
Why does it still hurt so bad?
Sincerely,
Not Spontaneous
****
Dear Not Spontaneous (and Also No Longer Married to a FW),
It hurts because your ex just created Family 2.0, thereby underscoring your obsolescence, so of course all those feelings are stirred up now. You’re grieving not just your own history of the pick me dance, but are probably wondering how your daughter is going to navigate this half-sibling situation.
If you feel like you weren’t good enough, imagine how she feels. Dad’s got a new child. She was the baby that Failed To Enchant.
All of this hurts like hell if you work from the assumption that the validation of FW’s matters.
It. Does. Not. Matter.
You’re a complete family minus a FW. You moved on, found love again, rebuilt your life. This is winning.
During my daughter’s first year of life (she’s nearly nine now), I made discoveries of the affair. This resulted in a lot of pick-me-dancing, disingenuous (from his side) marriage counseling and all of the trauma that comes with that.
How incredibly traumatic. Look what you bounced back from! You’re having a wobble. Would you ever, in a million years want to live in that nightmare with that man? The deception? The devaluing?
THAT IS WHO HE IS.
He doesn’t get to erase that stain from his character. Nor does it sound like he’s tried. Instead, he’s just rebooted with a piss-for-character idiot. What a terrible foundation for a relationship. She can’t un-know that he’s an abandoner. (Dance, Dance, Dance!) He can’t un-know that she’s a thirsty sidepiece. And now they’ve involved an innocent baby.
We were in our 30s and he would say things like ‘You’re just not spontaneous anymore.’ (Kind of hard to be spontaneous when someone has to look after our baby while he is out doing tequila shots at the bar with her.)
Nine years ago you were in your 30s, so now you’re in your 40s. How that spontaneity working for him? How’s his liver?
Anyway, two years ago, we both remarried. (Him to AP and me to a wonderful man). In no way do I want to be with FW, but I’m having trouble trusting that they both suck.
Trust that they suck.
This is a person who would rather be out drinking than bonding with his newborn.
They suck.
So, of course the thoughts of how ‘happy’ they are as a married couple began popping into my head. Maybe I was the problem all along?
You have no idea if they’re happy or unhappy. What we do know is that neither of them are very deep. So on the off chance that Mr. and Mrs. Tequila Shot are living in bliss, it’s a shallow bliss. These are superficial people. Because if they had integrity, they would’ve behaved ethically. He was able to cheat and drink and enjoy himself when you were at your most vulnerable. And she was the stupid Schmoopie who deluded herself into thinking his bad character was irrelevant compared to her magnificence.
He would never have abandoned his family, EXCEPT THAT SHE’S SPECIAL.
But no one is special to a FW. Not you, not her, not the children.
And you’re buying into it too. I wasn’t special! I’m the problem here!
Why would you do that to yourself? Look at the evidence! Did YOU abandon a baby for a f*ckbuddy?
These are simply terrible people. Sadly, there are a lot of them in the world. Cheats, suck-ups, enablers.
She seems to get the ‘new and improved’, more mature version of him who is too tired to go out for tequila shots.
You have zero evidence of this. He got her pregnant. Requires almost zero effort. Showing up is the hard part, and you have no idea what the karma bus could do next.
Don’t confuse being older with being more mature. Ask a bazillion of us how we know. Maybe he pours the tequila in his orange juice now.
You left the cheater and gained the life.
Don’t look back.
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Not Spontaneous,
Your Ex-FW’s AP didn’t win a better version of him than you had, just one that got better at image management. Be confident that, sooner or later, he will do to her what he did to you.
I’d also suggest (gently) that you focus on what you do have and not the FW that is now someone else’s problem; it sounds like you have built a better life for yourself if only you could see it.
LFTT
I have remarried and last night we talking about Bell Burden’s book “Strangers”. It has stirred up a lot about her divorce and given her some new perspectives. Her FW was financially irresponsible resulting in her constantly working to dig them out of debt holes. He was an indifferent father, leaving their four sons with deep emotional scars. He was absorbed in his “hobbies” that too, him away from the home that resulted in a ramshackled property and relationship. He just ran away from all these issues to a woman who was compliant but incompetent. They went bankrupt in a couple years, moved out of state and left us with phone calls from bill collectors. My wife recalled life and divorce as very painful, but ultimately was grateful the OW “Took him off my hands and now she has to deal with all that shit!”
I’ve been meaning to read this book as I keep seeing it recommended!
You are so strong for surviving what you went through, whilst raising your daughter, and I am so pleased to hear that you found love again. It is a huge trauma, and it was never something wrong with you, but a reflection of his selfish ugly ways. I believe there are people who are capable of cheating, and people who are not, and if you cheat once you will cheat again. I know I could never cheat on someone, even if I did not love them, because I couldn’t hurt someone like that.
Unfortunately, I can relate to your situation. My husband left me when our baby was three months old after I discovered he was having an affair with a female friend during my pregnancy and postpartum. He withdrew affection after I gave birth, so I knew something was up, but it was a shock as we had only recently married, and he always presented himself as having good morals and would be disgusted by people who cheated. My son is now 12 months old, and I am starting to feel stronger and rebuild a life that I am happy with. But it’s tough, and I still feel violated that they were having an affair right under my nose (she came round and held my newborn as a ‘friend’) whilst I was so vulnerable. And I feel sad sometimes when I see my friends raising children with loving involved partners, or hear people talking about their supportive partners at toddler groups. I am lucky to have a wonderful village of family and friends who have carried me through the tough times. And I can see him for who he is now, after 8 months of him showing no empathy, remorse, or accountability, and bullying me to try and get me to give in to 50/50 custody and overnights before I think our son is ready (I am still breastfeeding!). And I see that he made me insecure crossing boundaries with her for their many years of ‘friendship’. I recently found out that they are now in a relationship which hurt and knocked me back a bit.
My son couldn’t be more loved by me and my family and friends. I hope I can teach him kindness and empathy so he turns out good, not like FW.
Stories like yours give me hope that I will find love one day. You are so strong, hang in there, this storm will pass too.
‘Not Spontaneous’ here. I was surprised to find out that cheating is incredibly common when a woman is pregnant and a baby is born. It especially triggers the trauma response in women because they’re at their most vulnerable after giving birth and most susceptible to danger back in the caveman days.
In modern western societies we often have little other support than our partners and if they abandon us, we often have no one around. I was essentially left on my own in a foreign country. Luckily my ex in-laws were not total assholes and really supported me (although they are also in touch with FW).
You will survive too and can one day build the family life that you wanted, even if it wasn’t the one you originally pictured.
“…and there she was with her baby, beaming away.”. First, don’t look at social media, where the bitch is likely to turn up. Second, don’t assume that because she was ‘ beaming away’ that means everything’s just fine. Social media photos are fairytale, deliberately curated stuff, and bear no reality to what’s actually going on. You’ve made a good life, you’re happy with a good husband and a lovely daughter. Don’t go dipping back into a septic tank. x
Yes, I’m normally really good about not looking at their social media pages (maybe looked once or twice in nearly nine years) which I credit with keeping myself relatively sane. This was another group, which is why it caught me off guard.
There’s been quite a bit of research over the past fifteen years reporting that cheaters as well as their voluntary affair partners (clinically referred to as “mate poachers”) statistically tend to be high in “dark triad” traits related to personality disorder, particularly psychopathy. Then even more recent research argues that the “dark triad” concept should be amended to include sadism and be referred to as the “dark tetrad.”
Obviously you don’t need to be a social scientist to know that sounds ominous. And one of the reasons the science rings true to me is that I once worked in the world’s most FW- and narc-laden industry and have never, ever encountered a cheater or-called mate poacher who wasn’t a walking abortion: mean, sleazy, pathologically empty, incapable of true intimacy or self-reflection, always interpersonally destructive if not outright violent (including the women) and, last but not least, the furthest thing from happy.
Bottom line, I think these people are all of the above because they are incapable of joy (due to pathological emptiness) and so have to settle for the thrill of domination and glee of betrayal (made possible by sadism). But those vicious little “highs” which are typically at the expense of others are always followed by an even louder howl of wind in their cavernous souls so this is nothing akin to contentment and happiness.
Anyway, there’s zero chance in hell that your ex and the individual who gleefully assisted his destructive behavior are going to be “happy” together. They will of course exude this on Instagram but behind the scenes, they will be each other’s punishment. But if you still feel like getting depressed about something, think about what that poor misbegotten kid is facing and how, in the likely scenario that this child ends up as sketchy and disordered as its parents, you’re going to protect your own child from a delinquent half sib. It’s basically all the more reason to model gray rock and eventual NC because your daughter may have to one day employ that strategy for her own emotional (and possibly financial and physical) safety.
If that seems like a terrible thing to project about a newborn, consider also the possibility that your projections of glowing family unity and happiness for your ex and his partner in crime are just a side effect of a rather sweet but naive hope for the best for their child. You are a chump, after all– i.e., a nice, square person who puts children first– which makes it hard to wrap your head around evil. You shouldn’t have to change your moral wiring but maybe tweak things a little so you hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Yes, my ex was somewhere in the spectrum of “dark triad” with a side of sadism, if you will. There was nothing to salvage with him, and I was able to configure the settlement so that ongoing contact wasn’t required. The kids were older, and I was all business during closeout, hoping he would eventually see me as a hard target and let go. He did when he finally got into a more long-term relationship. As we say in the south, “Bless her heart.”
I’ve seen how these new pairings go down in flames later. If you have two disordered people, order is not magically going to be the result of their pairing, particularly if they have a baby. Not that we wish anyone such chaos, but we need to keep it as an observation of how life goes down.
With a kid in common, you will come across aspects of your former partner’s life that you really don’t want to know about. Well, OK, but don’t look for it. Focus on the current chapter of your life and minimize him where you can.
You can’t lose something you never had in the first place.
He wasn’t a good husband or father to you and your child back then, and clearly he wasn’t willing to put in the time and effort to remake himself while remaining married to you, so the new, improved him that you believe the AP got was never in the cards for you anyway. It’s hard to accept that we weren’t important enough to them for them to put in the work, but the truth is that (assuming they have changed, which is a big assumption in and of itself) if they weren’t willing to change for us then the new, improved version was never offered to us and we didn’t “lose” it in any real sense.
My personal suspicion is that they’re unable or unwilling to confront the flaws in the marriage (theirs, ours, the marriage’s) because they lack the necessary character (dedication, honesty, vulnerability, empathy, generosity) so they prefer to nuke the marriage and start afresh with a blank slate. Without the ability to address problems the slate doesn’t stay blank for long, but we don’t see it. I mean, she successfully hid her discontent from me from the inside while we were married; why would I ever know what’s going on now from the outside?
I know it’s kind of cold consolation to think “I wasn’t worth working on the marriage” but remember what your marriage was like at the time and ask yourself “would I want that marriage again?”, because that’s the marriage you would have now if you’d stayed – not the (probably mostly fictional anyway) new marriage that you see your ex has now.