OurPath Open Forum

This Open Forum is funded and administered by OurPath, Inc., (formerly the Straight Spouse Network). OurPath is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides support to Straight Partners and Partners of Trans People who have discovered that their partner is LGBT+. Your contribution, no matter how small, helps us provide our community with this space for discussion and connection.


BE A DONOR >>>


You are not logged in. Would you like to login or register?



February 14, 2020 3:14 pm  #1


What is best for the kids???

Right now, my extremely closeted GIDH is pretending to be the best dad in the world. Helping with dishes, homework, laundry... he’s coming up with fun things to do with the kids, fun family vacations etc. Due to 21 years of lies and emotional abuse, I want OUT. And my counselor asks me if I’d rather my kids see a horribly neglectful (of me) relationship demonstrated for them, or see an example of me taking care of myself and maybe developing a genuinely loving relationship someday.
My biggest problem is that divorce in my state would probably end up giving us 50/50, and I KNOW he would use his time to bribe and spoil them and make me the bad guy. He won’t push them to do what’s healthy long term for them (he’s only helping with homework because in the here and now it looks good and he still is trying to get me to stay) he is always buying new video games for them instead of having them read books etc...
He’s never kept up the pretense of being super dad this long before. Psychologically it’s getting to me because if only he would keep this up, it seems like I would be evil to break the family apart. The littlest ones love getting he and I to hug them at the same time, the older ones desperately want the security of being free to stay at home or come back home as needed as they each turn 18...
If it was only me, I would have left so long ago. My health has gone downhill. I need out. When I am alone, I am so darn happy. But none of my kiddos have a clue, most of them have some unique needs, and I’m terrified it will destroy their lives if I break up the family.

Side note: way back before we were ever engaged and still just friends, my then-26yr old GIDH started grooming me (17yr old) about what great parents we would be, how much fun we would have with kids, and how he will never divorce because divorce is so evil. I feel like I have been the victim of a very long con.

 

February 14, 2020 3:24 pm  #2


Re: What is best for the kids???

I think you need to do what's best for you which will also be what's best for them. Like you said, he can't keep up the act forever. Also, sounds like your kids are older...they arent stupid. You really cant buy someone's love. They will eventually see through all of that. Especially if you are honest with them about why you are leaving. I also understand that its wayyy easier said than done. But like you said, the stress is getting to you. Do you want them to see a happy mommy or a sick grumpy miserable mommy? How do you want to be remembered? The pain of divorce is temporary but the courage you will show them will last forever. I'm also getting a divorce but my kids are young. I personally KNOW that I should be happy which is why I must get divorced. If you stay, you are going to feel like you lived all this time in second place and resent it more. Best wishes and Ehugs.

 

February 14, 2020 10:01 pm  #3


Re: What is best for the kids???

Kids are very resilient. They also are highly perceptive. They will figure things out long before you are ready to explain it to them. My now 15-year old daughter has been telling me for 2 years that I need not stay in this marriage. She said that I do not need to stay in this relationship on her account. She encouraged me to leave the marriage and endure some "short term pain for long term gain" and move toward a happier life. My wife had an affair with a man to try to prove to herself and me that she is straight. That was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. I just couldn't take any more abuse and said enough is enough.

I'm now in the divorce process and should be done with it in the next 60-90 days. My wife moved out and has her own place now but my kids don't want much of anything to do with her. I have been functioning as a single parent for so long that when my wife moved out, nothing really changed. My kids have told me that they are much happier now.

 

February 15, 2020 4:43 am  #4


Re: What is best for the kids???

Wow...I couldn't resist commenting on your subject it is SO familiar with something I'm going through right now. Unfortunately I don't personally have any helpful answers yet because I'm still in the middle of it all struggling with what kind of boundaries or agreement I need to set between me and my soon-to-be EGH. He does mostly the same thing when they're around my kids, 7 year old son & 6 year old daughter.

He continuously lied and betrayed me and never really think it was such a bad thing and he always talked to me as if I was the problem, I was the cause of all these stress he was experiencing blah blah blah. I'm sure you've been treated something similar as mine too.

I wanted to shift this marriage relationship to the reliable & trustworthy friendship so that will make things easier to communicate and support each other on being a good parents for our kids. We talked and agreed on that and I was aware that also requires a lot of efforts, well it was obviously only me that was taking that conversation seriously. He thinks he can get the fun part with the kids with NO efforts put in his own actions. So he kept lying. Now I don't trust him ever again, and I don't see him keeping any of his words even if he come to agreement on parenting. So that is making things harder to decide or start negotiating with him with the conditions. So I do feel how you feel....it is such a pain in the ass!

 

February 15, 2020 9:57 am  #5


Re: What is best for the kids???

OneDayAtaTime,  

 Your husband is engaged in a kind of "trauma bonding."  It's abusive, not a sign that he's a good dad.  It's similar to what an abusive spouse does when he hits his wife and then apologizes or treats her well for a period of time, before the cycle of violence ramps up again.  As you yourself say, he is usually distant, and you know that once you are re-secured he will revert back to his old behavior.  He's willig to use your children to work on your sympathies, which is despicable.  Your husband is going to harm them whether he's living with them or has them 50% of the time.  All you can do is model being the sane and reliable parent, and leaving him models self respect to your children. 

We teach by example.  My mother, for instance, stayed with my physically and emotionally abusive father for 30 years, even after I pulled him off her when he had her down on the floor choking her (I was about 12 or 13 at the tiem).  At that time, I told her she needed to leave.  I wanted her to be safe.  I wanted to be safe, and I wanted her to act to ensure my safety.  She didn't.  I have no doubt that I learned by her example, and it's one reason I stayed with my now-ex as long as I did.  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (February 15, 2020 10:07 am)

 

February 15, 2020 10:01 pm  #6


Re: What is best for the kids???

Oneday,

So even if you divorce and he has the kids 50 percent of the time....he can be super dad in that 50 percent..he has to be.    Kids just want a mom and dad.    My kids are much happier with two houses vs one toxic house.     I have no control over what their mother tells them about me and I dont want to know.  
I'll say this;  my kids know exactly who to call when they need empathy or a calm caring ear..    My kids get a  safe, sane and un-abused dad now.    They see me more happy and still fiercely loyal and loving to them.   
Don't let his  sudden love bombing and family guy persona fool you..   Some here will say oh it wont last.   Im here to tell you he may also be deciding that is his solution...his solution  to the way he treated you.  His solution to everything.     But he is not a god, or omnipotent being..  these spouse do not get to decide what is best for us...they think they do but they do not.     


"For we walk by faith, not by sight .."  2Corinthians 5:7
 

February 16, 2020 1:24 pm  #7


Re: What is best for the kids???

Kids spot a fake a mile away. I knew the fake relatives from the genuine when I was a kid. They sound like they are teens and at this point they are working to be independent  from parents and spending time with friends.  It might be too little too late for your H to play nice guy all of a sudden.

I wanted to throw another term out there that may have some bearing to our situation. I too wonder why I stayed so long with my disordered husband. There is something called Stockholm Syndrome. This term was coined in the early 1970s about captives during a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden who defended their captors, the armed bank robbers. I identify with this. It may help someone else. 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201203/what-underlies-stockholm-syndrome


No - It's not too late. It's not hopeless. Even there, there's something I can do. I just have to find the will. Ikiru (1952), film directed by Akira Kurosawa 
 

March 4, 2020 10:46 pm  #8


Re: What is best for the kids???

Thank you so much, I really appreciate all of you, and am thankful for your replies and insight. I feel like it’s so hard to keep a solid grasp of reality, so I read and re-read your messages to stay sane. It’s psychologically the hardest thing I’ve ever done, trying to have boundaries in this limbo time while I get ready to separate. I can’t speak openly with him, because he is going to be very cruel and vindictive. I have to prepare first. I’m trying to grow my business so that no matter what he does to me during the divorce process, I can still take care of the kids and myself. I also need to get him to move our family to a more populated area. The kids have all sorts of social needs that we’re too far away from, and I need to be way closer to my business. But he won’t move unless we are buying.. I tried to convince him to rent down there and he’s not going for it. I’m sure he wants to buy a house together so I’ll be more locked in and divorce is harder.
Outofhiscloset, you are totally right about the example that we give our kids being important. After you told me your history with your mom, I was lying on the couch one day, so devastated by all this that I just felt like giving up and dying, and it hit me. That’s exactly what my mom did. She literally just gave up and died because my dad was so psychopathically abusive. And it has affected me so badly it’s my instinct in a way, to just lie there and die if the man who was supposed to love me and cherish me has chosen instead to abuse and use me. So thank you, it makes me so much more aware that the example I choose to set for my kids can literally be the difference between life and death.
And that goes hand in hand with Rob saying these toxic people do not get to choose for us. Thank you for that reminder. I was raised to be an extremely submissive wife, which I was to the point of allowing myself to be abused in every possible way, in so many nightmarish situations. It’s a horrifying thing to have given up total control to another person, when that person has no real love and no lines he won’t cross in pursuit of his own pleasure.
And MJM, I think you’re totally right, I do have a sort of Stockholm syndrome. I was very isolated, for a very long time, with my husband being the only adult I would see, sometimes for weeks at a time while I was home raising the babies. I’m fascinated/ horrified at the way I observe my (conditioned) self responding to him, accommodating him... he has this thing where he doesn’t talk, but he makes me create all the conversation. I will get in trouble if I don’t, he will be upset if I’m not cheerful. He even has this thing where he makes a small hum sound and I’m supposed to look at him and smile. I’ve stopped that. It’s shocking I never noticed all of it before...

     Thread Starter
 

Board footera

 

Powered by Boardhost. Create a Free Forum