My bad choices from the past aren’t my husband’s fault, they’re my ex-husband’s fault. But they shouldn’t interfere in my new marriage.
The way in which my current husband is impacted by my ex-husband, he may as well have been married to my him, too. My continuous fight with my ex over custody issues with our kids spills over into my life with my new husband, regardless of how hard I work to keep that from happening. Because of this, it becomes my new husband’s fight, too.
The problems with this are many, but one thing I know is that I don’t want my ex to have ANY part of my new marriage. I don’t want so much as his name mentioned in my house because of the negative energy it brings with it, but I have to admit that sometimes it’s a real struggle to keep him out of my new marriage. The days that his name isn’t mentioned are some of the happiest we have. Less stress for sure.
While my husband has been my main support in my fight with my ex since we began dating over 8 years ago, I foresaw that discussing the issues I was having with my ex might eventually take a toll on our marriage. Rather than continuing to turn to my husband for support over every little issue my ex and I were having, as I often did via email, text, or in person, I changed directions and sought out the help of a therapist. I still needed to vent, and I thought if I could get out my frustrations in my therapy sessions while getting co-parenting advice from her, it would be a win-win. And it was. I had my outlet to vent, talk, cry about the issues my ex presented, his name was no longer mentioned in our house, and my husband and I could focus our attention solely on “our life.” Peace.
But as we know with all roller coaster rides, the ups are eventually met with downs. I was served with papers from my ex’s attorney because he didn’t want to pay me child support any longer. A 2-year court battle ensued, and once again, these issues became the main discussion topic between my husband and me. It took over our lives, in fact, it became my full-time job. And during all of this, we were starting and raising our young family, while attempting to co-parent my older kids. The lines were blurry once again and the tension around the house was felt. As much as I wanted to pretend that the negative energy wasn’t real, it was. So back to therapy I went.
And I recommend it because it really did help a lot to keep unnecessary discussions, frustrations, etc. out of my current marriage. When my ex is mentioned in my house, my ex wins. If I can avoid such talk, he doesn’t win. He’s trying to be a wedge in my current marriage because of his disdain for me, and I can’t allow him to be apart of my marriage. He already ruined my first marriage. And as much as he would love to, I refuse to allow him to come between my husband and me.
My bad choices from the past aren’t my husband’s fault, they’re my ex-husband’s fault. And while my husband knew what he was signing up for when he married me, he doesn’t deserve his life to revolve around some jerk who likes to harass his ex-wife. The guilt I carry hurts me because it hurts my husband because I brought this baggage into my perfectly wonderful and amazing marriage to my perfectly wonderful and amazing husband. In the back of my mind, I wonder how peaceful and simple our lives would be if my ex weren’t such a jerk, if he even had a clue how to co-parent effectively, to be rational. Yet, I know that will never happen, so I must strive to thrive and survive with each of these men who are in my life. And with each day, I just hope to figure out how to do it better than the day before.
I could have written this myself. Best of luck to you both.
They are your fault too. You married him….what was the good reason for the divorce? You remarried to satisfy your selfish desires, and not just focus on your children who lost their dad because of you.