Her ex-husband has two kids, one with her and one with the woman he had an affair with. Because of this, she wants her child to have a healthy relationship with their sibling. But the other woman doesn’t want their kids to have a relationship.
Is there anything our listener can do to change her mind?
Good Morning Bert Show,
I have been a long time listener and hope I can get some advice on a difficult problem.
The backstory:
In 2018, me and my then husband had just had our daughter. Then about 6 months later, he started seeing one of his old friends from high school and they started an affair. When our daughter was 8 months old, I found out about the affair and gave him the ultimatum of me and our baby or the affair partner. He chose the affair partner, and our daughter and I moved to my parents. My ex would see our daughter twice a week for a few hours. I was able to keep our daughter from meeting the affair partner for a while with the stipulation in our custody agreement (the affair partner had some past issues and it scared me having her around our baby).
I figured the world was done throwing curve balls, but then 7 months into our separation (our state requires one year separation before you can divorce), my ex tells me that he got the affair partner pregnant. I laughed because the reason he started the affair is because he wasn’t a fan of being a dad. So yay Karma?
Their baby boy was born April 2020 and our divorce happened in June 2020. Since the birth, I have tried to be friendly and promote a relationship between the kids. One day the affair partner and I got into a verbal argument because my ex wanted to stop paying for daycare and suggested that his girlfriend (the Affair Partner) watch our child. I told him absolutely not, that I don’t trust her with our child alone, and that maybe if I get to know her, I might change my mind, and just because she wants to be a stay at home mom and he doesn’t want to pay child support, that isn’t a reason to pull our daughter out of daycare.
Well, she didn’t like that and hasn’t spoken to me since. Now my ex has our daughter every other weekend for a few hours and he does the visits at his mom’s house so my daughter never sees her half brother.
I tried reaching out to offer for her half brother and that side to go trick or treating for Halloween and was shot down. I still send Christmas gifts and birthday gifts for my daughter’s half sibling from our daughter, but it just doesn’t seem to help. Is there anything I can do to help my daughter have a relationship with her half sibling? I have been told by my support groups that it’s up to my ex to fix it, but all he says is it’s between the moms and that he is staying out of it.