My marriage ended in a flaming pile of shit, fueled (unbeknownst to me at the time) by a mistress I had no knowledge of. Hindsight 20/20 and I should have know. All my friends seemed to. The mistresses was a “lifelong” lesbian prior to meeting my husband and was in a 14 year relationship with a woman with whom she shared a child. The affair was discovered by her former “wife” and broke up their family a whole year before I had a clue anything was wrong with my own marriage.
So fast forward to today, or yesterday rather, as I was catching up with my Dr. Phil recordings. I am entertained by this show for reasons I can’t explain. Even tho I think he can be a giant dick sometimes. He’s all about getting the exes and currents to work together as one big extended family without regard to the pain and suffering one may have caused the other. “Put the kids first” he likes to say. Well, I’m sure that’s what all these mistresses do when they go gunning for the demise of their adultering lover’s families. That being said, I handled the situation terribly.
I forgive myself for a lot of things. The ex and the mistress were evil to the core when the time came to close up shop on this marriage. They made it clear that she wasn’t just after the husband. She wanted the electronics, house and kids along with. And they weren’t above ANYTHING to get what they want. They’d blow up my phone with the most sadistic messages that seemed to have the only goal of trying to get me to jump off the roof. She got him his lawyer, orchestrated him clearing out my house while I was away, and encouraged him to try to declare me incompetent in order to get custody and avoid paying child support. Throughout the process I never said a word to her. Even when she served me papers on his behalf to take me back to court to have child support reduced (after I won full custody).
She’s had at my life more than any stranger should have a right to. So I don’t need to work with her to co-parent my children, thank you very much. Not even after she became their new stepmom and gave birth to their sister.
I’m not saying I didn’t make mistakes. I could have reacted a WHOLE lot better when my daughter announced that daddy’s new homewrecking whore asked her to call her “mom”. Katy deserved a more adult response than the requirement that she now call me “Ms. Callaghan” until I was convinced she got that absurd horseshit out of her head. I leveled her to tears with that one and I’m sorry for it. (Hey, this blog is called “Guilty Parent” for a reason.)
Still, now that the dust has settled, I see no reason to ever have a relationship with that woman. She only has very limited access to my children anyway, and I think I’ve earned the right for total separation and equal disregard. Sorry if you disagree Dr. Phil.