Surprised at my reaction to seeing ex with new baby.

[StephandOwen]

Ex has a new wife and baby (born over the summer). Great for him Ex's wife has a website for the baby where she posts pictures and updates and such. She added me as a part of that, so that ds can see his half brother growing up (since he will prolly only see him a couple times a year). Again- great. I have no problem with this.

But I am totally surprised at my reaction to seeing pictures of ex with the baby. When ds was a baby- ex wanted nothing to do with him. He never held him, changed a diaper, bathed him, looked at him. Nothing. There was one time when the garbage needed to be taken out and ex was refusing to do it. So I handed him ds (who was just a couple weeks old at the time) so that I could run the garbage outside. I can back inside to muffled screaming. I ran into our bedroom and found ds face-down on an air mattress, screaming his little head off while ex sat on a chair in the bedroom playing a video game.

I am glad this new baby is getting attention/affection from his dad. I am glad ex seems to have grown up somewhat. That's all great. But the more I see pictures of him with the baby the more it pisses me off that my ds missed out on that AND STILL IS! Apparently he's grown up enough to have at least something to do with this new baby, but not enough to actually be a part of ds's life (he's skipped the visit right before Christmas, skipped the Thanksgiving visit and 2 out of 3 visits on Halloween, hasn't seen ds since Halloween, doesn't call to talk to him or check on him or anything). He still won't respond to my texts (the only way he'll communicate with me) to tell me his addy so I can send him a letter with the dates for 2010 visits.

At this point I just wish ex would disappear completely. DP does a fabulous job with ds. I really couldn't ask for more. DS loves him to pieces and fully believes that dp is his dad (we've tried to explain that he has another dad too but he won't believe it). It just pisses me off that someone can sit there and totally ignore the fact that they have another child. If Owen were different, that might actually hurt him. Fortunately ds doesn't care about ex one bit, never asks about him, doesn't believe he's his dad, really doesn't care at all if we visit him or not, etc.

[waterproofmascara]

I am not surprised by your reaction- I feel the same way! My exh wanted me to have an abortion when I got pregnant with dd (now 8) because he didn't want any more children (he had 2, I had 1). I of course never even considered that, and we divorced soon after dd was born.

He remarried a much younger woman (he is late 40's, she is early 20's) and they now have a son that is 1. DD goes to visit eoweekend and still gets left out. She has to sleep on the couch, or on a mattress in the baby's room. Exh doesn't have clothes for her to wear or toys for her to play with b/c he can't afford them. I could go on and on. Basically, she is still left out of his life even though she is there eoweekend.

It just pisses me off to no end when she comes home with the stories of his new loving family, of which she plays little or no role other than babysitting while the adults go outside to smoke. He of course fancies himself the perfect dad, but she has started questioning if she has to go, and is calling me to come and get her earlier every weekend.

[racheepoo]

I'm so sorry. I fear this will happen in our case, too. Pill is already almost 6...it's going to hurt if his dad starts a new family. But I can't do anything but love him through it.

[Sagesgirl]

Oh, I think it's perfectly reasonable you feel that way. I'm certain I would too, and my ex has always been a pretty good dad. Can't give you any advice, just a little validation. Given the way he always treated your son, I reckon your reaction is the proper one, really. Hope you can come to a place of peace soon.

[Annie Mac]

One thing to remember is that you are just seeing photos of him with this child. It's easy enough to present a picture of an integrated family and a perfect dad when you only have to post photos...and you don't even have to post them all! You can edit them! And you're not going to take pictures of him ignoring his new child. Obviously, the best thing would be if he were there at least for the new child (maybe he can even learn from this one, and apply his new knowledge to your son), but chances are he hasn't changed much in his day-to-day life, unless he's undergone some serious introspection. I think if he had, you'd see him behaving differently towards his first child as well.

I just found out that my daughter's father (she's grown now) who had next to nothing to do with her while she was growing up, has another child on the way. He has a much younger gf. She's in her 20s, he's in his 40s. Mostly, I just feel sympathetic toward her, and hope that he will actually assume some responsibility this time. They both work in a field that would be impossible to continue with a child, so I assume she will be depending on him not only emotionally, but financially as well. I mean, I hope he's manned up enough over the years, but to be honest, I have seen no indications of that at all.

[Holland73]

Originally Posted by Annie Mac

One thing to remember is that you are just seeing photos of him with this child. It's easy enough to present a picture of an integrated family and a perfect dad when you only have to post photos...and you don't even have to post them all! You can edit them! And you're not going to take pictures of him ignoring his new child.

I remember feeling the same exact way when X and his dw had their baby and I saw the pictures.

Well... I also knew some of what was going on behind the scenes of their family and the pictures were not representative of any of that. You just don't know what is going on behind the scenes.

And, I agree with Annie Mac:

but chances are he hasn't changed much in his day-to-day life, unless he's undergone some serious introspection. I think if he had, you'd see him behaving differently towards his first child as well.

[StephandOwen]

Originally Posted by waterproofmascara

My exh wanted me to have an abortion when I got pregnant with dd (now 8) because he didn't want any more children (he had 2, I had 1). I of course never even considered that, and we divorced soon after dd was born.

That is almost the exact same as our situation, except neither of us had kids. He wanted an abortion, I refused. I left him when ds was less than 2 months old.

Originally Posted by Annie Mac

One thing to remember is that you are just seeing photos of him with this child. It's easy enough to present a picture of an integrated family and a perfect dad when you only have to post photos

Very true. I have no idea what happens in their house. All I know is that if you just count the pictures she's posted of ex holding the baby and assume those are the ONLY times he's held the baby (which I know isn't true because he's held the baby during ds's visits too), he's still held the baby more in the past 5 months of that babies life than he has in the last 6 years of ds's life. I have 1 picture of ds with ex and that was the day he was born and only because he was forced to either pick up ds and pose for a quick picture or look like a fool for telling the nurse no and not picking up the baby.

[lilyka]

Originally Posted by Annie Mac

One thing to remember is that you are just seeing photos of him with this child. It's easy enough to present a picture of an integrated family and a perfect dad when you only have to post photos..

So true. If you were to just judge my xh by the pictures I had you would think he was a tuned in devoted loving Dad. and that i was an absent parent. But the truth is that a) I was usually the one taking pictures and it was such a rare moment that he was actually with the family or interacting with the children that I felt it was a picture worthy moment. Going to the park or the pool with daddy was an event worth packing up the camera for. We have tons of pictures of us camping, at the pool, at the park, on a vacation at my moms and at his families cabin. seriously, albums full. each of those things happened about twice in the 12 years we parented together and most of those pictures are of my oldest. I have almost no pictures of him with the other two because he simply was never around.

I really really hope he does not have children with his girlfriend. It would crush me on so many levels (it was a huge factor in our divorce - the fact that he hated me more every time i got pregnant, never spent time with the kids unless he was parading them around in front of his girlfriend, etc) and it would crush the children. They know he left us for her. So many issues there.

[Bad Mama Jama]

that just irritates the hell out of me. i cannot see it. in one aspect it is good to see that he has somewhat grown up between children, however, it irks me that he has never had that aha! moment to take care of Owen (who existed long before this). that is so frustrating, Steph, and no one can fault you for that.

[NolaRiordan]

I'm not surprised at your reaction. I have had similar feelings. My X hasn't had a new baby but he's spending an awful lot of time with his GF's kids and doing things with them he NEVER did with our kids. It makes me angry, and so heart broken for my kids. And there's a sense of grief for myself as well. I feel like he is being the partner and dad for her that I wanted him to be for me, and he couldn't.