Lies and Deceit

[Suzy Q946]

Hello I need some advice and I am hoping somone out there rather than family or friends can assist, since their advice can be bias....I recently left my Husband after 21 years of being together, we share a 20 year old son....things have been on a downturn for about 5 years due to lies he told me and secrets from his past.... Prior to meeting me he had an affair with a married woman....she got pregnant told him the child was her husbands he then left the US and came here...after almost 21 years this woman contacted his mother through a mutual friend and told her , her son was the father of her child....my Husband left for the US, communicated with her for almost 5 months took a DNA test and did not tell me what he was doing...he flew his daughter and her mother here to stay at his sisters house and lied to my son and me....in a nutshell my son is devasted about all of this.... I only found out when I came across the phones bills and saw all the longdistance charges...his explanation was he was confused and did not know how to handle it....now he has stopped talking to the child and her mother and he has started visting chat lines and calling up spas and call girls, when I asked him about it he says he did it for a friend......the condo we lived in together is on his name alone since I really did not want to have any ties with him after his betrayal financial..... when I left him 4 months ago I left everything..got myself an apartment furnished it and left...the issue I am dealing with right now is I do not love him.... but it bothers me when he starts bad mouthing me with his siblings and mother who are not my favorite people in the world.... my son has overheard them talking about me and had a huge blow up with his dad already...his father sibling has insulted my son and his father just defended them saying it was a joke...it hurts my son when he has to listen to his father saying bad things about me.... on several occasions I have called them all and told them to stop it...with no luck..... mutual friends are meeting and telling me what they are doing...my question is should I continue to defend my name or just leave them alone..... I honestly think my ex keeps doing this cause he knows he is pissing me off and trying to get my attention..... my son spends 4 days with me and 3 days with his dad...not sure how long he will continue with this cause he is a 3rd year university student...... recently my husband went away and took his car keys with him...so my son was using my car to go to his house to look after the pets and the house....even taking the bus...he took this vacation knowing fully well I was also on vacation that week and had plans.....when my son is not with me I use that has me time....when he is here I use that as his and my time..... I need advice to undertand should I allow these people to get to me...like this...should I encorage my son to stay with me fulltime...he views his father as similar to Hannibal Lector....I have worked very hard to keep my son on the straight and would hate for all this negative energy and his father's nasty ways to rub off on him...I am sorry this is so long but I wanted to give all information as possible

[j-siewert]

My advice is to take the higher ground. Forgive your husband for his trespasses, ignore the bad mouthing from people you do not need in your life and encourage your son to forgive his father.

Move on with your life and don't pay his shenanigans any mind: I agree with you; it seems your husband is doing this to piss you off - so ignore it and move on. Your husband will bad mouth you so long he knows it bothers you; this is his way of dealing with his own pain (stupid but...well...human).

It boils down to sticks and stones, really - see him for being a person who is in pain and choose not to let that pain affect you. As for your friends, well -- if they have a lick of sense, they will find it is hard to take anyone serious who bad mouths a person who is being so grown up.

Take the time and resources you need to stop feeling betrayed and hurt. The title you chose for this posting says a lot about how you are feeling - you sound very angry still with a person whose relationship you've formally terminated. I'm not saying you do not have the right to be angry - I just don't think it will benefit you to stay angry and screw up your own life.

Move on at a determined pace. Otherwise, you run the risk of entering a circle of harming - you hurt your ex, he hurts you, so and so and so on...and all three of you (you, your son and his dad) pays the price for it. Break the circle by taking the higher ground - be the adult where others choose not to be.

DO NOT encourage your son to view his dad as Hannibal Lector - counter that because your son will not benefit from losing his dad. Encourage your son to love his father and forgive his dad for being human; this way your son will learn so see the mistakes his dad made, try to avoid them himself, and still love his father -- which is very important for males. Also, your son does hve a new half-sister, and family is in the end the only precious thing that we have - try and hang on to the silver lining as much as possible.

Find your own path and let go of the crap that has happened; it is over now, for the most part, and the only thing that dredges it up is how you choose to see it.

[Suzy Q946]

Thank you so much for your advice..yes you are right I am angry but the anger is slowly going away...It is only human when I have sacrificed so much for this relationship it just hurts....but the right approach it is over now and time to move on life is to short and the best is yet to come.

[princess punkin]

Your boy is old enough to make his own decisions. Your husband is making a name for himself in your son's eyes. It is going to hurt your son more in the end with your husband being the immature ______ (put whatever you want there). Maybe explain that to your husband that in the end the person the hurts the most is your son when he hears his dad and family members talk like that. If he is talking bad about you and your son or yourself aren't there, no damage done. I think he's just mad at himself mostly but is lashing out and looking for someone else to blame or get angry with.

Make it your son's decision on whether or not he wants to spend time with his father. In time your husband will see that he is spending less time with him and will want to know why. This may backfire some and think you are putting things in your son's head but if you and your son explains that it is all the negative talking he may see what he is going wrong. Don't say anything bad about him but if it were my kid I wouldn't be engouraging him to spend time with his dad. This is what I am doing right now...I ask my son if he is going to his dad's. My ex has made a lot of mistakes when it came to both me and my son so I don't push the issue of him going to his dad's. I would never tell him not to go unless something made me think it was not safe for him to go there.

[Chatty Cat]

I agree with the other posters that you should ignore what your ex and his family are saying and doing. And you should make it clear to your friends that you are no longer interested in being kept informed. You're only adding to the gossip by listening and reacting anyways. If any of your friends refuse to respect your wishes and insist on divulging hurtful or enraging info then you should ditch the friend(s).

You shouldn't take any actions to turn your son against your ex, but you also don't have to sweep your ex's bad behaviour under the rug either. It's good for your son to learn that there are consequences to bad behaviour and that forgiveness shouldn't be confused with condoning the behaviour. I don't believe in writing off behaviour of as human. Yes to err is human, but when you err, there should be remorse and reparation.

I understand the way pride may have motivated you to leave everything to your ex, but you should consult a lawyer to see about getting your share of the marital assets. Why should you alone suffer financially as the result of his bad behaviour? He should be getting hit in the wallet as well. I'm mean it's not like he's learning a painful lesson right now, is he? He's acting like an ass and is enjoy all of the creature comforts your 20 years together accumulated.

Get yours and get going!!

[j-siewert]

[Chatty Cat]

J-siewart: Why would you quote me, misinterpret me and then repeat my argument like it was something you came up with?

You need to work on your reading comprehension skills.

Consequences, remorse and reparation do not necessarily equal revenge and that is not what I said at all.

I said there are consequences to mistakes. If you wrong someone, it's not right to just walk away from it without acknowledging that you have wronged someone and ideally, making some kind of reparation where possible. That has nothing to do with revenge. It has to do with respecting yourself and the people around you enough to accept responsibility for your mistakes rather than just coping out with "to err is human" so I'm not accountable for my actions.

If that means revenge to you, well that's your personal take on it, NOT MINE!!

I'd appreciate you speaking for yourself and NOT FOR ME in future!

[j-siewert]

It appears you could benefit with your own advice re: reading comprehension. I would also follow your own so politely worded advice about speaking for oneself and not for another. Notice that I have no need to use capital letters and exclamation points to make myself understood.

I never said that the wrong-doer should just chalk their experiences up to 'being human' and not be accountable; what I wrote is that the wronged person, in order to forgive, should understand that people make mistakes and to forgive them for being imperfect goes along way towards resolving the problem. I also wanted to clarify that forgiveness does not mean sweeping under the rug as was implied. Two different concepts.

I hope that these points have now been clearly made.

My advice remains the same: sticks and stones, forgive a person for their trespasses, let go of the idea that a mistake must have consequences (which is not an easy concept to understand) and to set the past in the past.

And to that the OP should ensure she seeks legal advice for her divorce settlement too.

[j-siewert]

Chatty Cat:

[Suzy Q946]

Thanks everyone for your advice...it is most appreciated

[Chatty Cat]

J-siewart: I previously suggested that you were illiterate, but now I realize that your real problem is that your logical reasoning skills are quite defective.

In THIS thread, I was encouraging the OP to teach her son about ACCOUNTABILITY.
You went and used my quote as a stepping stone to lecture on the evils of revenge, because you are a self righteous and pompous azz who can't interpret my comments correctly.
I then asked you to please make your points in future without using quotes of mine in an incorrect fashion.

(yes, I use capital letters and exclamation points for EMPHASIS! Oh, the joy of expressive writing! Weeeee!)

In response to this, you have wasted a lot of time tracking down a quote of mine where I express enthusiasm for revenge. Sadly, in your defective logic, you think this means I have contradicted myself.

(Wow!! It must really suck to have your defective thought processes!)


Let's walk through it and see how your little mind is not working right:

Your defective logic has caused you to think that

because

I was irritated that you used my quote about ACCOUNTABILITY to launch your lecture about REVENGE

therefore

I am against vengence. ???????????

UH OH!! LOGIC DEFECT!!

Sorry, the fact that I didn't like how you misused my words is no reflection of my feelings about revenge. That's why I re-interated that I was discussing accountability and not revenge - that's it. That's all I said. Nowhere did I provide you with any opinions about revenge.

therefore

I have not contradicted myself by enthusiastically endorsing revenge on another thread about another topic.


Poor J-siewart: Since you have shown such a vapid interest in my views on these topics, let's discuss my comments from those two different threads again.

This time I'll demonstrate how they are related using logical reasoning that is not defective.

I think people should be accountable for their actions and that the best people are those that are willing to hold themselves accountable.
The best way to show that you are holding yourself accountable is to acknowledge your wrongdoing, express real remorse and try to make amends. That's a sign of real character! And that's what I encouraged the OP of THIS thread to teach her son.

My comments from the OTHER thread were directed to all the azzhats out there who refuse to hold themselves accountable for their wrongdoings and how awesome it can be when someone else holds them accountable (or in other words revenge)!

You see J-Siewart my comments are related, but not contradictory. And that's how logic works!! Weeeee!!


Now that I have diagnosed your problem, I hope that you will be able to find a remedy, although I have heard that you can't cure stupid.

Get Well Soon!!

[ChattysGuy]

You go girl!!!