I tend to agree with you about how often women who should be on the same side end up bashing each other, but where did this come from?

"You can bet it is a male in there somewhere calling the shots. "

I went to high school. I know how capable girls are of being horridly mean to each other without some man 'calling the shots'.

Colleen,

I dont know what is meant by "intiated by females". Yes, technically I filed for divorce after X had affair (I didn't, although he apparently told people I did) and after he told me to move out. But you got me, I did file the papers.

Even if Dad's SO hadnt had an affair with him, she has shown herself to be such a money grubber (quit her job months after moving in with him, not making effort to find another) that even he is now constantly fighting with her over it (as per DD).

I even doubt this woman will be around 5 years from now, but she has shown herself to have no integrity.

Ahhh, the child spy.... just like my SD tells her mom how DH & I fight a lot when she interprets a discussion with different points of view as a fight. (we've never had a 'fight' and only one real argument in the car where we stopped talking until we got back home so we could discuss it in private) I guess she could interpret that argument as a fight where she may have thought we were so mad we weren't talking to each other. But the truth is, we have previously agreed that we won't argue in front of the kids. We wait until we are alone in our room or outside.

Whether she volunteers information or BM is prying, she is relying on second hand information which isn't always reliable. And it is even sadder because it's a mother allowing or putting her child in the middle of adult issues.

She is not a spy and she is 16, she can tell the difference between fighting and not fighting. And considering how little she sees of Dad and SO, you would think they could stop the arguing in front of her.

I have been hearing for over a year how the GF's days are numbered!!!

She just might be "temporary" addition but she still has an impact on your daughter's life.... and I would say dad's job takes him away from daughter more than the GF does ... So who is to blame for him not seeing his daughter? the gf, the job or HIM????

I don't put much weight on fighting. bunch of couples don't fight because they have no emotional connection whatsoever. My parents fought like crazy when they were younger but they have a good marriage and fighting actually ended with age. Their fighting was mainly due to my dad's craziness not marital problems. ha They had no intentions to divorce.

is it possible that some men like a woman not working? My parents always complain how my SIl doesn't work, but it was mianly my brother's decsions for her to stay home. he liked her not to work. But it does look like she is lazy from outside.

arguing in front of the children is so very wrong. Unfortunatelly I grew up seeing a lot of that. DD, who grew up not seeing adults fighting, was in schock when she was 5-6 and my parents fought in front of her. She came up to my dad and said: "grandpa, what is wrong with you? why are you raising your voice? and what you said wasn't nice, go apologize to grandma and no more fighting." lol. She physically pushed him to go apologize. and he did. It is a favorite family story. ha

I would give her 5 years (estimate).

Of course she has an influence. My DD says she wants to make certain she has a career and doesnt just sponge off of a man.

Who to blame, well if she hadnt been sleeping with a married man, who knows what would have happened. Not to say not his fault too

I don't care who took the first step, it takes two to end a marriage. I never blame anyone, even a cheater because you don't know what drove the person to cheat. Both of my sister's husbands were ****s and I don't blame her at all for cheating on the first one and eventually divorcing him. My other sister's husband cheated on her and eventually divorced her. I don't blame him.... I can't get along with her and I don't see her but once or twice a year. I always felt sorry for him while he was married to her. I would never cheat and thats not just because I am a moral person, but because I don't like trouble. If I was unhappy I would have just left him and then found someone new.

Well said jonesy!! I have mentioned the idea on other threads that it usually takes two to mess up a marriage. And I get tired of hearing one person play the victim role because they were cheated on, many times there were problems in the marriage that lead to the cheating. Sometimes it is because one partner is not sexual enough, emotional enough, or around enough for the other partner. That lack of closeness leads to the cheating!

I remember a friend crying over the fact that her husband had an affair. Then she mentioned that it had been 6 months since they had been intimate! DUH!!! She said he had tried to initiate it and she was just always tired or not in the mood. While her husband was wrong for his actions, she did help push him that route.

I tried to actually be friends with my girls BioMom. Stupid me. I don't know why we hate on each other Colleen. I know in my case BioMom is one of those statistics you mentioned and hates the fact that Daddy moved on. Why would you marry someone, cheat on them, move another man into their house and then decide you still love him when he falls in love with someone else? Mind boggling. I really wanted us all to be the story book family. How naive is that? Oh well. Make the best out of a rotten situation is all you can do I guess. We won't be trading parenting secrets or going to tupperware parties together anytime soon I can assure you...

I dont have any respect for a woman who will sleep with a married man with children. If he thought the marriage was so unbearable, he should have gone for divorce.

But isn't any attention being given to the fact we live in a patriarchal society. Children are undervalued as are women, and instead of focusing our "fight" on the real enemy we devalue each other.

Sometimes it almost seems to me kkny that you get it, but then you retreat into this nonsense again. Instead of focusing your attention on the real wrong doer you focus it on the woman.

I personally don't have any respect for a man or woman who will try to steal away from a family a partner. But stop pretending it is just the female who did that. That is exactly what the male wants you to do.

Take up and stand up for the value of women and children.

I don't have any respect for someone who would sleep with a married man without children, either. Or a man who would sleep with a married woman.

There is no excuse for infidelity. None. It is always wrong.

And cheaters of either sex typically rewrite the history of the marriage. Often they even rewrite the present. I am sure everyone here is smart enough to be suspicious if some guy were to say that he and his wife were "living like roommates."

I have a lot of education in gender studies (nearly left biochemistry to do gender studies, but decided I had more opportunities in science, so took a bunch of gender studies courses for fun) but I try to keep my mouth shut about gender differences for the most part... So here's my opinions:

There are quite a few interplaying aspects to lack of respect between women and many of them have to do with how we are socialized as girls with regards to competition. In no particular order:

1) Sports and popularity: Boys have socially acceptable forms of competition available to them (baseball, grades, etc) while girls are often expected to have an "everyone's a winner" attitude in those realms. Consequently, girls are often left without a socially acceptable way of competing amongst themselves, and the need to compete surfaces in less desirable places. Girls will channel their desire to compete into arenas like popularity, appearance, romance, etc.

2) Men calling the shots: Like it or not, we still live in a patriarchy. Individual men may not be responsible, but men's ways still make the rules we have to live by. In science careers for example, the women who are seen as "successful" have usually reached that point because they conformed to the male norms, not because the system changed to be more accessible to women. So, to apply that to relationships: a woman on her own often has to conform to the male norms and may struggle with her own feminine identity, while a woman in a relationship may feel that her independence is being squashed by the heteronormative standards placed on her for being in a relationship. Each becomes a little jealous of the other and may feel as if they need to show ways that they are better, to squash that jealousy.

3) Limited resources: Throughout the kingdoms of life, right from bacteria on up, if two individuals are both in need of the same resource, and that resource is limited, there will be competition over it. Bacteria will release toxins to kill the other species in their ecological niche. Birds will snatch the young from each others nests in order to gain more resources for their own young. So when it's DH's or ExH's financial or emotional resources that are the limited resource, there gets to be some competition. Obviously we don't poison the other person by secreting toxins at them or throw their young out of a tree, but our natural instinct is to look after ourselves and our own children first. So women can get pretty fierce if they see their own wellbeing threatened.

There are a lot of other things too, but I have to go finish up an experiment now and will quit blathering gender issues.

Colleen,

With all due respect, maybe you dont get it. Both are wrongdoers. But Dad still has rights/obligations with respect to DD. His SO doesnt.

And Ceph, I make my way in the world. Dads SO doesnt.

You read in the newspapers and in novels that when someone cheats, the spouse always go after the other person instead of the husband or wife. Years ago when that was discussed, I told them I would go after my husband. He is the guilty one. LOL

"SM's who are the custodians of the children want to prove that BM is an uninvolved parent, usually alcoholic bla, bla, bla."

I don't have to prove it - CPS did that for me...

Yes, I believe we're in a patriarchal society, but is there a man at the center of every family plotting from a far and laughing maniacally while his wife/x-wife go at each other? I don't think so. In fact, I believe that men experience life at a different frequency than women so to speak. Some of the stuff we vent about or spar with the other party over is completely foreign to them. Have any of you ever had your husband look at you and go 'Why does THAT matter?' like you're from Mars on an issue? He doesn't care if she's wearing a shirt like yours, to him its just a shirt.

I can't work together with BM - she is of the opinion that if he hadn't of met me he would have eventually forgiven her for cheating on him and she could have come home and had her family back, instead he moved on - how dare I come along and date this divorced man? Pffffttt.....

If your husband had an affair thats on him, not her. If it wasn't that girl it would have been a different one.

"If it wasn't that girl it would have been a different one."

Amen to that!!!!

Sieryn and Ima, you dont know that. And even so, it would have been another person with no integrity.

Would you sleep with a married man with children?

Even if that were true, it does not absolve her of blame. And inn many cases, if it were not for that particular OW, there would not be another readily available one.

And what's this about "He doesn't care if she's wearing a shirt like yours, to him its just a shirt."

Why would anyone care if someone else were wearing the same shirt? It is just a shirt.

kkny, cheaters are cheaters. They don't have integrity. My daughter's father was a cheater and I'm sure there were many that turned him down before he met one that didn't. That's what they do. You can tell yourself that it's all her fault but he is the married man, not her. It doesn't absolve her of the blame, but she has no obligation to you and your children, he does.

You guys are kidding right?

"And inn many cases, if it were not for that particular OW, there would not be another readily available one."

"Sieryn and Ima, you dont know that. And even so, it would have been another person with no integrity."

There are a million people out there with no integrity, if a man wants 'sex' he will find it, readily available or not. Or it could have just been a means to the end of the relationship, if they're going to cheat they're going to cheat regardless of 'who' comes along, its a mindset. Would I sleep with a married man? Nope. The question should be Do all men tell women they are married with children? I think we all know the answer is 'no'. Now I'm not saying that may have been your case but it does happen. Quit being so mad at her and be mad at him, he had to take his pants off for it to happen.

Ima, That is exactly right. She has no obligation to my DD. Couldnt agree more. So why would anyone think there should be any relationship between DD and TOW.

Sieryn,

TOW met him through work. She knew he was married and had a child.

Then she has no integrity :)

I'm not sure if it was me you were addressing or not but J (the girls daddy) did not cheat on Biomom. Biomom cheated on him so he got the divorce. I met him seven months after it was finalized and we became just friends. It was months after that that anything romantic spured. Just thought it best to clear that up:)

I see now that you were talking about your own situation. Sorry. I'm new to this forum format and still haven't gotten use to the eight different conversations going on at once:)

Don't worry Doodle, you will get the hang of it. :)

You remind me so much of myself 10 years ago. Dh and his ex married due to pregnancy off a post break up "hook up", had an admittedly bad and angry 2 years of marriage, decided to divorce, she moved hours away with their daughter, each started dating. Suddenly ex decided they needed to try again. DH refused, divorce was done. Enter me, who wanted the same fairy tale. I was gung ho to be a great step mom, BM's best bud and have us all raise SD together. Side note - I have known DH and his ex since days after they married and ex and I got along fine until I started dating her ex husband. Fast forward past YEARS of ugliness, a custody fight which DH won (and that made everything 1000 times worse) so much hatred, venom, and competition - all shared with SD by her mom - until the last 4 months when she seems to have reached a place where she can *handle* me and my role in her daughter's life. True we have had these breakthroughs periodically in the past and they have never lasted, but this is the longest one and I'm hoping it lasts. I've never given up all hope of us being friends and raising my SD together.

You have a big heart that is in the right place. This is all still fresh and new to everyone. My well learned advice is baby steps. Don't go for the fairy tale right now - just aim for one good day, and then the next good day. All things with time . . . .

Oh Martha I still don't know how you pull it off...every conversation I had with BM started with 'Your husband is an [random insult] because [insert complaint]' I can't imagine what it would be like to actually have the 'co-parenting' situation.

Trust me Sieryn, I had my fair share of those. DH had even more with her that started out "your wife is a . . . because . . . and because . . . and because . . . and because . . . ."

I am so happy to say it is the biggest relief I have ever felt - I think more than *finally* giving birth to each of the 9.5lb babies I carried around for 9 months! :-) I have put so much heart and hurt into trying to work with her and actually be friends that seeing it get somewhere - albeit years later - makes my heart feel so much lighter. I've grown up a bit and realized we won't be the friends I had hoped for, but I think we now have the potential to be good co-parents. Hey - I'll take it! Beggars can't be choosers!!

Everyone has an obligation to refrain from sleeping with people who are married to others, just as I have an obligation not to steal some stranger's car. Or does the golden rule only apply to your immediate family? Relatively few people who are having affairs with married men (or women) are unaware of their marital status. The vast majority know.

And car thieves know they are stealing your car and know the ramifications of doing so but do it anyway.

The husband knows he is married when he is sleeping with another woman.

Even if the other person does or doesn't know its on the married person to uphold their "moral" obligation can't just blame the other person.

I don't take what isn't mine ... and I certainly wouldn't give away something that belonged to another.

Cawfe, I am not certain I understand you entirely, but I am not saying X is without blame. I am saying that his SO, who has no rights and obligations with regard to DD, is not to be respected, and has only herself to blame if she doesnt end up with the "blended" family she evidently wanted/expected.

The original question was such a good one...
Why can't we go back to it?

It is the same situation. I have no kids of my own so it makes it worse because Biomom is so scared I am trying to take her place with the girls. I just love tham and want to help out. Daddy NEEDS the help. He is so tired all the time working two jobs and having the girls all the time. I'm hoping hoping that one day she will be over any bitterness she feels and then things will be smooth. Right now we can't even switch the girls off on saturday (BioMom gets them one day a week by her own accord) without some ridiculous control point coming up. It really wears me out. We manage to pretty much keep the girls shielded from it but it is no less exhausting to the adults involved. I mentioned by her own accord because I don't want anyone thinking J or myself would EVER try and keep the girls from their mother. She has just chosen to keep them as little as possible. I guess 24 hours a week is all she needs in order to feel she has filled her "duties". It'll all get easier though. I have faith:)

Well, in my case, the X is SO self-righteous. She is NEVER wrong. In the past, I've banished these sorts of people from my life when I can. There is no way I could ever be "buddies" with my husband's X. I'd rather jump off a bridge.