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Wow, this dude....
My wife and I were married for a decade and always talked about having kids. I never felt ready, and we were on a tight budget and I figured it would come together eventually. In 2015, when she was 38 and I was 40, we divorced after a kid ultimatum.
Fast forward to today, we’re both remarried, and she has two kids. I try to stay cordial because we have mutual friends, but I just found out she has a nanny! After all her claims that we could “make child care work” on our small budget, she’s using the most expensive option, and all her conversations with our mutual friends about “finding parenting to be incredibly fulfilling most times” are lies—she’s not even the one raising these kids if the nanny has them all day when she’s at work.
I’m so angry at her, and I feel like every time I have to hear about her kids, I get angrier. This is made worse by the fact that I didn’t want to have a “kids?” ultimatum again, so I married a woman who doesn’t want them, but now I think about having a kid every time I see pictures of my ex’s toddlers on social media. I can’t tell whether it’s real or out of jealousy. What do I do?
—Conflicted
I think you need to deal with your anger and unresolved issues around your divorce, not pursue parenthood in a deeply misguided attempt to prove to your ex that you’re “better” than she is at something you never felt ready to do in the first place. Whether or not to have kids with your new wife is ultimately a conversation to have with your new wife, but I’d venture to guess that you probably don’t really want kids so much as you want to judge and show up your ex-wife! You are no longer married to this person. You’ve both remarried. You should not be fixating on her (perfectly fine) decision to pay for child care so she can work, or using it as an excuse to condemn her—something you are obviously all too eager to do. Stop obsessing over your ex and her family, stop discussing her with mutual friends, unfollow her on social media, and deal with your own issues. What you’re doing is really unhealthy and unfair to all involved, and it needs to stop.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/12/christmas-cancellation-blame-game-care-and-feeding.html
Fast forward to today, we’re both remarried, and she has two kids. I try to stay cordial because we have mutual friends, but I just found out she has a nanny! After all her claims that we could “make child care work” on our small budget, she’s using the most expensive option, and all her conversations with our mutual friends about “finding parenting to be incredibly fulfilling most times” are lies—she’s not even the one raising these kids if the nanny has them all day when she’s at work.
I’m so angry at her, and I feel like every time I have to hear about her kids, I get angrier. This is made worse by the fact that I didn’t want to have a “kids?” ultimatum again, so I married a woman who doesn’t want them, but now I think about having a kid every time I see pictures of my ex’s toddlers on social media. I can’t tell whether it’s real or out of jealousy. What do I do?
—Conflicted
I think you need to deal with your anger and unresolved issues around your divorce, not pursue parenthood in a deeply misguided attempt to prove to your ex that you’re “better” than she is at something you never felt ready to do in the first place. Whether or not to have kids with your new wife is ultimately a conversation to have with your new wife, but I’d venture to guess that you probably don’t really want kids so much as you want to judge and show up your ex-wife! You are no longer married to this person. You’ve both remarried. You should not be fixating on her (perfectly fine) decision to pay for child care so she can work, or using it as an excuse to condemn her—something you are obviously all too eager to do. Stop obsessing over your ex and her family, stop discussing her with mutual friends, unfollow her on social media, and deal with your own issues. What you’re doing is really unhealthy and unfair to all involved, and it needs to stop.
https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/12/christmas-cancellation-blame-game-care-and-feeding.html
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1. Using childcare does not mean you aren't raising your own kids. If it did, then logically we'd have to say that only stay-at-home parents are raising their own kids, and their gainfully employed partners aren't.
2. I really, really, really hope one of their mutual friends clues this woman into the fact that her ex is stalking her and creepily obsessed with her children. She needs to block him everywhere, and she can't do that if she doesn't know.
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I wonder what he's telling No 2 they can't possibly afford? Or what other aspects of No 1's lifestyle he is bitterly envying?
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