Dear Prudence: My Late Husband’s Mistress Wants Our Kids to Be Friends.

[minoanmiss]

While I was pregnant, my husband had an affair with a co-worker, “Missy.” There was a child. I found out the truth when our son was 2 after serious money went missing out of our accounts. My husband begged to me forgive him, and I struggled to, but the reality was I was a stay-at-home mom and would be in poverty if I left. Missy figured out very quickly that the secret was out and mistook my civility for sincere friendship. She would drop off her son on a moment’s notice so the boys could “bond.” I just weathered it. Once my son was in preschool, I got a job and was taking steps to position myself in a better place, when my husband died.

At the time, I was numb and shamefully relieved. Missy’s son inherited an equal share of my husband’s life insurance policy, but the bulk of the estate came to me. I also sold our house and moved two hours away to be closer to friends. My son and I needed a clean break.

But Missy wouldn’t let go. She hounded me on social media and texted me and called me and demanded to know why I had “abandoned” them. She couldn’t find other child care and had money troubles since she lost her job. I finally told Missy to stop or I would get a restraining order. I didn’t want her in my life. If the boys wanted a relationship when they were older, they could seek each other out, but until then, no. Missy cried and said she thought we were friends. I snapped that she fucked my husband and fucked over my life, we were never and could never be friends—it was a lie Missy told herself so she would feel better about being a lying, scheming bitch. If she got in contact again, I would go to the police.

I have gotten serious grief from friends and family for cutting off Missy and her son. I spent years biting my tongue and playing nice. I am tired of it. How do I make them understand?

—Widow Wanting to Move On

I can’t believe what your husband asked of you, how he and Missy took advantage of your trapped situation, and the degree to which the dynamic has continued after his death. It sounds like a living nightmare. Your anger is justified, and it sounds like it may be amplified by grief. Even though, by the time he died, you had been shamefully treated by your husband, you married him and at one point must have had feelings for him; he’s your young son’s father. His death must have provoked an incredible storm of long-delayed emotions—including this anger, which you, a new mom, repressed out of self-preservation, and can now let out completely.

It sounds like things are at a fever pitch right now. I would recommend finding a therapist for yourself, if you don’t have one, and using those sessions to vent completely, while keeping interactions with Missy, and with your friends and family when they bring up the Missy issue, cold as ice. You know what you are going to do: cut her out of your life completely, which is your right. Just say that, as many times as is necessary, without much embellishment or heat. That’s not “playing nice,” but you’re also not giving them anything to work with. You made the decision. You’re moving on.

Comments

[sporky_rat]

Uh, was Missy completely oblivious to what usually happens when a spouse finds out the other not only had an affair, but a child was produced of it?!

To be quite honest, LW was a bloody saint for putting up with it after the child was born. (I'm not blaming the child, I am definitely blaming Husband and Missy, I mean what the actual jumping jack fuck.)

[harpers_child]

How oblivious and self-absorbed was Missy to be blindsided by this?

LW is doing the best thing. I agree she deserves therapy. I'd also evaluate those friends who are telling her to keep contact with the woman her husband cheated on her with. (While she was pregnant!)

[laurajv]

I suspect the LW's family and friends are viewing this as LW's son being cut off from his brother, after losing his father, and another young boy, through no fault of his own, ALSO losing his brother and father.

And...I'm not 100% sure they are wrong.

The kids are clearly very young and it may not matter...but it MAY. There are preschool friendships my kids lost through changing schools, and some of those kids they still miss (they are both in the preteenish area now). If LW's son is sincerely attached to his half-sibling, or vice versa, this could be compounding the trauma of losing a parent.

IOW, the LW's pov (I'm being asked to continue being kind to my husband's affair partner) and the pov of her family and friends (LW is hurting two innocent children because she is in pain) may be different. Neither is wrong.

[green_grrl]

LW seems unsure enough that I think she would have written, “Now my son is crying for his brother and I’m torn. Do I need to suck it up for his sake?” Instead she says her circle is giving her grief for cutting off Missy and her son. It almost sounds like they want her to take financial responsibility for husband’s side family.

Meanwhile, her kid’s started preschool, he’s going to be making a ton of new friends, and when he’s old enough to manage his own friend visits LW isn’t going to forbid the brothers from seeing each other. As long as he isn’t distraught at the separation, that’s as good as it gets.

[cimorene]

I'm with you. Now, it might be that there's no accessible way to navigate this while minimizing contact with Missy for her, and that she can't bear that level of emotional strain right now, and her family aren't able or willing to facilitate meeting for the kids; and in that case she might still be making a justified and necessary move. But I hope that if the kids ARE attached to each other, that she's at least given a thought to her son's point of view and how she might have been able to keep the relationship for him before discarding the idea so completely.

Her phrasing made it sound like her family's pressure is an overreaction and it doesn't mention a great deal of attachment or difficulty that her son might be having, but that could either be a reflection of reality OR a reflection of her being very stuck in her own point of view; both are completely plausible.

[green_grrl]

I finally told Missy to stop or I would get a restraining order. I didn’t want her in my life. If the boys wanted a relationship when they were older, they could seek each other out, but until then, no. Missy cried and said she thought we were friends. I snapped that she fucked my husband and fucked over my life, we were never and could never be friends—it was a lie Missy told herself so she would feel better about being a lying, scheming bitch. If she got in contact again, I would go to the police.

I think she said everything exactly right. When someone isn’t hearing your “no,” sometimes you have to leave no doubt that it’s a “hell to the fucking no.” Now that it is CRYSTAL clear, sure, just repeat the no, go to therapy, etc. But it needed to be said, for both women’s sakes.

[ashbet]

I do not blame the OP in the slightest.

[mommy]

I'm appalled at LW's friends and family. She's trying to move on from a miserable marriage and an unwanted acquaintance, so why wouldn't she cut off Missy?

[heavenscalyx]

I absolutely agree that LW needs to do whatever she needs to do for her own sanity. Moving to be closer to friends is important for support in her grief and singledom. Her son will hopefully find new friends, and maybe she could encourage him -- as she goes through therapy and he gets older -- to strike up a letter-writing relationship with his brother.

And while Missy's entitlement is appalling, I cringe at LW's phrasing that seems to blame Missy for the affair -- it seems to be a constant of straight Western culture to blame the woman for "seducing" the married man, but he was the one with all the power -- probably for both women -- and I wonder how much of Missy's mistaking LW's civility for friendship was really wanting solidarity at the bottom of the power dynamic. Dead Husband sounds like a shitful piece of work, and he was probably an ass to Missy as well as LW. (And who's to say he didn't have Yet Another Affair while Missy was pregnant?)

(I may be sensitive to this because a friend viciously blames the woman her ex cheated on her with, but now that he's married to the new woman, we know, from their kid, that he immediately started cheating on new wife. The asshole in this situation has repeatedly been her ex, and while there was clear complicity from the woman, new wife is being victimized just like my friend was.)

[melannen]

Yeah, like, given the situation Missy at least must have known he was married, but given she lost the job they were co-workers atb, I have to wonder about the power dynamic. Also it sounds like LW was actively lying to Missy about her feelings for years? I mean, from Missy's POV it's "LW was ok with the affair, and was really friendly and helpful to me! She's great!" and then as soon as LW got control of his money she laughed in her face, said it had all been a lie and cut her off.

Like. I feel for LW too, she has every right to cut her off, but they've all been kind of terrible. Mostly husband.

[minoanmiss]

I agree that people should not act as if only one partner in an affair is culpable, but I think it's a stretch to view LW as mendacious rather than trying to survive. As she points out, if she had broken her marriage right then (either by leaving or by acting upset and thus prompting her husband to abandon her) she would have been unemployed with a baby. I think taking LW's lack of visible fury as actual friendliness rather than graciousness was a bit self-serving of Missy, considering how unfree LW's choices were at that moment.

[melannen]

Yeah, like I said, LW is totally within her rights here, but I can see why Missy wouldn't have taken it well.

[lemonsharks]

I am not poly at all but back when I was exploring that possibility in my early 20s, I decided that if I was to date anyone who had a partner, that meeting the partner early on was an absolute necessity.

I know that some folks have a don't ask don't tell approach to polyamory. That was, however, an approach I wanted to stay far, far away from even at my poly-friendliest.

(Also I look at situations like this and think, don't date/fuck monogamously partnered people FFS. It used to come up all the time on Captain awkward and the commentariat had seemed to feel that it was ethically neutral to have an affair with a married person/that 100% of the responsibility for the affair lies with the cheating partnered person? And that is a thing I just cannot get behind from a viewpoint treating others kindly wherever possible.)

[minoanmiss]

I know that some folks have a don't ask don't tell approach to polyamory. That was, however, an approach I wanted to stay far, far away from even at my poly-friendliest.

I don't know Every Poly Person Ever, but in my experience not that many of the people whom I've known who have long-term relationships do things in a DADT way. Most people I've known (and I'm like this too) want our partners to at least have met and somewhat approved of each other.

TBH, I don't think a man having an affair during his wife's pregnancy is as much abut being poly as about the "no sauna" effect. Remember when I posted about how saunas let Finns learn that naked bodies don't all look airbrushed and makeup-ed and tucked as in porn? I wouldn't be surprised if the now-dead husband said to himself, "My wife is expanding and developing stretch marks and food aversions and all this Inconvenient Inelegant Unnatural Biological Stuff. She no longer looks Properly Slender And Cute and it's to spite me and now her body looks ugly which is totally an insult to me, so I will go have an affair with this woman over here who is behaving properly by being slender and cute." Not in so many words, but you know what I mean.

[laurajv]

I mean -- for example, my father's one affair partner, M., was told (by him) that he and his wife (my mother) were in the process of separation (they were not). And from her information & point of view, she never actually found out differently from anyone until a decade later -- because my mom kicked him out when she found out, he moved in with M., told my mother he'd kill her if she asked for a divorce (my father! what a charming human being!), and told M. he was divorced and wasn't ready to get remarried.

M. found out the truth when he started cheating on HER with R., and she called my mother to ask about handling my father through a split up (they had joint assets at that point, he was paying for her son's school, etc etc). At which point she discovered my parents were not actually divorced.

I have a very very hard time assigning culpability to people in situations like M.'s, which is a surprisingly large number of affair partners, in my experience. They are often relying for their information on a person who is a skilled liar.

[minoanmiss]

I'm so sorry your father is so atrocious. And yeah, I don't think someone could rationally expect that someone in M's position should supernaturally know she's being lied to.

[lemonsharks]

All very good points.

I started out at "don't date/fuck married people" and then went "but poly people exist" and took a wrong turn at Albequerque.

(I do think that if the spouse refuses to meet the metamours it can be a red flag, proceed with caution situation)

[minoanmiss]

One day I'm going to write MinoanMiss's Essay on Why Cheating Is Not Just Polyamory Without Permission: Theory And Practice. :)

It's not so much the marriage status as the lying/breaking agreements. When I was younger I didn't feel comfortable sleeping with someone married unless I had met/been approved by their spouse/primary.. If it ever comes up again (ahahhahah I am an old woman) I plan to if anything be more assertive about this..

[cereta]

I often say that I am absolute death on adultery, and I hate the way our culture romanticizes it (The English Patient made me want to throw things at the tv). Stupid Courtly Love.

But when I say that, I am defining adultery very specific: non-monogamy in which one partner is unaware of the other partner's other partner (so to speak), and is being actively deceived about it. It's the lying and the promise-breaking that I hate.

I sometimes get into arguments with people who say, oh, it wouldn't affect my relationship with a friend/sibling/parent/offspring if I knew they were cheating on their spouse/being the person someone cheated on their spouse with. And I'm just, yeah. Yeah, it would. Again, not because of the sex. I have plenty of poly friends. But how am I supposed to trust someone who is lying every damn day to the person who is supposed to be one of the most important people in their life?

[minoanmiss]

Yes, exactly.

If I ever wrote my Essay on Why Poly Is Not Approved Cheating And Vice Versa I may include some analysis a particular friendship of mine which is... kind of romantic. We'd like to date but their spouse would like for us not to. So we don't. Let alone have an affair, wtf, no. Neither of us wants to be that kind of awful person or to encourage the other to be that kind of awful person, let alone the potential for collateral damage. I could never look myself in the eye again.