What age and how much to divulge

[question33]

Amazing, purely amazing.

I am maybe halfway the divorce and my wife decides it's time for the other guy to move in. Well, it seems my 17 year old daughter had a talk with her about how it was against the bible and she put it off and said she would read her Bible. Then when I had the kids over for the weekend he spent the weekend at the house. He had all his kids from prior marriages and made it an excuse that he needed the space.... Duh...

While I am so proud of my children for holding on to their faith through all this... I am sickened that my wife seems to have absolutely no care of what her actions do to the kids. My daughter now tries to spend as much time away from home as possible as seeing their displays of affection makes her ill.

My daughter also has a growing fear that she will be kicked out when she turns 18. I don't think she realizes that her and her siblings have a lot of the power in this situation(sadly, should be adults taking the brunt). When I talked to her she said she wanted to be treated as an adult in this. I have told her general information on what is going on. She has said she wants to know as mother is telling her absolutely nothing.

My kids are so close that she is scared to death of being separated from one another in this. She really has no one else to talk to as mom is trying to keep them segregated from anyone who would be open with them. Also making threats if anyone talks to them.

I think my daughter has a fair idea of what has happened but is having problems dealing with the fact that mom is playing her for a fool and not looking out for the them.

I am not sure how to react to this. I am going to talk to my attorney to see how this might affect my custody chances. However, the older two kids are holding out hope their life will continue somewhat like it did before. That mom will figure out what she is doing is hurting them. They were not expecting to shoved into the Brady bunch overnight.

Bah!, not sure how I should talk to my daughter. She has been placed in a bad spot and is being torn up by not having any information. But I don't want to use her as a pawn. No information, keep it to the adults? Just enough to reassure her? Or more? My daughter is the spokesman for the other children. They actually discuss things among themselves and keep a united front.

It's obvious that not having enough info is making her suffer. She assumes mom will behave a certain way (Like old mom). Then she does something way off the wall. Before there was no question the children were welcome in the home for as long as they wanted before this all happened.

No clue here. Divorce certainly is an ugly beast and there seems to be no clear path.

Thoughts?

 

[eatenbylocusts]

I don't know about space considerations, but couldn't you assure them they'd have a place with you? Is there anyone else your wife might actually listen to? It doesn't sound like this new guy has your kids' best interests at heart, and that sounds like your wife isn't using an ounce of common sense in this new relationship. If she won't listen to someone from church I'm pretty sure you can insist on some counseling in dealing with the kids' issues. That's just nuts having a guy move in when she's still married. I would think you could find a counselor to back you up in this.

 

[Autumnleaf]

Tell her everything as objectively as you can and let her digest the info.

 

[TexasSky]

Do nothing to try to turn your daughter against her mother.

Do reassure her that you will always be there for her.
Do let her know that if she is "kicked out" she can come to you.
Do let her know that she will always be close to her siblings.

When it comes to discussions about custody and visitation, tell her what you think the various options are, without pressuring her to choose any of them.

Listen to her biggest concerns, and see if you can get your wife to talk about those sanely.

My ex went insane after a car accident, and my kids were so torn up and terrified of how it would change their lives. I learned they were afraid of having to move, of not knowing "where home was", of being split up.

I worked on solving THOSE issues for THEM.

I did prepare them some.

"If we have to move, I can keep the poodle and cat, but the lab might be a problem. Would you rather stay in this school-zone/neighborhood, in a rental, and lose the lab, or would you rather move to a less expensive area and keep all the pets?"

"Have you expressed to the other parent how afraid you are that you'll have to give up your sibling too?"

That kind of thing makes both parents more willing to work together, and it doesn't put kids in the middle of the issues of the parents.

I let mine write down their fears, and then I held the "what can we do to solve this" conversations.

If I could do it with a man who was legally, medically insane, surely you can do it with a woman who is not.

 

[TealTuesday]

If this were me I would talk to the new bf seperate and yes I'd give the teen info she needs but also open my doors to her if you can do that. grr!
Divorice brings out the monster,doesn't it?