ex's new baby

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-31-2004
ex's new baby
11
Sat, 07-30-2005 - 7:14pm

I am soooo confused right now. My ex came to town with his wife and new baby. When he comes to town, he makes sure to visit my mother and this time was no exception. This time, however, he brings his new baby with him for the visit. I am torn on several levels:
1. this baby is with the woman he left me for
2. he and his wife use my daughter's baby crib and such for the new baby. I paid for the stuff because at the time, my ex thought buying baby furniture was stupid. when we divorced, he took the furniture while i was not around.
3. my mother and sisters were all over cooing the baby and it hurt like hell to see them do so.

I am frustrated because a new baby is such a blessing and this baby has nothing to do with the decisions his parents made. At the same time, i don't want to coo over him and i don't want the expectation that i should think he's cute or special. When they were at my family's house, i couldn't take watching the spectical so i asked my mother if she needed something from the store and i got out of there with my handy excuse.

As far as the crib and such, on one level, i wanted to save it for my daughter. i chose it with care and i paid a lot for it. on the otherhand, perhaps if they would have asked for it or offered to buy it, i would have felt like i had some control and was given minimal respect in the matter.

as for watching my family go nuts over the baby, what else could they have done? I love babies too. at the same time, they know the circumstances and the pain i feel about the situation and because of that, i felt so betrayed by them.

when i returned from the errand the ex and the baby had gone home--okay, i drove past until i saw that his car was gone before i returned. my mother and sisters were busy just talking about the baby and how great it is for them to get a baby. they asked me why i didn't hold him and told me that i am wrong for not wanting to have feelings for him since he's a sibling to my daughter. i told them that i am just not there yet. they wouldn't relent.

I probably sound so horrible for feeling so much anger about my ex's visit, but i can't help it. any suggestions on how i can deal with this when this happens again--because the ex will return with the baby

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-14-2004
Tue, 08-02-2005 - 11:23am
I think everyone else has offered some great words of wisdom, so I just wanted to add another hug for you. It seems like the people around you are lacking in good old fashioned common sense to think this should be easy for you and you should be thrilled over their new baby. As for the crib, I think it's a good point that if you decide on having another child a new crib with new memories would be better. It doesn't surprise me that she wasn't bothered by the crib - if stealing another woman's man doesn't bother her, why would stealing that woman's crib bother her? If you do want the crib for your daughter some day, you could ask your ex (preferably in public - perhaps at your next family get together) when he's done borrowing it to return it to you so you could store it for your daughter. ;)
-sang

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