The Glade 4.0

My nephew has a crazy Phillipina ex-wife. He left when she pulled a knife on him and tried to use it. The grandnephew is a good kid, but the family doesn't get to see him often enough.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

If she specifically requests an ultrasound, she can. They usually check that the egg is in the right place and not in the tubes or anything. Generally it's a blood test to determine if you're really pregnant or not and ultrasounds come after (9 weeks ish?)

I can't agree, DE.

From a purely self-centered perspective, when faced with an acrimonious divorce the best course of action is to turn and burn, emotionally and physically disengage from the ex.

Introduce kids into the equation, and using your criteria, I'd still turn and burn. Emotionally that's my most personally advantageous course of action.

BUT... I believe that the emotional well-being of my kids is best met where they have good relationships with both parents and are subject to the least amount of drama between their parents as possible. That will give them the best chance of becoming happy adults and capable of successful relationships. Sometimes that even means someone needs to seek divorce, sometimes not.

When I was in that position, I bit the bullet, put my big boy pants on and did what I had to do. I brought them into this world, I owe it to them to do what I can.... and when that means I put their emotional well-being ahead of my own, I do it.

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In time, this too shall pass.

My pregnancy was confirmed by ultrasound at ~6 weeks, so it can happen. (>30 years of age is "high risk".)

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

(snippity)

That's textbook abusive behavior, right there.

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/domesti ... ffects.htm

Good luck, and I hope the divorce goes smoothly.

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When he's underwater does he get wet? Or does the water get him instead?

Except you cannot give your kids the best upbringing if your own emotional well-being is compromised. That's the whole point of putting yourself first.

It's similar to the whole "You can't be in a stable, loving relationship if you first don't love yourself."

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Giving a kid "the best upbringing" is an unachievable goal. "Doing the best you can" is the absolute most a parent can do.

Given I posed an example...can you address that? It's not a far fetched example at all. Thousands are faced with similar situations at any moment.

Are you suggesting that a parent walking away from their kids 'cause the going was emotionally tough with their ex is the appropriate act? 'Cause walking away from an ex and never looking back is what I'd do if I DIDN'T have kids...

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In time, this too shall pass.

Sure, I'll give you one that's not even hypothetical.

I have a friend who got married to a woman who was about 15 years his senior. Nothing too wrong with that. But it did mean she came with six kids. So he went from a early 20 year-old bachelor to a father of six overnight. He even became a grandfather during this marriage before he was out of his 20s.

Now his wife was married a few times before, and each guy was worse than the last in terms of being abusive. My friend was the first guy who was a genuinely nice and patient man. Oddly enough, that is what caused problems as she was used to being treated like crap and saw that him being nice meant that he didn't have a backbone.

Her kids also were little hellions. Ever see Problem Child? That movie had nothing on some of those kids. They were abused by their father but they only saw him as the greatest guy ever and the wife refused to take any kind of action on it.

So the wife began to eventually have zero respect for my friend, which in turn the kids began to do the same. They treated him like utter crap. He even suffers from injuries to this day because of them.

He never put his own emotional well-being first. Figuring that if he toughed it out long enough that they would come around. But that only made things worse as time went on. This went on for several years.

Eventually the wife hooked up with another woman and her boyfriend, claiming that she was only sleeping with the woman and not the man and that "it's not cheating if it's with a woman." Counselling and therapy either didn't work or was flat-out refused by the wife and kids (therapy does nothing if one of the parties isn't willing to work at it).

Having not slept in his own bed for the last few years, he finally realized that maybe what others were telling him all along was correct: he needed to believe himself to be worth much more than what he was receiving from that "family."



Putting yourself first doesn't mean you bolt at the first time life gets rough. It means not allowing yourself to be bullied, abused, and beaten down (physically or emotionally). Nobody should *EVER* allow that to happen to themselves. And you are doing your children zero favors if you take their abuse. They will only continue the pattern as they grow up.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I don't know which example you're referring to, but I find the idea that you can fool kids well enough that you can make things all right for them when they are not all right for, or between, the parents, highly dubious.

With younger kids this might be doable for a while, but unless both parents are committed to hiding their problems in this way, it's going to become obvious even to a moderately perceptive fourth grader that there are problems, and it's going to look like one parent is being a jerk and the other is in denial. If the kids are preteens or teenagers.. forget it. They are going to know something is wrong and there's no telling what mistaken ideas they might get in their heads. They may end up hating you; they may end up hating themselves.

As for 'walking away from their kids' no one suggested that, and putting your own emotional well-being first is not some sort of call to selfishness. It's like the airplane oxygen mask instructions: you put your mask on FIRST, then the kid's. Or to put it another way, I am no good to my partner if I wreck trying to go back him up.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'm a dad! Naming him after Isaac Newton.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Congrats!!!

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Raell Kromwell

Here's to hoping he takes after his namesake and invents a new form of mathematics!

Grats!

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Or discovers how to learn lead into gold. Either way, win!

Congrats!

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!