Relationships
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Did mommypagas respond?
Some backstory: DH's EX left him with D to move in with her BF with whom she was cheating. She didn't pay child support and only saw D was it was convenient. DH took her to court several times to recover arrears, which EX's parents ended up paying. After a few years a new CS order was issued and a more rigid visitation schedule was in place. D's behavior got progressively worse after spending more time with EX and eventually she wanted to live with EX. While she was living with him, EX accused DH of child abuse in order to make a stronger case for a change in custody. It seemed that EX wanted this so she could collect CS instead of having to pay it. D perjured herself about the events that took place and DH was found guilty. Fortunately he had the case dismissed by performing community service and his record is now clear (despite that EX tells everyone he has been convicted).
Since that time we got married and had a son the following year. We have not seen D since that court date. Our atty cautioned us that any future false accusations would result in jailtime and for us to carefully consider what type of relationship to pursue with D under the circumstances. We decided to cut all ties with her as a means to protect ourselves and my DD. Needless to say we have not had any problems with the law, and it's not a coincidence.
In early 2009, EX decided she didn't want D living with her because of the same behavior issues and shipped her off to live with her parents. She says D was diagnosed as being bipolar and she needed constant supervision. It took about 4 months before DH was notified, and 2 more months to have the CS order changed, all the time while EX was keeping the CS for herself. In late 2010 D was arrested for beating up the grandparents, hitting them with shoes and threatening them with a knife because she wasn't allowed to watch tv as punishment for being late to school.
At that time we were certain we had made the right decision and wondered may have happened if she was with us at the time she decided to have an outburst with my then 8yo DD and 1yo DS.
To this day EX still can't understand why we haven't seen D and tells D it's because DH only cares about his new family and that he's just an ahole. Even if we wanted a relationship with her, what kind would it be with EX constantly telling her how evil we are?
After all that, this is my question. My DS is going to be 4 this summer. At what age do we tell him about D? He's certainly old enough to understand the concept of siblings that aren't seen since my DS has a new sister since her father remarried. I'd like to wait until he's old enough for us to tell him everything at once but don't want to wait until he's so old that he thinks we're hiding anything from him. Or do we not even mention it unless it's necessary. We have had no direct contact with D or EX, just information that we find out from other sources, so we're not concerned with any of them contacting him until he's much older.
"That chick wins at Penises, for sure." -- Fenton
Where both people get to choose?
I really would have liked to known what her response was to all that. Because I imagine that IRL, people are so stunned by the topic, that they just blindly agree with her and her H about moving on from the daughter. I mean, if a casually friendly coworker of mine laid all that out in front of me, I don't think I'd have the energy or patience to really be honest with them, knowing how defensive they would be to hear my true thoughts. I would probably be saying a lot of, "Oh god, that's so sad. I'm sorry you're going through that" and try to change the subject.
I got to the end, and I think my jaw LITERALLY dropped that that was her issue.