	AllExperts > Divorce Issues
	Search

About Philip Belove, Ed.D.
Expertise
Divorce is the beginning of a life review process. For many people, it`is the first intentional decision they make about their lives. The transition into the next stage of life is difficult at first, but it gets easier. The questions I can help you with: What happened? How do I take care of our children? How do I get over my anger? How do I plan a future for myself?

Experience
I am Philip Belove, psychologist and coach. My specialty is helping people do their midlife transformation work, a psychological project that creates a foundation for happy and satisfying second half of life.

Midlife Work, because it involves so much careful attention to inner truth, is notoriously stressful on marriages and on dating relationships.

The challenges of the midlife project are echoed in the typical questions asked me as a dating-at-midlife expert:

?Learning to reconcile what you say with what you do. This challenge is echoed in questions like: Why does he say this when he does that? What is really happening?
?Learning to create your own dreams instead of being the victim of someone else's. This challenged is echoed in questions like these: How do I say that I don't want to xyz? I've been lying about some things and what should I do now?
?Learning to live a life that suits you. This challenge produces questions like Is what I'm doing normal? What if my kids think I'm crazy? How can I say that this is starting to bother me?

A person doing Midlife Transformation Work needs to develop 1) A Working Vision, 2) Skills and Strategies to realize that vision, and 3) External sources of support for the project. My role for people is to be part of the support system. I help people clarify their visions, develop the strategies and skills they need, and I help them review their progress.

Education/Credentials
M.A. Counseling Psychology
Ed.D. Counsulting Psychology (Family Therapy)

You are here: Experts > Parenting/Family > Step-Parenting > Divorce Issues > HUSBAND'S relations with FORMER stepchildren?

Divorce Issues - HUSBAND'S relations with FORMER stepchildren?

Expert: Philip Belove, Ed.D. - 10/27/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hi! I'm writing in the hopes that you can give me an un-biased opinion of this situation and possible advice or insight I can gain. This is tearing me up and I feel will undoubtedly tear my marriage up. I will try to give the short, less drama filled version. First, some brief background.

My husband and I began dating in 1999 then married later that year. He had eventually confessed to still being married when we met, but did gain his divorce months later. Because of the situation, and that I always saw myself as the "outsider", I never harbored jealous or ill thoughts about his wife. In fact I frequently asked him about her - what was she like? why did they separate? what was the problem? He refused to talk about her to me, except to say that she was crazy, had problems and caused the break-up...

Through the years my husband and I have had numerous problems. I have dealt with problems regarding him such as pornography, excessive online gaming, physical abuse, sexual abuse, loss of affection, etc. I have always been the one to encourage marriage counseling, talking, letter writing, time together, etc. My husband would 'comply' only when he seemed to see that I was almost out the door, leaving. Then he would magically turn into the man I married - for a little while, then the cycle would start again.

Well, to make a long story short, he's in the military and we got stationed to Germany in early 2006. Shortly after arriving there, he received an e-mail from a woman/girl named Vanessa. I asked him who she was and he replied that it was his ex-wife's daughter. I was shocked, since he never even told me that she had children and certainly never mentioned them...to me or to others in his immediate family (father, brother).

From the beginning of this e-mail contact he was insistent that I accept it and that he be in contact with the girl. She also has a brother whom he wanted contact with, too. I told him that I would need time to adjust to this new information and that I was very upset that he had never mentioned them to me. After that, I found out that he was sending e-mail in which he was talking about having to sneak around behind my back to see her (ex step daughter), and numerous text messages - and all this time he told me he had no further contact with them (her).

This whole situation caused many many arguments between us. Many times my husband would tell me that they didn't mean that much and would stop contact with Vanessa, only to continue behind my back., which would further cause arguments.

To make a long story short... we are separated now and he has been asking me to take him back. (We separated for many reasons, his contact with / and lying about contact with Vanessa also being one of them). He also is insisting that he will continue contact with her, that she is his "child", that he's always loved her and that if I cannot deal with that, then that's a "deal breaker" for him, meaning he'll pursue a divorce also.

At this point I feel like he is putting his former stepchild in front of me. In my way of thinking, if she truly meant something to him, wouldn't he have mentioned her to me - and everyone else - right from the beginning? We were together over 8 years before she entered our lives and I never even knew of her existence but he supposedly loves her so very much, raised her, etc.

He was married to her mother for less than 5 years and was in contact with Vanessa for about 3 years of that, during her childhood. The girl lived with her father and only saw my husband and her mother twice a month for visitation.

Am I being selfish, as he says? Should I accept this situation? How can I? Is it wrong for my husband to expect me to be ok with this, considering how much he lied to me and kept information from me about her existence?

I find that I am still willing to TRY... marriage counseling, etc., but do not feel comfortable having his former step child around. I feel like I have never been given a choice to see if I might have accepted it and that all of this was unfairly put on me and that now I'm told that if I want my marriage, I HAVE to accept it.

She constantly calls him "Dad" (on online social networking sites, e-mail, etc.) and is disrespectful of my feeling regarding the situation, telling me that he's her Dad and basically "too bad".

HELP!!!!!!!! I feel so stressed about this!

ANSWER: Dear Bobbi,
You say you feel stressed and that seems an appropriate emotional response.

There is a lot going on and in general not a lot of clarity. There never is when there is lots of secrecy and lies.

What you know for sure is that your husband has rarely been completely honest with you about matters that you are, as his wife, entitled to know about. That's a significant complaint.

I suggest that his relationship with your step daughter, and his daughter, might not be as problematic as it is, if you the two of you had had a solid, open, and honest foundation for your own relationship in the first place.

I'd need to speak to you more(...and I do think you should be speaking with someone...both of you should... ) but I suspect you and your husband have one of those situations where you are out of balance, where you over-function and he under-functions. You do too much and he does too little.

Often in situations like this, things start to change when the one who does too much stops and threatens to leave unless the other one steps up. It sounds like that is what has happened with you two but then you've reverted to the earlier pattern and never addressed the key issues.

As you said, your reason for protesting his involvement with his daughter is how much he lied and kept information from you. You are correct to object to the lying and secrecy but you are not correct in using the issue of his relationship with his daughter as a way of pressing your case. If he has to chose between his daughter and you he will choose his daughter. However if he has to chose between his secrecy and his relationship with you he will probably choose you...if you both develop a way for him to be more forthcoming.

Also, sometimes a man who doesn't speak, doesn't reveal things, doesn't stand up for himself, is also a man who hides and sneaks and cheats. Often such men have their reasons and these men can change but both partners have to be in therapy.

So I recommend counseling for the both of you. The issue will be this: how can you two develop a much more open and honest relationship. Is he willing to take that risk? What does he need from you? What else does he need in the way of help and support? Is he willing to acknowledge his own fears of being honest?

Please let me know whether this is helpful. Please let me know if you both might want to work with me on the phone? Please let me know if you would like a free initial session?

I hope I've been helpful. Good luck.

Philip Belove, Ed.d.
drbelove@datingatmidlife.com

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi! I do thank you for your insight and wholeheartedly agree with you, although my main issue (contact with former wife's children) was not completely addressed... Let me explain further.

The relationship that appears to be all-important to my husband is contact with his former wife's daughter (and sometimes her son). These children are not my husband's children, biologically, and in fact have been raised primarily by their own father.

My husband was in their life briefly when he married to their mother and only saw them about once a month for approximately 3 years... My husband has always refused to tell me much about his relationship with his former wife, except to blame the whole break-up on her (even though I have since discovered a pattern he has, meaning he cheated on her a lot as well).

My husband never told me that he was once a stepfather and that she had children, so I repeat, these children are not my husband's biological children and are most certainly not my stepchildren. They are his former wife's children with a previous husband of her's...

Then, like I say, 8 years into OUR relationship / marriage, his former step-daughter contacted him. He told me that he thought it was inappropriate that she referred to him as "Dad", and that he found it disrespectful to me, yet he now allows that. My problem with the situation is that if these children (now young adults) were so very important to him, then why didn't he ever mention them to anyone - me, his brothers and father (who he is very close to)?

I don't feel like he's trying to hold onto his former marriage, or any threat concerning his ex, I just don't understand this "sudden" love for her children - to the point that he is willing to lose me over the lies and allows his former step-daughter to speak rudely to me regarding contact with him.

If I had known about his supposed closeness with his former step children when we first dated, then I would have had that choice as to whether or not I wanted to get involved in this extended relationship dynamic. I feel like it's been "thrown" onto me, and now I'm put in a position where I must allow it and put up with it, in order to have my marriage. I think that's unfair.

Now, my husband also has two biological children by another woman (wife #1), which he rarely contacts. He has also blamed the lack of contact with them on wife #2 saying she wouldn't allow it. Wife #2 is the one with her own children who my husband became step-father to when he married her. I am wife #3, I have one daughter by a previous relationship, so my husband is a legal step-father to her now and I believe she should be considered his ONLY step-child. I am also close to my own stepchildren, his biological daughter & son.

Again, I probably would have felt differently if my husband had told me about his former stepchildren when we first met... but he didn't. To have them resurface after 8+ years I think is terribly unfair to me, my daughter, and his own biological children.

Am I being unfair? Why would he have not told me about his former stepchildren? Is it right that he be allowed contact with them now? (To the point where he appears to be putting them before me?)

Please offer further advice, now that I believe I've clarified the situation better. Yes, I probably would like to work with you in the near future. I'll be looking for your response.

ANSWER: Well that changes things a bit. It makes his wish to retain contact more mysterious.

I actually think you've asked the right questions. There are,however, huge questions and I'll bet he will have a hard time answering them. From your stories it seems like he is a man with an uncomfortable relationship with his own past and with the facts of his life.

If he doesn't like to talk about this stuff, he probably also doesn't like to think about it. He seems quite burdened. He blames others for things that have happened and doesn't have much of a sense of his own role in events. Many people like that alternately claim to be victims of events and then at other times blame themselves terribly and are very hard on themselves.

Often such people have suffered losses and not reconciled themselves to those losses.

As I said in my first letter, I think the larger issue for you is the way that you are so thoroughly marginalized in this man's life. The appearance of his step children is only the most concrete example of this, but it's the sort of thing that is normal in your relationship with him and also, correctly, unacceptable. The issue is his secrecy. He doesn't trust you. He may not trust anyone, but also you may be handling the thing poorly. We'd have to look carefully.

Does that help?

Philip Belove

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Philip,
You know, I have to say that a few of my close friends and family members have said essentially what you've said... But you know sometimes you hear it - again - and it's the "right" time to have this knowledge. Do you know what I mean? I think you've got correct insight into my problem and you've been a huge help to me, actually.

I've considered my husband to be narsistic for year now, considering our wide range of issues. I did look through your homepage and read a few of your articles listed there. This prompted me to further readings... I find that Karl (my husband) DOES in fact 'fit' the narcisitic profile exact. It's almost eerie how well things fall into place.

To me, I feel like a light has come on. I don't necessarily feel "crazy" or neurotic and so much of the facts about narcissitic behavior have brought clarity to me. As I've said, I guess I knew this all along. Sometimes it's hard to admit that one is in the middle of that nightmare and I know I've been on a "pity pot" for a while now, concerning him and his treatment of me.

In a sense I guess I've been looking for the "ok" to proceed with a divorce.

I do want to thank you for your insight and would like to look into further talks / counseling with you.

Thank you again!
Bobbi

Answer
Good. I look forward to speaking with you.
A couple things to be mindful of:

First, it's a pretty reliable rule of thumb that if one
partner in a marriage is dysfunctional, the other is equally
dysfunctional in a complementary way. That's why we have
Alanon as well as AA. So you have to be careful when you assign a diagnosis like that
unless you are willing to accept the implications about you.

Second, I didn't diagnose him as having Narcissistic Personality
Disorder. I only saw how secretive he was. You might still be right.
People with NPD tend to have very frail and clumsy and over-driven ways of
protecting their frail integrity. They depend way too much on what other people
think of them.They give away a lot of power.

Third, it is a good thing that you are prepared to get a divorce. It is only then
that you can make your demands clear. Only then that you can give your ultimatum:
change this or else. Unfortunately, by the time many people get to this state,
they are over-used and done. That might be the case with you.

At this point, let's switch the correspondence to drbelove@datingatmidlife.com

Thanks again,

Philip Belove, Ed.D.

Add to this Answer Ask a Question