'AITA for telling my lesbian ex-wife that her partner cannot be my son's mom?' UPDATED + DEVELOPING
"AITA for telling my lesbian ex-wife that her partner cannot be my son's mom?"
Hi all, Throwaway because my friends are not completely aware of this current situation. I (35M) was married to my ex-wife (34F) for 7 years. two years ago my ex-wife came out as lesbian. This came as a complete shock to me.
She and her partner were co-workers who had an affair since she joined the company a year before our divorce. We have a son together (8M). I was heartbroken and devastated.
I felt betrayed as I had spent 7 years of my life with this woman and it all felt like a lie now. When I confronted her she told me that "she had to live her truth" and that "she tried to suppress her identity because she didn’t come to terms with it till she met her partner".
When I asked whether she loved me she told me that while she loves me it’s different than how she loved her new partner. This broke my heart even further.
The divorce was quick as she did not want anything from me and we agreed to a 50/50 split of custody, but I decided to go no contact with her and handled the custody transfer process through my sister (27F) whom I moved in with after the divorce.
I sold the house and we mutually agreed that the excess money from the sale will be in a college fund for our son in the future. I could not bear to stay in that house anymore as it kept reminding me of her betrayal.
For context, she introduced her partner as her “work friend” and I believed her. I had no reason to suspect anything and they had several “girls nights” but I figured that they were probably using these as cover for the affair.
For 6 months I was in a depressive state because I didn’t know where I went wrong. But this is one of those scenarios that anything I would’ve done wouldn’t have been able to make it better. This made me even more depressed and the fact that all the vows and little things that she said at our wedding were all just lies trying to keep up a ruse made it even worse.
The two people that got me through this state was my sister, whom I am eternally grateful for helping with her nephew and helping me while maintaining her career. The other person that got me through this was my college ex girlfriend.
Around 4 months after the divorce we reconnected at a reunion and she really helped through the worst of it as a friend. Around a year after the divorce, we started officially dating, and I introduced her to my son.
During all this time my ex’s partner had been having limited interactions with my son. This was not becuase of me saying anything but my ex-wife wanted him to adjust to his new reality. My son is in that weird age that he understands what’s going on but he doesn’t really understand what’s actually going on.
If you know you know. He understands that mommy has a girlfriend and that me and his mom are not together anymore. I’m pretty happy considering we didn’t really talk to him about about the LGBTQ+ stuff because we had decided that we can talk about this when he’s a bit older but I’m happy that he’s come to terms with the divorce.
Around 8 months ago, my ex said that she was officially moving in with her partner and that she was engaged. At this point I still was on no contact except brief conversations that concerned our son. She invited me to the wedding but I declined. They were planning to have a destination wedding in Spain where her girlfriend lives.
She wanted to take our son to the wedding and he would have to miss school for a week since she wanted him to meet her girlfriend’s family as well. I told her that missing school for a week does not make sense and that she should plan her wedding when he has vacation since she doesn’t have a fixed date yet.
She argued that most likely they won’t have a date that will align with his vacations and that they are getting married as soon as possible. I relented and agreed since I didn’t want to interact with her anymore and it was well within her rights to have her son at her wedding.
The problems started when my son came back after the wedding. He was supposed to stay with me since we have a flexible week in week out custody arrangement. She wanted to take my son on her honeymoon so that he has a chance to bond with his new “stepmother”.
I told her that she had already had two weeks with him since she had custody for a week before the wedding and that I wanted to spend some father-son time with him. I told her that it well within my rights and that she should go spend some time with her new wife.
She argued that since our son’s interactions with her partner were limited because of her busy schedule, that this was a great opportunity for them to bond. I told her that she had two weeks for him to get to know her partner, she said that they were busy with the wedding and did not have time.
I told her that I had taken vacation days for us to go to a motorcycle expo and build a Lego set, two things that my son absolutely loves. She kept arguing and I finally told her that the custody was placed for a reason and that’s the one thing I will not negotiate on. She got angry at me and left.
Me and my son had a great experience, I even got him one of those kid sized motorcycles since he liked them so much. Over the next few weeks we returned back to our week in/week out routine. One day I find that my ex posted a photoshoot of them and my son under a caption of #lesbianmommies.
I thought that it was post and it probably meant nothing but it was showing them as a family and something about that did not sit right with me. When I got my son for the week I asked him that if his mom was saying anything to him. He relented a bit but told me that his mother had been trying to convince him to call her partner his mom. This was a shock to me as I never expected my ex to do this.
Then again I’ve been wrong about these things before. I asked him if that’s something he wanted and he told me that he is much more comfortable calling her by her first name and that he feels weird with calling two people mom. I told him it’s okay and that he shouldn’t feel pressured to do anything.
I called my ex and asked her to meet up because this was serious and I wanted to discuss this. I confronted her about this and she told me that since her and her partner were married, it’s only natural for our son to have to have two moms now.
I told her that it’s not okay for her to try and convince him into calling her partner his mom because she is not his mother, she doesn’t have an active parenting role in his life and that any major parenting decisions require the two of us. She tried making an argument that since me and my girlfriend were becoming serious now and that eventually I might want him to start calling her mom.
I told her even if we become serious I won’t try and convince our son to start calling her mom, because he already has two parents and he doesn’t need more. Then she dropped the bombshell on me. She told me that she and her partner were hoping that eventually down the line they can file for adoption.
I'll still be able to visit and see my son but she wanted her and her wife to have legal guardianship becuase they wanted to build a new family with them. I told her absolutely not and that our partners have no say in our kid’s lives.
She accused me of being h^*$#hobic for denying her the right to a complete family and I told her while her life is her choice our son’s life has to be a thing that we decide ourselves. I ended the conversation there and told my son to tell me if her mother tries to force him to do anything that he doesn’t want to do.
Three weeks later I found out that my ex had enrolled him in Spanish lessons that he told me that he hated doing. For context my ex is Latin and her partner is Spanish so they are more comfortable talking to each other in Spanish. We made the decision to raise our son in English because it made sense at the time as she speaks english better than spanish and I dont speak any spanish.
When I discussed this she told me that she would like her son to connect more to his heritage. I said that I dont have any problem with that but we have tried this several times before when we were married and he had shown zero interested in it. She told me that this time might be different since he will have two spanish speakers at home.
I told her that I am in all favour of bilingualism becuase two languages are always an advantage especially for kids but if he doesnt want to do it there is no reason to force him to do it, maybe try another language? She then accuses me of denying our son his roots and goes on a tirade of accusing me of denying our son his identity and coming back to me denying her right to a family.
My girlfriend usually stays out of these matters but she advised me to contact my lawyer and see what they can actually do. My lawyer told me that even if they send an adoption notice, I can contest it and it would take something exeptional like abandonement etc. for my contest to get rejected. My ex keeps posting our son as a part of her new family and its honestly started to trigger me.
Two weeks ago I interacted for the first time with my ex's new wife after the divorce, she contacted me and asked to meet up. She told me that my ex had finally started to recover from the social trauma of coming out and building a new life with her and that I am now getting in the way of the happiness.
She accused me of being emotionless and uncaring through our divorce and how I guilt-tripped her into agreeing to my demands of 50-50 custody, and how I should just agree to the eventual adoption in a few years because she has always wanted a son and that I will still remain my son's dad and I can still visit him.
I told her that I dont care what her emotional state was during the divorce and that my demands were fair even to the most irrational person, i told her that if they want to create this image of perfect family, then they should have another kid that has no connection to me.
I feel like all this has started to affect my son more than anything. He is a lot less happier than he was just a few months as we had started to adjust to this new reality.
For context since I know this is gonna come up eventually.
The emotional trauma of my ex coming out it is basically the fact that her family effectively disowned her after coming out. Her parents dont talk to her anymore, while my son has plenty of interactions with his maternal grandparents when he's with me.
Those two combined make significantly more money than I do alone, however my ex-wife makes less money than me but her partner is in a senior position so she has more stability. This is also an argument my ex-wife used when we discussed adoption since they can then send our son to a private school and generally give him a better life.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
NTA, your ex is trying to erase you from your own sons life, document this as much as possible in case they do attempt to file for adoption, you will have proof they are just trying to push you out for their own benefit.
I would also get your son in therapy if possible, it must be so uncomfortable and difficult for him. Also as lesbian, you’re not being homophobic your ex and her wife are cooked and need to touch grass!!!!!
When he mentioned that the new wife lives in Spain and that’s where they were getting married, alarm bells started going off. OP do not give your ex permission to take him out of the states again. You may never get him back
OP please read this one!! NEVER give them permission to take your son out of country again!! there is a plot afoot.
NTA. Talk to your attorney ASAP. You need to lock down his passport ASAP as well. They are both untrustworthy and are trying to steal your son. You need to take it to the mattresses with those two AHs.
The next day OP came back with this update:
Hi all, its been crazy seeing everyones reactions to the situation and I wanted to share a quick update with you all.
First of all Id like to clarify that my son and I have been going to therapy since the divorce. He was doing quite well until the whole "mom saga" happened.
My In Laws diswoned her after she came out. They were not even aware about the affair when she came out to them. They still spend time when my grandson under the condition that they dont badmouth my ex and dont preach their views to him. They agreed and said that they valued a relationship with their grandson over any political view they might hold.
I have been a part of every interaction that they have had with him because I was worried they might say something. Thankfully, this has not been the case. Her extended family has said to me that they have all cut her off as well, some for the affair and some for her being gay.
Our mutual friends also cut her off because of the affair. All our mutual friends were my work buddies and their spouses/partners. I did not ask them to do anything, they came to the decision on their own. I was actually glad when she told me that she had made a friend on her own, as she used to complain about not liking her colleagues. We all know how that turned out.
Im pretty sure theyre not planning to skip the country. I have all my sons documents and we decided it during the divorce because she was still figuring out where to go and since I was moving in with my sister, the chances of them getting misplaced were low. I have also have had no demands for any documents and she returned the passport to me when we came back.
The whole adoption thing probably stems from the fact that my son has a very close relationship with his mother. The only times he has really complained to me is when she asked him to call her partner "mom" and that she was making him do spanish classes that he did not want.
We did everything for him equally during our marriage but I had to travel out of state to my parents frequently during covid because they were sick with preexisting conditions and couldnt take care of themseleves. My sister was on an assignment abroad at that time. My sister also agreed with this. Please let me know your thoughts.
I listened to people and contacted my lawyer (who is also my friend) today morning. He told me the same thing as last time and that it would take something really unusual for the adoption process to go through like child abandonment. He also said that they a bunch of idiots that have no idea how the law worked.
He also told me that if the whole "we wanna adopt him" is a real thing and if she is talking shit about me to my son and I could prove it, i could get custody. This has not been the case as ive not heard my son say that his mom says bad things about me. This brought me a sigh of relief.
I plan to contact my ex today with the following conditions.
1. We both install parenting apps and document all interactions.
2. No more mention to me or my son regarding adoption or calling her partner "mom"
3. No more posting images of my son as a part of their "perfect queer family" becuase frankly, I dont want my son photos on the internet when is he is so young and he can decide what he wants when he is older.
I plan to talk to my ex in a couple of hours. Please let me know what you think about this.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
I would be most leery of any potential planned "extended" vacations with your son that conveniently end up being outside the US, like, IDK, SPAIN, and that they would try to stay there with ex's wife claiming him as her son and trying to get him dual citizenship.
Make absolutely certain that your son knows he is NOT supposed to leave the area, most especially not the country. Passports can be reproduced if the birth parent claims it has been "lost."
This sucks but you need to educate your son about the very real risk they may try to move him away from you permanently and that he needs to call you and/or 911 if they ever try. "Parental Alienation" against the ex's wife is not a legal construct and you are allowed to point out what she says, does and has told you she plans as to him and his life.
Everything you want to discuss with her is fair. I’d ask your lawyer to modify the custody agreement in court to update these changes. If she doesn’t follow it, then she would be in violation of the court order. Based on her behavior I don’t think she is going to listen just because you ask her to.
Mentally stable adults don’t expect a loving & involved parent to sign adoption papers because they got remarried. There are plenty of ways your ex and wife can start a family of their own if that’s something that they want.