Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.
Dear Care and Feeding,
Just under four months ago, I learned my now-ex-husband was having an affair with a woman at his office, and I divorced him. The problem is that we have two kids, aged 1 and 5, and my older one doesn’t understand why Daddy lives elsewhere now. He keeps asking when things will “go back to normal.” I obviously can’t tell a kid his age the reason we split up. Can you offer some age-appropriate advice on how to explain the situation to him?
—Stability Stolen
Dear Stolen,
You can explain to your son how marriage works: People choose to partner because they are happy together, but if they find that they aren’t happy together anymore, they can decide to break up. As unfair as this is to you, your son is a bit young to hear details that clearly identify the seriousness of his father’s betrayal, but you can share that there were problems between you two and that you decided you would be happier as his co-parent than his wife.
You can be honest about this being a difficult and sad process for you, while emphasizing that what’s most important is that your son understands that both his parents love him. It’s OK to say, “I’m not in love with Daddy anymore,” but your kids don’t need to hear that you hate him. As tempting as it may be to point a finger at his father, your son will not benefit from learning this information at this young age. He just needs the main ideas: “We will always be there for you,” “We understand this is challenging for you,” and “You’ll always have both of us.” As your children get older, you can decide when to share more with them based on their maturity and understanding of adult relationships.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
My first wife and I divorced when our son “Jake” (an only child) was 22 and already on his own. Out of the blue, she said she didn’t want to be married to me and filed for divorce. I remained single for 15 years until I met “Tiana.” In the meantime, Jake met and married “Lean.” They have two tween sons together.
With Lean, her family comes first, and they never seem to have time for me. It isn’t for a lack of trying. They can’t come up and visit during the holidays, so I volunteered to go down to them (a three-hour drive) and even offered to stay in a hotel. Nope, too busy, usually doing stuff with Lean’s family. It has been especially bad lately since their sons are now on sports travel teams. I found out it’s been the same for my ex-wife. She moved to be near them and the grandkids, and she doesn’t see them any more than me, which is a few times a year at most.
Last December, I proposed to my girlfriend, and she accepted. I wanted to tell my son and ask him to be my best man when we got together for Christmas. But it never happened. I was doing a once-a-week phone call to try to get a five-minute talk, but I stopped doing it. Now, almost five months later—you read that correctly, five months of no contact—Jake called me asking if I got married and why I didn’t tell him. I told him I was going to during our Christmas get-together, but that gathering never happened. I said he was going to be my best man, but apparently, he couldn’t be bothered. I also told him that for our honeymoon, we were going to take his family, along with Tiana’s kids and their families, on an all-expenses-paid trip to a water park over spring break, but I never heard from him, so I couldn’t even make the offer. I then told him it’s been months since we’ve spoken, and he hasn’t even bothered to check on me. I said that I don’t even consider him my son anymore, and Tiana and her family are now my real family. He just kind of stuttered, and I hung up.
He texted me shortly afterward and placed the blame solely on Lean, saying it was all her fault as to why we didn’t get together, why he never called, why they are so busy, etc. He admitted her family is way too much of a priority in their lives and that he wants to change. I think he is lying on both parts: that it’s all Lean’s fault and that he wants to change. Do you agree? I have been much more relaxed after I stopped trying to get together with Jake and squeeze in five minutes of his time. Also, Tiana’s kids have been nothing but nice to me, and it feels much more like the family culture I pictured.
—It Is All the Daughter-In-Law’s Fault
Dear Fault,
How many times did you try to reach your son? Did he ignore consistent outreach, or did he miss a couple of calls, and you just stopped calling? Did you ever text or email him to inquire what was going on? Is there anything that could have transpired with you and your son in the past that would make him want to distance himself? I think you should consider any and all reasons why he has chosen to behave as he has. I understand that his behavior hurt you, but you told him you don’t consider him your son anymore, which is a pretty loaded statement. I just can’t help but wonder if there is more to this story than you have shared.
But let’s assume there’s not. Even then, I wouldn’t know better than you whether Jake is being honest. If he is, he certainly would not be the first nor last husband to take his wife’s lead when it comes to maintaining family connections and to end up spending more time with her family than his own. Again, there may be some reasons for that; maybe she’s bossy and domineering, or maybe he has some deep resentment of his parents that you aren’t clear on. Or perhaps he simply can’t be bothered to put in the same work that she does into maintaining his own familial relationships. Either way, what happens next is up to you: Do you want to reconcile? Do you want to try to have a relationship again? If so, hear your son out and let him know how you feel about his absence in your life. Address any issues that may have contributed to his distance. If you don’t want to deal with him anymore, let him know that—but know that you may not have the chance to mend fences in the future if you cut him off now.
Dear Care and Feeding,
My mother-in-law, “Nina,” recently pulled a stunt involving my 9-month-old son, “Jacob,” that has me seeing red. Nina is divorced, and recently she was watching Jacob while running some errands. She struck up a conversation with a man while she was in line at the bank, who complimented her on how cute her “son” was.
Instead of correcting him and saying he was her grandson, she thanked him! The man asked her out, and now she wants to “borrow” Jacob for when he comes over so she can keep up the ruse! My husband thinks we should let her until she knows where the relationship is going, on the grounds that it will give us more free time. I say Nina is out of her mind if she thinks I’m going to allow this. Please tell me I’m right and my husband and mother-in-law are full of it.
—Mendacious Mother-in-Law
Dear Mendacious,
This is absolutely ridiculous. And I want to give your mother-in-law some grace if she’s at an age where she’s regularly clocked as a grandmother and got a confidence boost from being mistaken for the mom to a baby. However, the idea of someone borrowing a baby for house dates with a man she barely knows is absurd. There is a tried and true African American idiom that I would use with both these people: “You got me fucked up.”
It’s a hard NO on everything about this “plan.” Still, I’m dying to know so much more about your MIL and this scheme. Clearly, she doesn’t want anything serious with this man, so why can’t she just say she has a babysitter when he comes over? And how does she know she wants a man she hasn’t been out with yet to come over? What does she want him to come over for? I’ve been a single mother, and I never once had a man over to come hang out with my baby, nor had a man over to my home with my child at any age, unless we were in a committed relationship. I hope your MIL made better choices as a real mom than she has as a pretend mom, and, again, tell her no, no, no.
—Jamilah
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I have a 13-year-old daughter (J) who is bright, funny, and compassionate. She identifies as pansexual, although she has never mentioned any crushes or the like to me. She has a female friend with whom she is very close and I always sort of assumed that this friend was possibly her first crush, although J has never said this. In fact, she seems rather dismissive and bemused by her peers’ crushes and relationships. She’s mentioned some schoolmates who have sexually experimented—with an air of disapproval. I replied that I agreed sexual experience at age 13 was not a fantastic idea, but that safety was my primary concern, and we’ve discussed birth control and the like before. All this is well and good. But recently I was driving her father’s car and found an envelope in the center console.