I would not want you at my wedding either. I feel the family is extending themselves enough inviting there father. You obviously are not a part of there life and they have no desire for you to become a part of there life. You both were grown when you started this affair. What did you think would come of it. You both hurt to people for no reason. You could have obtained the divorce first then if you still had feeling for each other then persue them,

I agree completely. She is crying because she is not invited. I am disappointed in Prudence's comment if the children think there is a reason why the offending spouse left the offended spouse. That was the DUMBEST thing I ever expected to come out of her. There is a right and a wrong way to go about this. He left because he could not control his johnson. These children have a right to feel abandoned, because when he left he did not just leave his wife, he left his kids. Did Prudence ever stop and ask how he handled the separation with his kids. Seeing them on the street is not an acceptable way to do it. Both of them discarfded other people's feeling for themselves. Like you said, they should have obtained divorces from the respective spouses before pursuing the one the started before either on of them were divorced.

I agree, Tobyn77. Prudie's comment about the "reason" was extremely offensive. As I said elsewhere, we have no real way of knowing just how miserable that marriage supposedly was. He may have simply found someone "better" and "more beautiful" in his selfish mind and therefore decided he was living with a shrew. Perhaps she didn't smile sweetly as she placed his dinner in front of him every night enough. In contrast to Prudie's response, it could also be said that "there's a REASON adult children of a divorced man may hate his current wife!" How about that, Prudie?

I can't sympathize with the LW at all. She and her husband cheated on their spouses. Having said that, I think you three make Prudie's advice look a little less pathetic than it was. There's always a reason people get divorced, and outsiders may never know what it was. It's not our place to say whether it was a good enough reason or not.

A friend of mine went through that. He left a miserable marriage and met a woman who had done the same. His kids still hated her; it's not the timing of the breakup that matters so much as being the woman dad meets after he leaves mom. He ditched the girlfriend in favor of the kids. She married someone else and he's still alone.

Good point, Tonto, but again, to use that same philosophy, we may also never know the real reason the kids feel so resentful toward her. Stepfamilies have blended quite nicely for decades. I don't believe stepparents are automatically hated. Why do the adult children hate her so much, really? If they are truly viewing her as a whore, or worse, perhaps she just may have earned the title, for real.

I will grant you that the LW earned that title.

However, in the case I am familiar with, the kids are resentful of the girlfriend because she is the woman dad met after he left mom. Like it or not, one or both parents will be pushing the kids to take sides and odds are mom has custody and the most opportunity to spread that hate. I believe stepparents are automatically hated, and it is because the kids do not comprehend their parents misery. Kids are selfish by nature, and kids from divorced parents often choose to not let go of their hatred.

I don't agree. Now I will admit that my parents are still married and have never married anyone else. But many of my friends come from blended households. My husband's parents both remarried, and he has always cared about his stepdad. Another one of my close friends from highschool decided to live with his stepfather when his mom divorced his stepfather to move back in with his biological father.

I think the way children feel about their step-parents depends a lot on the personality of the parents, step-parents, the children and the situation.

Kudos bzl. I have a stepmother and she has always been great to me and never hated. the woman before her was wonderful. That lady is trifling. dont pee on my foot and tell me it is raining. what has she done to show these kids that they are valued and that while their father left their mother he did not leave them.

I had a stepfather also, bzl. and he was the greatest man that ever walked the earth (Other than Jesus.) If God gave me a choice of fathers and said to me, you can choose the Man X as your father and live in wealth and prosperity or choose your stepdad as your real father and live in poverty, i would be on poor happy child.

experience is the greatest teacher. You have none on this. i had 2 wonderful step parents and i love them to this day (stepdad is deceased). He was my father.

I watched my father blow the family apart when I was a teen and I learned my father was a lying skunk. The woman he ultimately married (after the divorce) deserved much better but she unfortunately got him. If a man (or woman) won't keep a vow they swear by a deity they profess to believe in, and breaks the world of people they profess to care about, they have no honor. A person with no honor can not be trusted. The kids may be harboring bitterness but they have had a bitter lesson.

I have nothing good to say about the women my father catted around with when he was married. They knew he was married, they were married, they have no honor.

A person with no honor is not to be trusted with genuine love or affection because they are not capable of putting honor above impulse. A harsh lesson but from the kid's POV, a true one. Your deity may have agreed to forgive you upon request, don't expect the same from your children.

Your response has only reinforced my POV. Your response was very thought provoking for someone who already beleived the same thing you do. Your articulation of your POV is invaluable.

I am pretty sure of this, PG, and here's the reason I am as convinced as I am. The next girlfriend was treated extremely well by the same two kids. The only difference was that she was not the woman that dad met right after he left mom. That first woman represents an undeniable proof that dad and mom aren't getting back together again. The second does not.

Please understand that I know all of these people very well and keep in touch with all of them. We are even on good terms with his ex-wife. All I am saying is that the kids are going to hate the first woman dad meets after leaving mom unless there is some kind of intervention. I am concluding that it is an emotional response rather than a logical one.

for some that is the case and i am so sorry to hear that. My biological father's girlfriend was so great to us. However she was not the whore who was cheating with him. The girlfriend was a wonderful woman whom I loved dearly. He left her and I was devastated, but his wife was wonderful too and there was space in my heart for her. The woman my biological father left my mother for was dumped within a couple of weeks of himleaving my mother. I had one step father and he was the greatest thing before even slice bread. He was the greatest love of my life, as fathers should be. When he died, a piece of me died with him. He was the father I should have had.