'AITA for changing custody for my two kids and ruining my ex's marriage?'
"AITA for changing custody for my two kids and ruining my ex's marriage?"
My ex-wife, Summer (42F), and I (43M) have two kids together. We're both remarried now and don't get along, though that wasn't always the case. We had our daughter (15F) when I was 28 and Summer was 27.
We'd already been married for three years by then but had trouble conceiving and underwent fertility treatment. I always thought it was my fault, as my ex had told me she'd had a pregnancy in the past but decided she wasn't ready to be a mother straight out of high school and we did not have the child.
To our surprise, Summer got pregnant again, and we now had a (6m) son. It was right around after she gave birth to him that Summer said she felt trapped and wanted to explore other options.
Being a fool, blinded by love, I didn't want to lose her, so I agreed to open the marriage. She started seeing another man we'll call James. I didn't see anyone until two years later, a woman I'll call Bell (29F now, but 24 when we met). I didn't chase after Bell; in fact, she pursued me. In her own words, seeing a hardworking man who was also a family man was a huge turn-on for her.
What caused our divorce last year was the fact that I accidentally learned she had been seeing James much longer than the four-ish years we'd had an open marriage. Much longer, in fact. So long that I now believe he might be the ex who got her pregnant straight out of high school, long before we even met.
The divorce was quick. She had no ground to stand on, as cheating is grounds for divorce in our state. Even though I could have taken more, I wanted out faster, so I agreed to split everything 50/50, including custody.
I was still seeing Bell, as she had been by my side through everything. This wonderful woman even proposed to me, saying she wasn't giving up this chance to have me all to herself.
I made sure my daughter, who was 14 at the time, was okay with this, and she surprised me by letting me know she had helped Bell pick out the ring. We just eloped, and now Bell is pregnant.
I was surprised how easily Bell became pregnant, so I finally went to the doctor for that check-up I'd been dreading. I learned that I never had any fertility issues. I was talking to Bell about it and didn't realize my daughter was eavesdropping.
I guess curiosity got the better of her, and she went to ask Summer about it, for reasons I still don't know. Well, they had a huge argument, to the point where my daughter asked me to pick her up early, which of course I did.
My daughter then told me that when I was married to Summer, she didn't want to have my kids and made sure of it through birth control and other methods I had no idea about. Summer even told our daughter that she was more likely James's, not mine, which shattered me.
Our daughter always looked like Summer, so I never questioned it, while our son was a spitting image of me. I told my daughter that no matter what, I will always love her and that she is mine, not James's, as he was never there to raise her.
Summer tried to take me to court to change the custody for our daughter, as she refused to go back to her mother's. During this time, we did, in fact, learn that my daughter wasn't biologically mine, but she wasn't James's either.
I honestly don't want to know how many men she cheated on me with, and it's a miracle I never got an STD from her. I was able to win full custody of our daughter, as Summer was shown to not make the best decisions. She even lost some custody of our son, who is biologically mine.
Now both sides of our families are calling me an AH for not only taking our daughter from her but also for the fact that she can now only see our son on weekends with supervised visits. Not only that, she has to pay child support, when before neither of us had to.
I guess this has also put a strain on her marriage with James, and he is threatening to take their daughter they had together and leave her. I do feel bad that I caused all of these problems in her marriage, but I had to do what was best for our daughter and son.
So Reddit, please be honest with me: Am I the AH for taking both kids' custody from her and causing problems in my ex's other marriage? My cousin is calling me a moron for not going into detail on the second custody, so I will add what I can fit on here.
When my daughter refused to go back to her mom's, Summer started to harass our daughter on social media and even slander her to family members. When that didn't work during the actual case, Summer started to keep my son from me, not letting me pick him up or drop him off, saying it was only fair as I was "keeping" our daughter from her.
The court forced her to let me see my son, but every time he came to my place, he started to ask why I "cheated" on Summer with Bell. She was clearly feeding him lies. I explained in as little detail as possible for a child to understand that wasn't the case. I documented everything from harassing our daughter to recording what my son was telling me.
The final straw that broke the camel's back, as they put it, was when Summer slapped our daughter in front of her school. Summer tried to corner her, and it backfired when our daughter openly called her out for everything, which caused police and CPS to get involved. There are more things that happened, but this is already so long. If you want more little details, then please just ask.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Don't feel bad about exploding her life, she did that on her own every time she slept with other men besides you. NTA.
His name is on the daughter's birth certificate. Biologically related or not, he is her daddy unless he asks the court to remove him.
You did not cause ANY of these problems. These problems are the results of her own actions, being found out.
SeveralPerformance79 (OP)
Thank you. that is exactly what my cousin, who let me borrow their account, said. It's just so hard for me to wrap my head around, as we still had a normal co-parenting relationship before all of this.
Sounds like you are Dad, might not be the father, but the Dad the kid needed.