<p>Xaniamom- I feel for you and your daughters. This seems emblematic of bigger issues in the family. Immediate safety issues need to come first and I am not familiar with your personal situation over time. Everyone is navigating different challenges and one size doesn’t fit all. Listening to this issue, I would not want to be in a position where I can not attempt to do right by my “kids” (now adults) for anyone, including their father. I would not want to withhold that information, look my kid in the eye and not even have them know my maiden name.</p>
<p>I view people having histories and personal growth experiences as routine, normal. I would want to impart not only the information to my kids, but also the message that life has many phases and we can re-group, re-assess, change or move on. I hope to be there for them when they go through their transitions, modeling seeking appropriate help, tenacity, self-confidence and hope to the best of my ability. These values can be communicated in an ongoing way apart from specific discussion of personal history if this is an aspect of the dilemma for you as well. </p>
<p>It has been a long journey for you and taking a bit more time to sort this out further for yourself first (and perhaps at some point with your husband) in therapy may be worthwhile. I personally would want a plan that moves making decisions about addressing this forward. Just knowing that I was making progress would mean a lot. </p>
<p>I have cousins who don’t know they have a half-sibling. (I didn’t know this til about a year after the aunt died.) Aunt got pregnant at 14 and lived with my parents during the second half of her pregnancy. I was an infant at the time. Can’t imagine what it was like for my aunt to live with my parents, helping to care for me, and knowing she would be giving her child up for adoption. </p>
<p>I found letters that my mom write to my dad while they were dating that talked about her dad’s alcoholism. She has NEVER said a word about it to me. I did tell my kids when we talked about drugs/alcohol, and about how addiction can run in some families. My grandfather and brother provide an effective example of that. My mom is a classic ACOA, which I’m not sure I would have picked up without knowing the other piece of info.</p>
<p>I have struggled with walking on eggshells myself and when I saw my kids start to emulate that behavior, a therapist helped my kids learn to stand up for themselves. I am still working on it, and believe me, they pay attention to what I do in those situations.</p>
<p>It makes xania feel uncomfortable not to have the option to tell her kids (whether she actually decides to or not). The fact that the husband knows this, and is ok with his wife feeling uncomfortable / hurt, is the crux of the matter IMO.</p>
<p>It’s glib to say “go to therapy,” but there is some real meat on the bone here regarding issues of power / control between the husband and wife. I have dealt with some of this personally and I strongly urge you to go talk to a professional who can help you sort out your feelings. Best of wishes to you. You don’t deserve to feel bad about yourself or your situation.</p>
<p>I’m Catholic. In our faith, if you marry in the Catholic Church the first time, you must obtain an annulment from the Church to be able to marry again in the Church unless the first spouse dies. Any marriage outside the Church after a marriage in the Church is invalid unless the marriage was annulled or the first spouse died.This is not unique to Catholicism, BTW. </p>
<p>I don’t know of any in my family, but my parents had a devout Catholic friend who married a divorced man. They never told their kids that he had been married before. The kids were raised as Catholics. At about the age of 10, one of the kids asked mom why she never took communion.</p>
<p>The aftermath was not pretty. </p>
<p>I can understand why the kids weren’t told, but it would have been better if they had been.</p>
<p>*Only second children take 9 months of gestation. First babies can come at anytime. *</p>
<p>My oldest was born not quite 12 months after our wedding.
However, she was still ten weeks early & I had been pregnant when we married.( I had a miscarriage three days after the wedding)
I have always been upfront about that with my kids, but my Mil gave me * enormous grief* about the pregnancy at the time.
Ironic considering that when planning my in laws 50th anniv celebration, their children discovered their anniversary was just six months before the oldest’s 50th birthday. ( and he was the fattest baby you ever saw)
I should have known
:rolleyes:</p>
<p>i do know someone who had that situation. she was told that she actually miscarried the first baby, didn’t know that she miscarried, immediately got pregnant, and then THAT baby seemed to be taking too long to be born so labor was induced, and then a premie was born!! Everyone was shocked to see a 10 month preemie.</p>
<p>I also can’t imagine keeping this a secret. My SIL had a brief first marriage (no kids), the wedding was shortly after S was born, so our albums have plenty of photos of S in a baby tux at the wedding and her now-ex at family events/holidays, etc. Are we supposed to censor our family photos?</p>
<p>She now has 3 kids and it has not occurred to me to ask my kids to not mention former “uncle X”. I would never want to ask that of my own kids because I don’t think that’s a healthy way to live. I assume there are or will be plenty of times when the subject would come up naturally, i.e. talking about weddings (Daddy and I just had a small wedding bc I had a big one for my first marriage) or where did you live after college etc.</p>
<p>I definitely knew I miscarried the first because I had a d&c, and we waited three months before we tried again.
But even 30 years ago I had ultrasounds to check fetal growth & an amniocentesis to check lung maturity before mine was delivered.</p>
<p>My father had a temper. My mother knew how to walk on eggshells and kept things from him to keep the peace. My sister mother and I learned how to keep secrets as well.
It was uncomfortable for many years; he did mellow as he got older.</p>
<p>My husband and I do not keep secrets from each other. We have shared family history with our children as they reached an appropriate age to assimilate the info. Our extended family has some history much more troubling than an early child-less marriage.
We don’t go into the gory details. I agree that children can learn alot about life, change, challenges and redemption from understanding their family’s past.</p>
<p>OP, please consider counseling, either with your husband, or solo. I worry about his seeming need to control you.</p>
We are catholic also, but ex-H was not and we were not married in the church, so getting annulled from the first marriage was not a problem. </p>
<p>I appreciate everyone’s comments. If I were able to divulge more of the story, you would likely find that it’s a LOT deeper and worse than it appears. Reading the comments here, I feel pulled in both directions - concern about H’s reactions yet still inclined to tell S and D when a timely opportunity arises. H’s past I will leave to him.</p>
<p>surfcity - “Daddy” and I actually had a large wedding because we were pretending I had not been married before. :)</p>
<p>The fact that you are Catholic may still explain your H’s attitude. Getting married outside the Church is a serious sin according to Catholic teaching. If your H is religious, he may not want your kids to know mom did something that "evil. " He may feel that if they knew, they would use that knowledge to assert you’ve no right to object to bad conduct on their part.</p>
<p>Before everyone slams me, please remember that I am myself divorced. I’m not judging anyone. I’m just explaining that the H’s behavior may not be as weird as others think it is. Drawing an analogy, I know one heck of a lot of parents who used drugs in the 70s who have lied to their kids and told them they didn’t.</p>
<p>Oh, and one of my best friends in junior high was born 9 months and 15 minutes after the end of the wedding ceremony !</p>
<p>Somehow I don’t think the H is all that concerned about the fact that Xania first married outside of the Church. </p>
<p>While I can understand that some Catholics may not want their kids to know that a parent was once divorced, there just seems to be something “else” that is going on here. The fact that the H became “over the top” upset during the nice restaurant dinner suggests a lot more is going on.</p>
<p>I was born 15 months after my parents were married. As a teenager, I was embarrassed when my mother told me I was a result of the rhythm method! My parents weren’t Catholic, so I’m not sure why they used that form of “birth control.”</p>
<p>I am divorced and remarried but I still keep in touch with my former in-laws , particularly my ex’s sisters. My daughter’s ( 2 ) from previous marriage have several cousins and are pretty close knit. One my former BIL’s was married before he married his second wife…only for a few years and there were no children. He remarried and they had three children and decided NOT to tell the kids. Unfortunately, they found out from their other cousins and I think it made for some friction and embarrassment…not because of the previous wife , but because they hadn’t been told by their parents , yet all of the cousins knew</p>
<p>I also feel for xania because this is a bigger issue of control. Xania, you want to share something about yourself with your kids (something they truly should know by their age) and the reason you don’t share it is for fear of your husband’s potential over the top reaction. That is why I think it would be helpful and supportive if you could talk to a counselor (either alone or together…probably alone at first anyway), to empower you to do what you want in this situation (as it is about you and not him) and how to handle the situation when your husband may react negatively. I think you will need support because it is not an easy situation. What seems rational to many of us, is not how your husband may react if you discuss your plan with him.</p>
!</p>