Oh boy...we have this conversation every other week. And I too don't know what to do anymore....

Dh picks and chooses what he tells me for either reason: He wants to spare me any unneccesary feelings of pain I may have if he tells me....and he also doesn't tell me some things cause he doesn't want to hear my mouth when I flip out over his or her behavior.

Doens't he realize I freak out even more when I find the whole truth out a year later...He doens't trust me to tell me the truth. Yes, I may get aggravated for a minute..but so what? It'll never be as bad as he makes it by "lying!"

My DH is also a people-pleaser...but obviously not to me. He doens't know how to say NO to his exwife or his kids ..but he says No to me... All I know is withholding details is the same as lying. I have to do it back to him now and then to see how it feels...
I don't think I can take finding things out the next year...it really hurts! If you think of another way to handle the lies...let me know.

My dh is the same, always doing stuff to please BM and she is never satisfied even she could be given the whole world and that's what men need to realise. You have a new life, put your foot down and stop letting control freaks run your new life at the expense of your new relationship. These controlling BMs have their own lives and just want to ruin other people's lives by running the show on both sides and that should not be allowed. I am sure if the men learnt how to say no to their demands, such BMs will push it some more, then eventually get tired when they see they are not getting their way. Men, please work with us here.

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Trep, Your last paragraph has me so sad...but sometimes I think it has nothing to do with love. Somtimes love just isn't enough no matter what we think. Your bf just didn't have what it takes to step up to the plate for you...Maybe he lacked courage...or something else...He had to love you.

I wanted to weigh in on this one, because my DH used to be one of those who lied about stuff relative to BM, skids and his former life. It wasn't to hurt me or to keep me in the dark about anything, it was because he didn't like to talk about unpleasant subjects and he didn't want any BS from his former life to poison our new marriage. It was easier to just gloss over stuff than it was to get into a showdown with me about how bad things really were. I wanted to advocate for him, but he just wanted to keep the peace, even at his own expense. This caused a lot of problems in our marriage early on.

He also used to be her "yes man" and would pretty much agree to anything, just so he could see his kids. It's a tough spot to be in, when your ex is holding your children hostage. You agree to anything just to be able to stay in their lives on some level, any level. He paid whatever he had to pay, did whatever he had to do, all just for the EXPECTATION of seeing his kids, even though oftentimes his expectations were not met and he was still denied, even after jumping through her hoops. This, too, caused a lot of problems in our marriage early on.

Things did change a lot after we'd been married a little while and had established a family of our own. He tried to continue on with her as before, but he soon saw that he just couldn't keep kissing her ass. Things he did now affected me, us, our family. There wasn't just him to consider, anymore. It wasn't just his sacrifice to make, we were ALL sacrificing and it wasn't fair to US. He had to take into consideration all of us, not just him, his ex and their kids. It didn't take him long to see that giving in to her was ruining our marriage, but making the needed changes didn't happen overnight... there were lots of arguments, lots of heart-to-hearts, lots of compromises, lots of struggles, but we did eventually get to the place where he doesn't lie to me about the skid/BM stuff, he doesn't tell me stuff just because it's what he thinks I want to hear and he doesn't kiss her ass. (He's too busy kissing mine, now! LOL)

It did cost him, though. She got very angry, very hostile and very selfish. She did anything and everything she could to keep the kids from him. She'd tell him he could have them, then change her mind at the last minute... sometimes after he was already in the car and two hours into the 5-hour long drive to pick them up. She'd say we could have them for Christmas, since it was our turn, but then cancel on Christmas Eve. Payback is a bitch, and he definitely got a lot of payback for standing up for himself, his rights and the rights of our family. She was very successful in alienating the kids from him. At best, we'd get them once or twice a year, but she'd never let us have them for the holidays, even though they are supposed to alternate per the divorce papers. Now that we've moved too far away to enforce weekend and holiday visitation, she just doesn't answer the phone during the summer months when we try to get them for summer vacation.

I guess my point is that men can be reformed... they can stop the lies, they can learn to stand up for themselves and their new wives and they can learn to put the "second" family first. But sometimes they do so at a very high cost. My husband did change and that did rid us of one set of problems, but it only caused us to have to deal with a whole new set of problems. It's just a different kind of hell.

None of us is ever going to be 100% happy 100% of the time. It's just not in the cards. When you marry a man who has children and an ex-wife, there simply ARE going to be issues. Fixing one problem sometimes leads to another problem. Trading one set of issues sometimes leaves you dealing with an even worse set of issues. I think that's why sometimes we have to pick our battles carefully, decide what we can and cannot live with, what are the deal-breakers and what are the things we can compromise on. There are some battles that are just not worth fighting in the long run.

I love my husband to death, I love his children very much. I consider them "my" kids, too, even when the going gets rough. Heck, I even asked for their birthstones to be included on my mother's ring, too. But as much as I love them, I now realize that there are times when you just have to make the choice of letting it go and being happy or continuing to fight a hopeless battle that will only win you more heartache down the road. That's what we do now... we pick our battles. It's been a much happier, more relaxed and definitely more quiet living experience ever sense.

Just my worn-down perspective!

~ Anne ~

Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice: Pull down your pants and slide on the ice! -M*A*S*H (Sidney Freedman to the OR staff on dealing with stress)

a lie is a lie, agreed. i think that after lots of struggle and explanation on this subject, my husband has finally said the right thing to make me understand what was going on in his head when he would butcher the truth. first, i had to make him understand that i feel that a lie is a lie, a lie of omission is a lie, and he was losing my respect as well as my trust. it really was just little things that he would be deceptive about, phone calls, pickups, laundry, etc..
he used to embellish the truth where his ex wife was concerned, saying things that would make her sound like a better parent. the ironic part was that he was rarely being questioned/confronted about anything. i really do try not to criticize. best to keep my mouth shut and deal with it (most of this is when my stepson is around, so not a good time for debate). picking him up from school and seeing ticks in his hair that a blind person couldn't have missed, filthy clothes we bought for him shoved into his bookbag, expired medicine, his attendance at school, my list could go on. he would always jump to her defense, telling lies when necessary, even if i had not said a word. the lies and defending her made me so angry!!!!
we had to talk about it a lot, and then i would get the truth, not that i could ever really know for sure. it mostly comes down to a guilt thing i think. if i even raised an eyebrow about anything she did or didn't do, i was being judgemental. he told me that if she seems like a crappy parent, then he feels like he must be a crappy parent for allowing it. he felt that he was just defending himself, and a lot of the time, it was just nervous guilt. i guess maybe some of this sortof applies to your situation. your man fears that you will dissapprove of this vacation thing with the unsupervised bm, but at the same time, he doesn't feel right about keeping them out of this, for whatever reason. some crazy sense of obligation i guess.
anyway, i like to tell my husband that he is a great dad. i point out things to him that he does for his child that my own dad never did for me. basically, when i started making him know for sure that i was not attacking, or going to attack him when the exwife drops the ball, the honesty thing was no longer really an issue for us any more. i just keep reassuring him that he is a good daddy, and we can be honest to each other, and we can be a team if we have to pull any ticks off of any scalps. now i listen when he complains about her.
i hope you guys can work it out. it took time, but mine has earned back my trust.

for giving me hope. My DH and I have been having alot of heart to heart talks lately....I want to believe there is hope that our marriage will be one which is full of truth instead of this B.S now. After reading your post I feel it is possible. I guess it just takes time.
--married 7 months