SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm five years out. Never will be fully healed, but things are way way better. I have a new partner who is many wonderful things, but above all else, she is emotionally competent. She is a woman, not a girl and we've found ways to dispassionately discuss problems to hear each other and work them out. We've been living together through COVID, which has been a good test that we're compatible.

We're getting married in June (Woot!), which is the source of great joy, but one enduring frustration.

It will be a deliberately small service, partly because of COVID (although most everyone will be vaccinated by then), partly because we're funding it ourselves and partly because we've each already had a big brouhaha wedding. It will only be our immediate families, including our four children and their kids, our parents and some of our siblings who are within driving range. Maybe 20 people total.

My youngest daughter, 22, suffered immensely from her Mom's misbehavior, which included her affair, her abandoning the family in the guise of supporting friends in AA while squonking the junkie boyfriend, threatening suicide to daughter's face and blaming her, stalking me on this very forum and others, to gather "intel" about what I was saying about her anonymously to anonymous people, and it goes on and on. She continues to talk mad shit about me to our daughter, which causes her great pain.

So, I told daughter I very much wanted her to come, that I would pay for her expenses, etc... She is likely coming, but is very worried that her Mom will have a huge tantrum about it. Daughter can't stay with me, because I got the family home in the settlement and "it has ghosts." So, she insists on staying with Mom, knowing that her Mom will spend the entire weekend, talking mad shit about me for the crime six years ago of putting my pain at having been cheated on ahead of her "cry for help" as she now calls her affair. I don't GAF about her problems (although I wish she'd find a boyfriend and focus on him), but she'll try to tarnish the whole weekend through poisoning our daughter and bringing her down to her level of self-loathing and misery.

Daughter is pretty savvy about all this, thanks to therapy and personal growth. She repeatedly tells me how much she appreciates me never badmouthing her mom (in front of daughter), while being greatly saddened at how her mother talks mad shit about me to her. That's their shit to deal with, I reckon. I just tell daughter "I'm sorry you're dealing with that" and let it go.

My new strategy is to rent a hotel room for daughter as a way to isolate her from Mom in the lead up to the wedding, so daughter can have some peace.

This shit just doesn't let go.

Congratulations! The hotel will be worth it:-)

How did ex find out you were getting married?

Anna,

She doesn't know yet. But she'll likely hear from daughter or through the grapevine of our still occasionally overlapping social circles.

Well the later she knows the better I suppose. Congrats again!

Dealt with this when I married the STBXWW, her first ex (that she had a daughter with) was constantly trying to sabotage things and talk bad about the mother.

Honestly I'm starting to see he was right about some things, but that's another story...

I tried (not always succeeded) not to say bad things about him around the stepdaughter. He never tried, she'd always come home after his week repeating what he'd said. As she's gotten older (14 now) she's gotten better about understanding the situation and letting the bad talk go in one ear and out the other. You're in a good place taking the high road...long term that will make you the better parent in the daughter's eyes.

Hotel room sounds like a great idea.

Yes, the high road has started to really pay off, while the XWW takes the gutter that is next to the low road. I just hate it that our daughter gets dragged through it.

I can be obnoxious and a know-it-all (i'm working on it), but the main attack on me is that I gave up on the XWW after just a year of post D-Day abuse from her. According to XWW, I was supposed to sacrifice my dignity, self esteem and need to trust my partner in order to support the "healing journey," of which her affair was a testament to how bad off she was. So, I was the selfish one for focusing on my own pain.

I swear these people really amaze me.

Cheatee, a big congrats on getting hitched again.

Get the hotel room. Get a nice one, and your DD will choose to stay there instead. Let her bring a plus one if she can.

As for your ex. Fuck her and let her fade away bro. Who cares what her sad story is, and why she did what she did. YOU"RE GETTING MARRIED!!

Let your focus be on your new bride. Your DD will know what mom is up to. She will have to deal with her mom on her own. She is an adult, and she can decide for herself.

Thanks, Halftime, for the encouragement/advice.

Yeah, DD is on board. She wants to bring a friend, but that friend is an anti-vaxxer, so she won't make the entry criteria of having been vaccinated.

It's gonna be a great transition for me and my lovely bride to be. I finally figured out that the wise, soft spoken good girls are more reliable than the life-of-the-party types I'd been drawn to before.

Better late than never!

Congrats on the nuptials and finding a mature partner. The hotel room sounds like an excellent idea.

As I was reading your initial post I was thinking , "rent a hotel room". Yeah for you for coming up with that. Huge high five for your steady detachment and walking away from the drama while empowering and caring for your DD.