Am I the problem or is this as hard as it feels?
My wife and I separated in June 2025 after nearly eight years together, married for almost four. We have a daughter who just turned seven and a son who turns three next month. When things ended, we both promised we'd stay friends and do right by our kids. I genuinely believed that. I'm still trying to hold onto it.
The divorce isn't finalized yet. There's still a lot to figure out. We're doing 50/50 week on week off. I'm keeping the house and absorbing all the marital debt from our marriage. She's not pursuing child support — and honestly, if anything, the math would favor me — but I would never do that to her because it only hurts my kids in the end. I'm barely making it work financially, but I am making it work because I have to.
She started dating pretty quickly after we separated. I won't pretend that was easy for me — I had real feelings about it. But I recognized that was my issue to work through, not hers. She waited before introducing anyone to the kids, which I genuinely respect — it's the bare minimum, but she did it.
Here's where it gets harder.
She's now pregnant with her boyfriend's child. They've been living together with my kids for around 4-5 months. They've been dating close to a year. I have never once met this man. When I told her how disrespected that made me feel, she responded that he "doesn't feel comfortable meeting her legal husband." He's comfortable enough to get her pregnant and live under the same roof as my children every other week, but sitting down with me for twenty minutes is too much. I've thought about going around her and introducing myself directly, but I haven't. On top of that, until the divorce is finalized,s he has no legal obligation to give me their address. So I don't know what street my kids sleep on when they're not with me. I don't know where they live. That's a hard thing to sit with.
My daughter just turned seven. Her mom took her to Volcano Bay for her birthday — about a four to five-hour drive from where we live in Savannah, Georgia. None of my daughter's family was there. Just the boyfriend's family. I was told about the trip roughly two weeks before. She says she told me months in advance and has proof, but the only other time I can recall it coming up was a vague mention of maybe doing a cruise or something big for her birthday someday. I could have gone. Financially, I'm stretched thin right now covering everything, but I could have made it work. I chose not to under those circumstances. They didn't get home until 8 p.m. that night. I was a mess all day. I have never missed one of my daughter's birthdays. Not one. And whether it was technically my choice or not, I didn't get to see her on her seventh birthday, and that gutted me. When I brought it up today, my ex said it was my fault. I'm not sure I fully accept that.
My son turns three on June 8th. We had verbally agreed she'd have the kids that day since it fell on a Monday,y and I had work. But it's my week. I decided to take PTO so I can actually spend his birthday with him — I didn't get to see my daughter on he, rs and I'm not doing that again. My ex wasn't happy about it. I offered a compromise: she keeps them until 1:30 since she'd have them Sunday night anyway from the swap. I'm still waiting for a response.
I also wanted to plan a birthday party for him the following weekend and thought about inviting her family — her parents, her brothers and sisters, her nieces and nephews. I still call them that. I love those people. Honestly, I think I miss that family more than I miss anything about the marriage itself. She told me I'm not on good terms with them right now because I got a lawyer to make sure our divorce documents were in order — she had drafted them herself, and they weren't right. So I now feel guilty inviting my own son's family to his birthday party. And I have a feeling everything her family knows about me is filtered entirely through her version of events. The boyfriend, too. He's never met me. The only lens he's ever seen me through is hers.
Here's the thing, though. I've made peace with a lot of this. At the beginning of this process, I blamed myself for everything. I've come to realize I played a part, but it wasn't all me. More importantly, her boyfriend is going to be in my kids' lives forever. He's going to be the father of their little brother. My kids love him, and I'm genuinely glad they do. Having more loving people around them is what matters. I'm okay with all of it because I love my kids that much.
What I'm not okay with is the framing. She consistently reinforces the idea that we are not a family anymore and makes decisions through the lens of not wanting to remind the kids of what they used to have. I understand where that comes from emotionally. But I believe my kids still have a family — it just looks different now. I want them to see both their parents showing up for them at the same time, being peaceful, so they know the two people who love them most can coexist. She shuts that down every time.
We both said we'd do right by our kids. Her idea of what that means and mine are clearly very different things.
I just want amicable love for my kids. Am I being unreasonable?