u/Life-Ad3563

Context. We're now officially divorced. A temporary parenting order has been in place for years with a final one where nothing really changed was put in place some months ago. I have my kids for 2 weeks, and then my ex gets them for a weekend in the next state over, repeated. My ex just had her partner move in

My 7yo as of late, say for the past three months, has been near daily expressing feelings of wishing we never broke up. Wishing we were still together. "It feels like mommy replaced you and that makes me sad". I miss the times we all were together. I miss [relates some memory of before the break-up]. I just wish you could let her come back. etc etc etc. Sometimes this involves crying about it into my chest for several minutes while we hug it out and I listen to her talk.

From her perspective, I understand where she's coming from. She misses her mom. She was barely aware of the abuse like her older sibling was. She doesn't like the long drives. She doesn't like that she doesn't get to see her mom nearly as much as she wants to. She really doesn't like seeing her mom with someone else. All of these are totally reasonable things for a 7yo

As for me, this is a lot. I feel like I'm cleaning up a mess my ex made. I know the context of the breakup and how it felt more like escaping torture than it did the breakup of a relationship, and hearing "can we go back?" sets off my own anxiety in the back of the head. Feels really wrong to say to my child "don't talk to me about this, even though you feel safe to do so".

Both she and her older sibling ask questions about why this had to happen and I struggle to answer in a way that isn't "your mom did XYZ to me and it was awful." I usually answer with 'you mom's brain was sick and things happened that made it unsafe for everyone' or something to that effect, which spurs on my 11yo to ask deeper questions because that's who she is

Has anyone else dealt with this, and what did or didn't help you in this situation?