Like Father... Last June I started dating a woman I knew as a friend for five years. She met my family and my two grown kids, and they all love her. We are so happy and in love, and are getting married this June. The issue is that her two boys, 15 and 16, will not meet me or attend our wedding. When I’m in my fiancée’s city, they will not even see their mom until I am gone. They currently reside with their dad. He and my fiancée divorced a dozen years ago due to his infidelity. He and that woman had a baby from the affair, and they currently live together with the boys. My fiancée’s ex has controlled her most of the time since the divorce through the two young men. He has poisoned their minds for his own selfish reasons and claims he still loves my fiancée. In the past he has stalked her, identified the person she is interested in, and caused the relationship to fail.

In my case he is frustrated because I reside a thousand miles away and my fiancée is on to his nonsense and resisting the manipulation. Since he has been unsuccessful in damaging our relationship he is using the boys, knowing that is the umbilical cord to my fiancée’s heart.

The boys have never met me, yet hate me because of their loyalty to their father. They stated to their mom I broke up any future chance for their father and her reuniting. They state they are upset I didn’t ask them for her hand in marriage, even though they will not meet me.

What do I do? I’ve been told I should write my feelings to them in a letter and send it to another location to prevent their father from reading it. But my heart tells me to stay out of it and let my fiancée handle things.

~ Ramon

Ramon, the boys are trying to win their father’s favor and stay in his good graces. Their daily life depends on it. Nothing you can say, short of “I’m not going to marry your mother,” will be acceptable to them.

They have been sent by their father to sabotage your relationship. Trying to win them over will only make you appear weak. This appears to be the familiar story of a father making sons copies of himself.

In the classic play by Euripides, Medea kills her children to spite her husband after he has left her for another woman. Emotionally, your fiancée’s situation may be even worse. Her ex betrayed her and wronged her, yet he isn’t satisfied. He spites her still. He cannot wound her enough.

A good parent has the restraint of doing what is in the child’s best interest; a bad parent places no such restraint on himself. The good person questions whether they are good. For the bad person, the question never comes up. And good people don’t seem to know that!

We suggest you explore books in two different areas. The first is stalking and how to stop it. You must be forearmed against what your future wife’s ex may be capable of. Even at a distance he poses a threat.

The other field to explore is the psychology of abuse. Understanding abuse will help you understand both what your wife-to-be has been through as well as how her ex-husband thinks. A brilliant first book on abuse is “Dragonslippers” by Rosalind Penfold. In text and illustrations it captures the essence of this cruelty.

Openness has a place in our lives some of the time. At other times it may be the worst thing we can do because it lowers our defenses. Whatever you write will be reported to the boys’ father. Perhaps in time they will understand his behavior from an adult perspective, but nothing can be gained now in writing them.

~ Wayne & Tamara

Authors and columnists Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com. Send letters to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email: DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com. Direct Answers appears in newspapers in the United States, Canada, Australia, the UK, Grenada, Guyana, Spain, Lesotho, South Africa, Antigua & Barbuda, Papua New Guinea, and Kenya.   Direct Answers Archive 2009 Direct Answers Archive 2010

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