My family are demanding I get back with my ex.

Establishing a Healthy New Normal

We all—brother, husband, dad, and even my husband’s family—changed our numbers, got new electronics, and notified employers, friends, and police. We also started therapy and family therapy. My dad and brother feel extreme guilt over the situation, even if I have truly forgiven them. But we are healing as a unit.

My sister and Mom insist they are not wrong and they don’t need therapy. My dad made a new will in which my sister’s son gets a trust fund and some inheritance, but my sister gets a token amount. He is truly done with her. I was feeling bad for her, but I decided to focus my energy on my baby.

She is here, and we are blessed. It is not the experience I thought of since my mom is not around me anymore. But so many friends and family members have truly surprised us. By the end, we were so paranoid we started testing some people we were unsure of. We told them I was going into labor.

It worked like a charm. We discovered who was still feeding info to my mom and sister and cut them out. The rest understood when we explained the reasoning. My ex, whom my friends now call Bates, went around saying the baby was his cause we’ve been having a torrid affair due to my undying love for him.

Nobody believes him anymore. But it made my husband contact Bates’s employer and tell him about all the craziness. Long story short, he was put on a suspension pending internal reviewing. I am almost positive he will be fired since they have asked us for more and more info and they seem really apologetic.

My mom has tried to find us, but all the people that know of our location have gone NC with her. My dad’s lawyer sent her a letter stating that due to her instability, all correspondence will be through lawyers now. It has been us and my dad because I felt so bad for him being alone.

He has promised he will be fine and nothing is my fault, but I still feel awful. He has been the best babysitter, feeder, diaper changer in the universe. My nephews are loving as always, and my dad even got a visit with my sister’s son.

It came about because she kept making videos threatening to hurt herself if my husband didn’t stop alienating her family. So my dad emailed her about seeing her son and told her he would call the police about her threats so that seems to have stopped it. Lastly, someone brought up I gave Bates false hope.

It can’t be further from the truth. I spent years uncomfortable because I thought he would move on. Then, after I spoke up and then met my husband, I spent such a long time fighting my sister about it. I had a very long engagement, which is why I married after my sister.

I still love my mom and sister, but I choose a healthy life for me and my family over that love. We officially moved into a new house with my dad moving into the guest house. We had many discussions, both in and outside therapy. We decided that while it would be good for him to be with us, we all still need our space.

We are still renting out the old place and will be deciding what to do later. My dad has the grandchildren all together about three times a week now. He still has to see my sister’s kids separately since she refused to let him take the kid unless she knew where he lived.

To be fair, this is a normal thing, but considering she is crazy, we don’t want her close. My mom complained to the lawyers about how unfair it is my dad still gets to see all grandchildren, but there is nothing she can do about it. About a month ago, my dad told me he had a confession and my stomach started hurting.

Dear reader, he pays for my nephew’s (sister’s kid) schooling and babysitting, which is why she still allows him to see him. He felt so guilty for hiding it and didn’t want to keep secrets. I assured him it was nothing wrong and to please don’t feel bad.

On Mother’s Day, my dad got an email with a link to an Instagram account. In it, they made a sad video about my mom and how most of her family has abandoned her. They also highlighted how much of a saint my sister is for being there for her.

It was really pathetic and enraged me, but I just sent it to the lawyer. Dad officially filed for divorce in May and the process is still ongoing. My mom insists he is wrong. But my dad said he’d rather drink bleach than go back to her, so I think that is final.

My brother and husband took my dad out for Father’s Day and had a blast. My sister posted many, many, many things that day. But they managed to block my dad from even learning about it because we wanted him to enjoy it.

They also did a camping trip with the kids. They went to a hotel, got a suite, and put a tent in the middle area for the kids and a little teepee for baby. Honestly, having baby is one of the best things that have happened to me.

Seeing my husband being the amazing father I knew he would be makes me so happy. It is tiring, but we have so much support. I feel grateful beyond anything because I have my rocks on my side. My and I now get to have a little calendar on sharing things.

All the kids get to do things that are age appropriate. If they want to, we want to let them all know they do not need to hang out with people they dislike and their voices matter. Right now, they are all obsessed with baby and say they are her protectors.

We get little get-togethers, brunch, etc.. Honestly, having family time is now a pleasure and not a headache without my sister there. I know it is wrong to say, but she just sucks the positivity out of the room. My mother-in-law also loves having time with baby and stays in the guest room about once a week.

She asked politely and said she didn’t want to take baby for sleepovers or anything. I feel respected and heard by her. And yes, I have broken down sometimes because I miss my mom a lot. I miss the mom I had or thought I had, not the one that told me I would be a terrible mother or was a hateful woman.

My therapist says it’s a marathon and to focus on the good. Speaking about good, Bates was terminated. Not only that, but his reputation in his industry was not only damaged, but nuclear level damaged. So was his brother’s, but because his brother is not in an industry that cares as much about reputation, he still has his job as far as I know.

Bates sent me a 12-page, double-sided, seemingly single-space letter about how hurt he is. He wrote that I am denying him what’s his, and my husband is so threatened by him that he had to go and destroy him professionally. This was because he would not be able to destroy anything else. I said “seemed” because I didn’t read it; my lawyer did and gave me a summary.

I also heard from the grapevine—no, I don’t ask people, they just tell me—since they know he is stalking me that the mother of his children moved and he didn’t even care. He said it was for the best. This man doesn’t even care about his kids and wants to play family with baby and me.

Sadly, he won’t be homeless or anything because Mommy already let him move back in with her. So I doubt he will learn anything from this. My parents are divorced now after many fights and tantrums from my mother. She kept the house and got a bulk payment, but that is it.

My dad is like a new man and we are all so happy for him. A little throwback: when all the drama happened, we did not fire our cleaning lady. This is a woman that has been helping for decades. My dad spoke with her and told her the situation and until we had a new house, to please wait for us if she wanted, but she was absolutely not fired.

She was really happy about it and so was her family. My dad started to get food and stuff from them from time to time because they were so thankful about what he was doing for them. Well, she has a sister who owns her own nail salon, and my dad is dating her now.

She is a very lovely woman and has grown children, so she understands the dynamics happening. He has been very clear he is not moving or marrying, and she is pleased with that because she likes her independence. My mother nearly had a stroke when she heard about his new relationship and kept saying it was a late midlife crisis.

She claimed he had to resort to being a sugar daddy. This is obviously what I heard because I don’t have any contact with her. Last I heard, she is having a hard time. She is struggling because she was never good at budgeting and relied on my dad to put a stop on ridiculous purchases.

My sister is also struggling because my dad is not helping her with money anymore. He was willing to keep helping for the sake of my nephew, but then things got very rough. My nephew started calling my kid an affair baby and saying how she is not with her real dad. He called my other nephews delusional.

During a birthday party, he even pushed one of my nephews on my husband’s inside saying they were not my kid’s cousins, only he was. The kids were perplexed and so, so, so confused but immediately told an adult about it. My dad spoke with him, but he kept repeating it.

He spoke with my sister, and she said she could do nothing to prevent a kid from telling the truth.

She asked, “Didn’t all kids tell always the truth?”.

He told her until there is a change, he is cutting them off. She panicked and cried, but she is also super stubborn. So now my nephew goes to public school because my husband made my dad cut them off. Bates is still unemployed. I know I was cryptic about it, but he was in an industry related to vulnerable women and some of it related to stalking.

Irony much? That’s why he was fired. The organization he was in didn’t want this to splash on them. I have received two more very long handwritten rambling letters from him. Since he only has my lawyer’s address, guess who has the honor of receiving, reading, and filing those ramblings.

I love my lawyer, and he is a champ. Apart from that and the gossip, I have not had bad issues related to him except for one. I was at the grocery store, and a random woman came over to ask if my kid was Bates’s baby. I was speechless and shocked.

I asked her what she was on, and she said he has a photo of us on his profile. She said I should be ashamed of myself for hurting such a good man. Turns out he is still going by the narrative my kid is his and I loved him so much. That is all old news.

But at the end, what shocked me the most was the photo comment. This is not a photo that has been public or anything like that. It was sent to a family group once, and that is it. I told my husband immediately, and he was enraged but composed. We decided to smoke out the rat.

Long story short, it was my dad’s two sisters feeding info to my mom. My dad was so disappointed but also had no doubts cutting them off. They are still begging him to talk to them again. My brother and his family are doing great. We see them a lot and have been in some family holidays.

They are also NC with my mom and sister. My mother-in-law is actually super happy about it because it turns out she was not a fan of our mom but kept the peace. My in-laws keep being lovely as well. We allow mother-in-law overnight babysitting now too, and she is over the moon with it.

Sometimes she has all her grandchildren under the same roof, and they are all delighted to be with her. She is a former flight attendant, so their favorite game is to pretend airplane. Overall, they love her and we know she is good without kids, so we not worry.

She had to make her socials private because my mom kept stalking her. I am sure she is extremely jealous, but she made her own bed. Lastly, my husband keeps me sane whenever little things come up. We are thinking if we should have another baby or maybe adopt one.

We are still undecided. We have a great support system and the privilege to have this conversations. I still miss my mom a lot. I sometimes cry when I realize there are milestones I can no longer share with her.

But she is a bad person and the safety of my family matters more. Last fun fact: this Father’s Day they actually went camping. It went great, apart from the mosquito bites and some ill-placed.