When your ex is expecting

How to deal with this major curve ball

Just as the dust from your divorce has settled and you feel like you and your kids are finding your

“happy place” again, your ex drops a bomb – he and his new partner will welcome a new baby into the family. Hearing that your old love is going to be a dad again can unleash bewildering emotions, such as jealousy, anxiety and anger. And this can be confusing, because you thought you were over him! But past relationships can continue their hold over us. “You may have unresolved feelings about your ex, and have been holding out hope that you may work things out,” says clinical psychologist Izan Hartman, who specialises in family therapy. “This may be a marker that he has moved on and your fantasy of reuniting has to end,” she says. Adding to that, you will likely have concerns around how your children will take the news.

Telling The Kids

Ideally, your children’s father should share the news with you before he tells your children. You may have bad blood, but this is a serious parenting issue and one that you should put your feelings aside for and tackle as a team. If the children are teens, the father should consider telling his children that he is planning on having more kids well before that bun is in the oven. This will give them time to adjust to the news and explore their emotions before a baby is a reality.

Yet with communication often strained between the previous partners, the news can come as a shock to everyone involved, as one divorced mom-of-two, Helen Morris, experienced. “I discovered my ex was having a baby when my kids told me. My teenager came storming into my room swearing never to speak to his father again, and my younger son couldn’t contain his excitement and asked me a rush of questions about whether the baby will know who he is, and whether his dad will still want him to visit during the holidays,” she says. Forced to digest the news in the moment, Helen was furious with her ex. “If I had been given the heads up I would have been better prepared for the emotional fallout,” says Helen.

How your kids react may depend on their ages, says Hartman, who recommends the two sets of parents seek counselling to discuss the best way to handle the situation. This would involve you each meeting individually with a counsellor. “I would look at where the child is developmentally. When they are younger than five they tend to have some anger when there is a new baby; if they are older they will probably have a more nurturing response.”

Allowing your child to share their insecurities openly (“Will Daddy love the baby more?”) is essential. Reassure them that there is always more room in a parent’s life to love a child. “Play therapy may also provide a space for your child to play out those feelings,” she says. Your child needs to be helped to understand the new dynamics of the family and their part in it.

An older child may feel their position in the family is threatened as dad has a new “eldest” on the way; the youngest child may feel ousted as the “baby” of the family. Your kids will likely resent sharing their father with this new needy being. The father will (hopefully) be sensitive to this by assuring them that his love for them has not changed.

While it might pain you, you can also help support the change. Take your kids shopping and let them choose gifts for the new baby.

While you may do all you can you support your child, there will inevitably be fallout if the father is not aware of the long term repercussions of his actions. Raine Calitz divorced her partner when her son, Jack, was two. Jack’s father went on to have two daughters with his new wife. “I felt Jack was compromised emotionally by his father. He was never included in his father’s family holidays as he said he travelled enough with me, and things like this left him feeling unloved by his father. He loves his dad, but now as a young adult he lacks trust in his own ability to fulfil his responsibility as a father,” says Raine.

When your ex is expecting

If I had been given the heads up I would have been better prepared for the emotional fallout

Money Matters

Emotions aside, his new family situation may create wobbles with your existing maintenance agreement. Helen also experienced this first hand. “I had spent four years in mediation, seeing lawyers and visiting the maintenance officer at the courts almost weekly. He was always pleading poverty and now he had created a legitimate excuse not to pay maintenance,” complains Helen. Her ex-partner lived in another town, and Helen was also resentful that he was going to be a full time dad to someone else’s child, when he rarely saw her kids. “I felt like he was recreating this perfect life for himself using the money he owed me.”

So, what happens when he contacts you complaining about his skyrocketing nappy and doctors’ bills? “He may approach the maintenance court for a downward variation in his maintenance obligations,” says Gillian Lowndes, attorney and family law specialist at Lowndes Dlamini & Associates. He will have to demonstrate that “good cause” exists for the downward variation – the courts will always place the welfare of the children involved first, explains Lowndes. And this means the welfare of the kids you share, as well as the new baby that’s come into the equation.

“While morally the knee jerk reaction is to say that the ‘first’ children must be given preference, an order to the effect that the father must continue to support his first children at the same rate may lead to a situation where the child from the second child suffers and the court as the upper guardian of all children would then be failing in its duty to act in the best interests of the ‘second’ child,” says Gillian. “The courts have rendered differing decisions on this issue, some recognising the first spouse and children’s needs as a ‘first charge’ in respect of maintenance and others not being inclined to do so.”

Fairness to all the children involved is critical. Your ex cannot send his new children to a private school if your kids attend a public one, for example, explains Cheryl Webb, consultant at the Family Law Clinic. Both sets of children must be afforded the same opportunities and support, which may also mean if he cannot send his new child to a private school, you may be compelled to move yours to a public school too, she says.

So what should you do? You would be in your rights to oppose the application for downward variation in maintenance, or compel him to sell off non-essential assets such as luxury watches or motor vehicles to meet his extended maintenance obligations. However, you may also be obliged by the court so supply them with your financial statements to show the amount that you will be able to contribute, says Prashanta Richen, director at Naidu Richen Attorneys. Furthermore, the new “baby mama” will also have to pitch in. “Her income will be taken into account when assessing his current financial situation,” says Cheryl.

Above all, Cheryl recommends you also try to remain reasonable and fair. “Remember you are both equally responsible for maintaining your children, says Webb. “If he truly cannot contribute what is needed you can legally approach his parents to claim maintenance from them,” she says.

Moving Forward

There are positives that can come out of the cute-as-pie half-sibling being added to mix. If you have an only child, you can highlight the fact that they are now a “big brother or sister”, says Izan. “Siblings can share things that a parent and child cannot,” and being part of a new sibling subsystem can be a really positive thing for your child. “Shared support, nurturing each other, and friendship” are all positives of gaining a sibling, says Izan.

Do you remember what it’s like to have a newborn in your life? Your ex will be going through this all over again – the good and the bad, and Izan recommends you take a flexible approach to custody in those early days. This may mean your children only visit their father for day visits for a while. “Ask your child what they want and then adjust visits temporarily. The word is flexibility – you need to look at what works.” It’s complex, but doable, she says. “People do get through these things.” yb

he was pleading poverty, and now he had created a legitimate excuse not to pay maintenance