Why is my ex-wife lying to our grandsons?

DEAR BEL I divorced my wife 25 years ago after her ten-year affair with a good friend of mine.

She had walked out on five previous occasions, leaving me and our two children in the family home.

She waived all monies in the house due to her to make the divorce as easy and hasslefree as possible, to ‘save face’ and to avoid upsetting her father, who was deeply disappointed in her behaviour.

Since then, we have met on numerous occasions at family functions and my ex-wife and her now husband and me and my wife of 23 years (who’s proved to be the love of my life) have all got on well.

About six months ago, my daughter was concerned about her two sons (13 and 11) because they’d been told by their nan (my ex-wife) a completely fictional story of events leading up to the divorce. The boys claim they have never tried to find out the details of our split as they love us all equally. But my exwife told them she met her current partner after she and I had divorced!

It was only after I managed to locate my copies of the solicitor’s letters from the divorce, along with affidavits from us both, that my side of the story could be proved.

This is an unsettling turn of events and I would like some ideas of how to proceed from here. It appears that my exwife has taken to texting the boys in the early hours.

Also, she found out the man she left me for has been in an affair for at least five years during their marriage.

I do not need revenge or the like, but this unsettling behaviour cannot go on. Can you give me guidance? THOMAS

So muCh time has passed since your divorce and to me it’s impressive that, even though your ex-wife treated you badly, you were magnanimous enough to continue with the family relationships. It certainly would have helped that you have been so happy with your second wife, because there is nothing like unhappiness for fuelling rancour.

Those grandsons will have been given a really valuable lesson, simply by seeing their grandparents socialising amicably with their respective partners from time to time.

What bothers me now is that those boys are unwittingly being dragged into an argument about historical accuracy. At a time in life when they should be thinking only of school work and friendships and whether there will be sausage, chips and peas for tea, the adults they love and look up to are bothering them with long-ago events and long-dead pain.

or perhaps the truth is that the pain isn’t dead. That yours never went away — which is why you were so ‘unsettled’ that you felt compelled to search for those yellowing divorce documents. Believe me, I do understand that — and sympathise.

We all hate it when those who we have once loved deeply choose to re-write history. You feel you have a right to the truth, but I still want to suggest that the feelings of those boys are more important than this squabble. I think it entirely wrong they are being forced to ‘claim’ anything.

Your daughter is surely the key person in this family controversy. If she is bothered by her mother’s texts to the boys (and late night texts are indeed odd — what are they about?) then she is the person to talk the matter through.

Personally, I don’t feel those boys should even have phones in their bedrooms at night, but that’s another matter.

If your ex-wife has recently discovered her husband has been having an affair, she is in a state of crisis and surely needs sympathy from her close family members (and I’m not including you here).

I am guessing that the revelation has triggered this wish to revisit the past when she was first in love and somehow gloss over all the pain she caused. I suggest her current actions are a cry for help which I hope your daughter will hear.

Can you not step back and be bigger (again) than your own feelings of indignation? You write, ‘this unsettling behaviour cannot go on’ — and I agree with you.

But if her marriage is in crisis and nobody gives her support, then the ‘behaviour’ might well become worse.

And it would be criminal if your grandsons were to become innocent victims, their sense of love and security ruined.