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Blending families has never been an easy task and when it comes to the holidays, getting everyone to put their issues — and insecurities — aside for the sake of the children involved can sometimes seem impossible.

Yesterday I came across the scenario below on social media which I can’t say for sure is a real situation, but it certainly mimics commonly observed dynamics among husbands, wives, and the exes whom they’ve had children with.

@ohhslim.shutup shared the following situation:

I got married six months ago and I have a 7-year-old son who is by another man. He takes great care of his son. For Thanksgiving, every year, I go to my mom’s house and my son’s father always meets us there to eat dinner. This year, my husband told me to tell my son’s father he can’t come to dinner or neither my son nor I can go to my mother’s for Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t know what to do. How can I best handle this situation.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BauLiZ4h2n6/?taken-by=ohhslim.shutup

Honestly, this question raised more questions than answers for me. In my mind, there’s only one answer: Go to dinner at your mother’s house like you’ve been doing and allow your child’s father to come as well — like he’s been doing. Coming from a blended family myself where, during my college graduation, I went to dinner with my mom, my father, my mom’s ex-husband, and my mother’s current husband, I know how awkward these things can be. But I also know the most important thing is for a child to be with his or her parents and the adults who want to stand in the way of that happening need to figure their own mess out.

And that’s where my questions for this scenario come in: Has this woman’s husband not met her son’s father before? Has her husband never come to Thanksgiving dinner with the ex before? Does this man think that now that he’s her husband suddenly there should be no other man in her son’s life? How long did she date this man before marrying him? What other controlling behavior has he exhibited? And what kind of man wants to keep a father from his child?

Looking at the comments section of the post, however, I see that, while I might not be in the minority with this opinion, there are plenty of women who believe in “honoring your husband” (apparently over your child) and that this woman and her son should no longer go to her mother’s for Thanksgiving dinner with the child’s father, period. I’m all for respecting your spouse, but when this man married a woman with a child who has an active father in his life, he should’ve known interacting with him — and his wife interacting with him — would be a part of the package. If he can’t set his ego aside for the sake of his wife’s child, he’s not someone she needed to marry anyway.

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