01/16/2026
Dear Carolyn: I am divorced. My ex-husband physically abused me. There is no way to keep him out of my life completely because we have minor children together and there are court orders saying he has rights to visit, attend school events, etc. I have decided the best thing for my children is to be there for all their events and to be civil toward their father when he’s around.
I’m now in my first post-divorce relationship, with a wonderful man. Wonderful to me, wonderful to my kids, wonderful according to all my friends and family who talk about how relieved they are that he’s so unlike my ex. He has never met my ex and tells me he would have a very hard time being civil toward the man who abused me.
My kids ask him to attend their games or school performances, and he declines if their dad will be there with vague answers like, “I think it would be best if I sat this one out.”
I envision marrying and spending the rest of my life with him. Realistically, there’s no way he will never meet the father of my children, right? So at some point, he’s going to have to find a way to be civil to my ex. How do I help him get to that point?
Anonymous: This is one of those things that is completely understandable, until it isn’t.
Of course he would have a hard time being civil to the man who abused you. I hope everyone reading this would. Come on.
But. You’re civil to him. And you’re the one with the least interest of any us in being civil, because you’re the one he hurt.
The difference is that you aren’t making the calculation based only on yourself and what you want and need. You include your children’s needs in your math. The result: civility to the man who hurt you.
Back to your new man. We know his math = very hard time being civil. But what we don’t know — or what you haven’t told us — is whether he has included what anyone else wants or needs in his math.
This is what I suggest you ask him. “I understand this decision for you. I would feel the same way about meeting someone who hurt my friend.”
Then: “For obvious reasons, it’s important for me to know whether, and when, the kids’ needs and mine will ever change your math.”
No rush on an answer. This is something you want him to sit with, try on, carry. A session together with a therapist might help you both play out how a meeting might go.
Your relief to be with someone “wonderful” must be palpable. Just to live without the imminent threat of harm from a loved one is something everyone deserves.
Please be mindful, though, of habituation. Your ex didn’t hurt you physically out of nowhere; it was the extreme expression of priorities centered on himself, his needs and his feelings, with you as the accessory.
People can be self-centered without inflicting physical harm on others, and even without the meanness; in other words, there are much less extreme expressions. Because you were in a marriage where your needs and feelings were discounted by force, there’s a risk you will miss these subtler expressions. To you, they may read, emotionally, as normal or familiar.
I am not saying your new man is this way, or that habituation is destiny, or anything like that. But this is your first relationship since your divorce, and you’re having marriage projections already, and your kids are asking this would-be dad openly to meet an emotional need of theirs … and he’s walking away.
Making a partner’s history about oneself would be a point of valid concern about any potential spouse, for anyone. But if this man can’t stop centering himself in dealing with your ex, given what you and your kids have been through, then please have the courage to make it the issue that breaks the deal.
Letter writer’s kids want her new man at their events, but he said he would have “a very hard time being civil” to their father.
