This is a really messed up story and I'll say from the get-go that I know I have some culpability in this.
I married Harriet in 2007 when I was 24 and she was 21. 8 years into our marriage Harriet confessed that she had been emotionally cheating on me with another woman. She didn't call it emotional cheating, she just felt guilty and thought that some of her actions were crossing boundaries. Turns out that this was an online relationship with a penpal of hers and it had escalated to the point where the other woman confessed feelings to Harriet and Harriet didn't reject her.
We tried to work through this for several months. Couples counselling, lots of late-night talking, tried everything in the book. My couples counsellor said something very potent that I still remember. She said that the relationship would never be the same again. This was now a new relationship and I needed to decide whether I wanted this new relationship or not. I ended up deciding that I did not want it.
My wife and I filed for a divorce in 2015. To make sure that our son was impacted as little as possible, my wife moved out of my home but rented an apartment 5 minutes away. She has an okay-paying job so she was able to make ends meet. During this time, I think I should have cut most contact from her.
Mistake 1: But instead we remained friends. We often drank together, or slept together, or hung out as a 'family' together with our son. So for the first year after the divorce, it didn't really feel like a divorce.
My wife told me that she respected my decision for a divorce, but she said that she would not date anyone else. She said that she feels we are soul-mates and she was willing to wait however long it takes for me to want her back in my life.
Mistake 2: I didn't reject her completely at this point. I told her that while I wasn't interested in getting back with her, if she wanted to wait, she was free to do so.
In retrospect, I think she interpreted this as an open door. I wasn't strong enough to fully cut contact with her. And because of this, my ex-wife Harriet was immensely hurt when she found out that I was dating Tamina. This was in 2016. Tamina was 25 and felt like a breath of fresh air into my life. We dated for 1.5 years and married last summer. It's approaching our 2-year anniversary, Tamina is pregnant with our first child, and my son is incredibly excited to have a baby brother.
The only reason I can't call this a happy ending is because Harriet has developed a drug problem. She abuses Ambien and has lost her last 2 jobs because she misses work too often. She and I don't talk much anymore since I started seeing Tamina, but from what little we do talk, I know that she is still "waiting" for me. I know that she feels an incredible guilt for breaking our family. And worst of all, I know that her depression is affecting her ability to be an awesome mother.
This has been going on ever since I started dating Tamina and our son doesn't even look forward to going over to his mother's place anymore. He used to go over on weekends but now we've reduced it to one weekend per month. I'm posting here because Tamina and my son were talking this weekend and my son said that he didn't look forward to seeing his mom this month. My son is 7 years old and he's too young to remember his mother being any other way than this. To him, his mother has alwyas been this thing that she has turned into.
Tamina and my mother both think that I should fight for full custody of my son because Harriet is no longer capable of being a mother. I don't know what to do. If I reach out and try to help Harriet, it might hurt Tamina. If I get full custody, Harriet might sleep deeper into this depression. I feel lost and I'm afraid that I'm about to make another big mistake.
tldr
Ex-wife cheated on me, we divorced, but stayed "friends". Ex-wife chose not to move on because she was waiting for me to take her back. I moved on, dated others, found someone, got married. Ex-wife is spinning out of control and I don't know if I should step in to help her, or step away to let her move on.
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