My (28F) boyfriend's (37M) ex-wife (28F) is weaponizing their son (9M) to prevent him from dating. Would it be healthier to slowly reintroduce the relationship now with support from family, or wait until after a major family vacation to avoid further conflict?
TLDR: My boyfriend’s son became extremely distressed after learning we were dating, and now we don’t know how to move forward.
Throw away account for anonymity. My boyfriend (37M) and I (28F) have been dating for about 8 months, although we knew each other for years beforehand because he is my brother's brother-in-law. He has a 9-year-old son with his ex-wife. They divorced 6 years ago and have a custody agreement where he has weekends, she has weekdays, and they have split holidays. It's more of a contract that they signed during the divorce, but they didn't go through the courts. I don't really know how that works. They have co-parented pretty successfully, and usually let him go on vacations with the other as a curtesy.
Before introducing me to his son, my boyfriend wanted to tell his ex-wife first so she would feel comfortable with having me around him. My boyfriend told her on a Wednesday in February, so she had their son with her. We don't know exactly what she said to their son, but he had an extreme reaction to finding out about the relationship. He believed that his dad was choosing himself and me over him. He believed that he would never see both of his parents on holidays again. He believed that he would never see his parents at the same time at his sporting or school events. And it was all because his dad was "doing something bad." He also became fixated on the idea that my boyfriend and I are “kind of related” because of overlapping family connections, even though we are not related at all. He believes the age gap is weird too, even though the ex-wife and I are the same age.
His son became so distressed that he had panic attacks at school, refused to see his dad for a weekend, and begged him to end the relationship. My boyfriend let him stay at his mom's because he didn't want to force him to do something he didn't want to do. My boyfriend immediately broke up with me because he wanted to protect his son and reduce his anxiety. Which I understood - I knew that his son would always come first. As soon as we broke up, his son was super excited to spend the weekends with him again. He seemed happy again. It was as if nothing had happened.
After the initial shock wore off, my boyfriend and I slowly started seeing each other again privately because we still care deeply about each other. The problem is that we genuinely do not know the healthiest way to move forward. My boyfriend is worried that if we become public again too soon, his ex-wife may continue reinforcing fears to their son or potentially interfere with their family vacation and parenting time since their custody agreement is vague.
At the same time, we worry that hiding the relationship for too long could also damage trust later.
For more context, my boyfriend has a very large family. Everyone in his family has shown us support and have encouraged us to get back together. I think that we could get the family together to show his son that I am not a witch, that I care about him, and that it's not weird that we're dating and we're not actually related at all. I think if he saw me, he would realize the age gap isn't that weird. I don't think the age gap is weird, and neither does anyone else. We could show him that his life won't change. He will still get holidays with both parents. From his perspective, he has two dads and that is the coolest thing to him. He has said in the past that he really hopes to have two moms as well. He isn't against the idea of his dad dating, it's the fact that it's me. All of us think the ex-wife was coaching him against me.
Their family vacation is in August, and we are worried she wouldn't let him go if she finds out about us. However, I don't think she would be able to do this without making herself look bad. I don't think she would do that, but he believes she would. We are also worried about parental alienation against my boyfriend.
Again, they divorced 6 years ago. The ex-wife is remarried and they have another child together. We don't know why she is preventing us from dating.
We are trying to approach this in the least harmful way possible for his son. Has anyone dealt with a situation where a child reacted strongly to a parent dating again, especially if the other parent may have been influencing the child’s fears? How did you handle introductions and rebuild a sense of safety for the child? How do we handle future interactions with the ex-wife?