Anxiety Aunt: Help! My wife left me for a mutual friend and now I have fallen in love with his ex-wife

Dear Aunty,

My wife left me two years ago for a good friend of both of ours. At first it was a huge shock and betrayal. There was a period of time when things were not nice at all between us, but we have moved past that and now everything is amicable. The problem is, they have invited me to spend Christmas with them and our three adult children and while I would have said yes, what they don’t yet know is that I too have finally moved on and have a new partner who I don’t want to leave alone at Christmas. And before you suggest it, no she can’t come too because she is my ex-wife’s new partner’s ex-wife. I know it is a mess but a little while ago we reached out to see how each other was coping with what had happened and one thing led to another. Given I have just patched up the relationship with my ex and how much better it is for our kids that we are not fighting, I don’t want to throw this curveball my ex-wife’s way around the festive period so was going to hold off telling her until the new year. In which case, should I decline their invitation and spend Christmas with my new partner?

Yours, Unsure

Dear Unsure,

Oh you’ve got yourself into quite the pickle. Well not just you, all of you! Your Aunt doesn’t have the attention span to sit through an entire movie — although, strangely, One will binge-watch Bridgerton — so tell me, is this also the plot of some romantic comedy? If not, it should be.

But, seriously Unsure, your Aunt knows that often fact is stranger than fiction and life moves in mysterious ways. Sometimes two wrongs really do make a right. And while it may seem like quite an absurd situation to an outside observer, to those of you living it, it’s just life and one of the many ways it can take unexpected twists and turns.

Assuming you haven’t outed yourself in this column, because I am guessing there are very few people in Perth in your predicament, if any at all, then perhaps it is wise to keep things under wraps for now. Christmas can be a time of heightened stress, tensions and rollercoaster emotions for a whole range of reasons so now might not be the best time to hard launch this new relationship.

Not to be pessimistic, but that will also give you time to see if this new relationship is a long-term thing as you don’t want to go making waves unnecessarily when you’ve just entered a period of smooth sailing.

As for what to do on Christmas, One would suggest spending part of your Christmas with your ex-wife, her partner and your children — maybe breakfast or brunch — then spending the rest of the day with your new partner. That way no one feels left out and resentments won’t boil to the surface.

Then in the new year you can separately arrange to meet your ex-partners and explain about the new relationship. While your ex and her new partner might be surprised and put out about the news, surely more than anyone else they can relate that sometimes these things just happen. One would like to hope that once the initial shock wears off, they will be accepting of your new relationship, the same way you have grown to accept theirs.

And who knows, perhaps one day you could make some money out of your unusual circumstances by making a documentary series about it. Or at the very least you could have a great story to tell the grandkids one day.