Hi.
First-time post as I'm at my wits' end. Apologies for the long post...
I left my ex-husband in 2014; we have two DDs (then 5.5 and 2.5) and I was determined to do the best for them, and to be amicable and civilised about it - he wasn't an arsehole, I thought, but just hapless, chronically depressed, and apparently suffering from an enormous degree of learned helplessness courtesy of a very indulgent mother trying to make it up to him that his father died when he was tiny. We shared custody for six months, and went to see a counsellor to see if we could work it out, but when I said that I felt we were getting nowhere, he eventually confessed to having an alcohol problem that pre-dated our relationship; we met when we were 19, and he had been drinking too much since he was 17, quietly and secretly. It turned out he'd reached the point where he was drinking up to 21 units a day; he admitted he was worried that he wouldn't hear the girls if they woke in the night, and that he had driven while drunk many times. I took custody of the girls full-time straight away, and told him we were done in no uncertain terms, not because of the alcohol but because of the lying, and the danger he'd put the girls in.
Fast-forward to December of last year, and a lovely man I'd met bizarrely on Twitter moved in with us when I bought a house after the one my ex and I co-owned sold. The divorce, not then finalised but at least done to decree nisi, was a bloody nightmare - my ex moved from being repentant and grateful that I was reasonable in my reaction to his alcohol revelations (I never hit the roof; I made sure the girls saw him every single weekend, spending two hours a day doing the round-trip so that they weren't getting in a car with him; I promised I wouldn't try to take them from him and that I was - and remain - committed to ensuring they had access to him) to being vengeful and manipulative as soon as he knew I had met someone else - everything took far longer than it should have done, and he would blame his solicitors, apparently unaware that I had seen some of their emails, from which it was clear that he was holding me hostage over the financial clean-break agreement by demanding increased access to the girls.
Eventually we got the agreement done when I threatened him with an enforcement order; he still claims he didn't know what his solicitors were doing and that they took matters into their own hands.
He niggles about the custody arrangement (arrived at through mediation, in which the mediator pointed out that he's doing pretty well to have them for one night out of seven, and that really she'd like an independent risk assessment done, and a social worker's report, given his history) constantly, and never misses a chance to remind me that he thinks him only having them for 17% of their time (the 1/7 night, and then two school pick-ups a week) is damaging them, and that 'they need' far more time with him. He's unreliable - missed picking DD1 up from her Brownies' sleepover despite emails and texts to confirm arrangements, for example - and seems to think it's OK to tell the girls whatever he likes about me, though he claims he never says anything negative.
Meanwhile, my partner is doing his nut. He wants my ex out of our lives; he has talked about us moving out of the area etc. I don't feel we can move; DD1 has been to three primary schools, and needs stability and reliability, I feel, more than ever, and DD2 could do with a bit of that too! I can't just click my fingers and make my ex disappear, much though I might wish I could. My partner is clearly really trying, but he is often very down about our circumstances, and feels that he either has to lie to me about his feelings, or that I have to change the way we are living. I feel that things could be a lot worse; at least at the moment I have my girls for the vast majority of the time, and that means I can at least shield them from some of their father's shortcomings. I know it's not perfect, and I can see that my partner wants the sort of exclusivity that naturally goes with falling in love with someone... But I don't see how I can give it.
Has anyone had this sort of experience? How do you manage the expectations of two men who basically loathe each other while still feeling like a sane human being, and a decent mother? I feel like I'm being pulled in two. Either I cut my ex out more and risk him taking me to court and yet more acrimony, or I avoid that but I worry that my partner will walk at this rate...
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Relationships
Managing ex-husbands and new relationships
11 replies
atrociful · 18/10/2016 00:06
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