So sorry for the long post…I need to get this off my chest and seek your wise advice.
Please be kind. I just found out that my ex has a girlfriend. We were together for 35 years (from teenage hood). He cheated on me during that time and I, being a Christian, forgave him and took him back. For a whole year, I had looked after our kids and the emotional fallout we all went through. He’d make an occasional unannounced visit, but never gave me a parenting break. I did all the running around after the kids. I supported his career, including moving overseas for him to climb the management ladder. When he came back after the affair, we changed everything he said he was unhappy about: A different house with a lower mortgage and no maintenance and I supported him through his wish to become self-employed. I’d lost a lot of weight because of the stress, but rather than empathise, he told me I mustn’t gain any weight back.
He started a motor biking hobby and also bought himself a brand new Landrover Defender, without telling me/talking it through and only told me the week it was due to be delivered that it was on its way. Meanwhile, I was working my ass off, driving the kids to school etc as the house we bought (cheaper) was very rural. He started going off for weeks at a time on his motorbike. I was not invited along and if I ‘dare’ phone him to ask where he was/when he might be coming home, he’d get angry with me. He’d block my number sometimes (I’d only try to call say every 2 days, worried as I hadn’t heard from him). Fast-forward 10 years. I proof-read and edited 2 text books he wrote. He promised me payment and said I’d have to put thousands on my tax returns as income he’d pay me (I was a full-time uni student at the time, so earning very little). He never paid me (3 years in a row) and when the asked him for the money, he got very angry again and told me ‘I’d had the money’ in the groceries he bought for the family and the utility bills he paid on our home. He was violent towards me, but in the emergency department, wouldn’t leave my side, so I couldn’t tell staff that he’d slammed a door on my hand and that’s why my thumb was slashed all the way down to the tendon 3/4 of the way round. He threatened murder-suicide: Said he was going to drive us off the edge of a mountain when we were driving in the Defender. He then announced he wanted a divorce and started proceedings to buy a house for himself while ours was up for sale. He moved into a spare bedroom.
His mother became ill and I moved in with her temporarily to support her/cook for her/picked her up from hospital/drive her to medical appointments and nursed her. Instead of him caring for her however, he took himself off for a 6 week motorbike holiday overseas. When she sadly died (we were back living overseas and were divorced by now), he had her remains interred, but didn’t arrange a funeral. His mother was a Christian, so I insisted a vicar was present. He wasn’t going to bother, despite her having been an elder in her church. He did not attend the interrment.
He now travels the world on an endless motor biking adventure and makes money through social media. He only comes back once a year to see our grown kids. I’ve just been contacted by him today (at our DD’s insistence) to tell me that he’s been seeing someone for several weeks. The bit that hurts though, is that he and his new girlfriend plan to stay at my DS’s home and he is paying for our DD and her partner to fly there so they can all play ‘happy family’ together. It’s difficult for my DD and DS as they want to see their ‘D’ F but it feels like such a betrayal too. They saw how he used to shout at me, leave me alone sobbing for weeks on end, left me to raise them alone for a year, cheated on me, left me to take care of his mother while he naffed off overseas on yet another motorbiking holiday etc. Our son moved out at one point as my ex pushed him (I was not home at the time). I then spent every week driving to where our son was staying to take him food/toiletries and check he was OK (he was a teen by then). My ex didn’t go check on our DS even once.
I feel so upset that my adult children will be with him and her when he flies over in April. It feels disloyal that my DS and DD have known he’s been seeing someone for weeks but haven’t told me, but I understand it’s a tricky situation for them and he’s their Fa and they want to see him after a year of him travelling constantly.
I feel so upset. He’s well-off (due to the inheritance), has no mortgage on his house, is travelling constantly, has a partner and gets to play happy families with his new partner and our adult kids. In contrast, I’m living a lonely life. I’m taking anti-depressants still and am pretty poor financially with a large mortgage to pay on my own.
I’ve asked our DS not to have them stay at his house when they fly over here. He can afford a hotel or Air B n B. It would feel like a kick in the teeth for me if our DS has him and his girlfriend to stay at his house for 10 days… AIBU?