Can any divorcees of say 3 years plus relate to this?

[Starbrand]

Hi just posting to see if anyone can relate really or if Im alone in my feelings. I divorced my ex 4 years ago this month. We had really lost respect between us and i had caught him messaging other women…nothing terrible but enough to be sure he didnt really love me any more. My feelings as a reaction to that perhaps made me also realise I didnt love him either. Within four months he had met someone else, moved them in and four months after that she was pregnant. I found all this really hard. We share custody of our son who is now 9 but at the time my exs partner moved in was approaching 5. I did meet a boyfriend shortly after ex and I split up but i wasnt really ready and felt well..scared by it all. Fast forward to present day i often wonder did i make the right choice. I am alone, my son is growing up (wonderful child who I absolutely adore) but i feel probably not good enough. I dont have a sibling at mine for him to play with (although organise a good social life and friends to play etc). I often think maybe i shoulr have stayed with my ex to have another child and tried harder at being a family etc. I’ve struggled with dating - lots of the men ive met have issues or values that dont work for me. Sorry this a ramble but i think even all this time later i am
grieving. I wish i was a bit more at peace with it all. Can anyone relate? Thanks. Im 37 by the way for context

No one?

I can relate, although I'm older than you I'm 3.5 years down the track and still have massive regrets. I was abused in every possible way for 28 years but still wonder if I should have stayed.
You are young though and have a lifetime of opportunities ahead.
I think you made the right decision personally but you just can't see it for yourself 💐(yet)

I don’t know how to vote on this but I can tell you that you are enough.

At yours, your son gets individual attention that he doesn’t get at his dad’s.

He certainly doesn’t need you putting your energies into dating, so as to bring a strange man into his home just to get a sibling.

You are enough just as you are.

By all means date if that’s what you want, but not with some idea that you need to make a new family so that your child has a sibling.

I can relate to your situation in that my exh has a new partner and younger son at his home, whereas I am single. I do have two children but they have five year gap and don’t really “play” together (eldest is a teenager anyway). They seem just as happy to be here with their single mum as at their dad’s, even though there are more people there. They prefer it if anything.

I’m 6 years single and my only regret is not leaving sooner. I have been single since we split and I love it. I do have 2 children but would have liked a 3rd, but for me it im was and is much more important to be a happier mummy to my children. I was miserable with their dad. I’m 38 and absolutely not interested in meeting anyone. I love my little family, we are fab how we are. I can understand it must be hard if you do actually want to meet someone. Don’t ever regret putting your self respect first.

Didn't want to read and run, I am a divorcee of over 6 years and though not the same situation as I have more than one child with my ex I just wanted to say that it takes two to make a marriage work and you could have kept trying as hard as you would like but if he wasn't willing to (and from your op it sounds like he wasn't) then you couldn't make the marriage work for the both of you.

This sounds more like you wish that you were able to give your child a sibling then it does you wish you had stayed married. And you need to be thinking of them separately as one does not necessarily mean that you would have had the other.

Try not to be so hard on yourself, your marriage ended and from the sounds of it, you weren't to blame. Don't compare yourself to his new relationship. Yes he had another baby with his girlfriend but that doesn't mean that they are happy, or that he even wanted to he might have done it to keep her happy who knows.

I get the grief part it doesn't hit me as much now as it did in the beginning but even now when it does it still hits as hard. I grieve for what should have been if my ex hadn't been abusive or had been able to stay faithful.

I don't think I will ever have another relationship whilst my kids r still young and I've learned to make peace with it and realise we have each other that's all that matters and enjoy watching them grow up. And more importantly I've learned to enjoy my own company and all the positives there are to being single eat what you like when you like, go to bed when you like, don't have to put up with the farting and snoring, watch what you like on TV not have to answer questions like Where you been? What you been doing all the time.

Find the positives in your life now and hold on to them, you may still get the pangs of grief for your marriage and what you thought it should have been but you have to keep looking forward.

I'm sorry you feel like this. Myself, I have split with hopeless partners - twice. It's wasn't my plan or what I ever imagined would be my situation. But I think to not compromise and to prioritise your son is a brave and right thing to do. To me, people who move on so quickly straight away desperately hooking up with someone else as your ex did, when they should be prioritising DC, seems much weaker. There are so many successful wonderful women who have brought up a single son themselves and have been great role models who their boys talk about with amazing warmth once they are adults. I think we can be that without being saddled with a bloke who just isn't up to the mark and all the irritation that that brings in a daily basis. It sounds like you have established some happy routines with your DS for play dates and the important things for that age, and as he gets older I bet you will find some things you can do with him and other things he enjoys that you can facilitate. In the meantime I can't think of anything worse than compromising and staying with someone just to have another DC. Some siblings get on and others don't so there would be no guarantee it would improved your life. It would certainly be more tiring!! And at least now if he is away at his dads regularly you will get some time for recuperation, self care and meeting other people.

Some men seem to take a more fluid approach to relationships eg. trying to find someone else before ending their current relationship, cheating etc. These men are usually, self-centred and narcissistic.

So, no, he’s you’re ex for a reason. Find someone better.

I sympathise, OP. You’re doing well and giving DS a loving and stable life. Grief is natural but it passes eventually. you’re doing the right thing. Best of luck.

Nope, honestly. Getting a divorce was one of the best things I have ever done and I still celebrate it nearly eight years on.

My life has improved on every single criteria.

It’s OK to feel sad but I suggest to you that this is probably societal pressure talking, not you. You are regretting not accepting what society wanted you to accept of your lot.

Its extremely clear to me reading your post that you are in a better situation now than you were with a cheat who you didn’t respect.

Thanks all i think what makes it hard is my ex likes to bring up happy memories from the past or photos of us with our son. We happened to pull up at rhe same set of traffic lights today and he wpund down the window, bibbed waved at etc. he can also be very cold and unhelpful too when it suits him. I find it all confusing