Divorced in the most acrimonious way - and still stressed

[Bubblebu]

Is there anyone out there who is divorced in the most acrimonious way and still years and years on cannot communicate with their ex husband.

My ex husband left me 5 years ago for one of his work colleagues who he is now married to and they have a baby.

When we were married we had two children girl and boy who are now 10 and 11.

The problem is even now he is incredibly aggressive towards me on the email and if we ever speak on the phone he just RANTS at me all kinds of horrible things - and what I find most hurtful (and I think he knows it ) is when he starts saying I am a shit mother.

I find it really difficult not to take it personally and get very depressed and stressed about it.

I really am relieved we are divorced - basically I think he always emotionally abused me. But how do I toughen up and not take it personally? Today was a classic example - he and I argued most of the day on the email, he ranted and just before he came to collect our children at 5pm for his weekend I was so stressed I vomited the tiny bit of food I have eaten today. This is not the first time this has happened.

We have no physical contact and I don't feel he is a physical threat to me but he really does know how to wind me up and press my buttons. I am shaking as I type this.

It does not help that I have had breast cancer over the last 8 months and have been put into a medically induced menopause so at lot of days I feel very sick and hot flashes etc (obviously the cancer is not his fault but although I have been told that stress does not cause cancer sometimes I do wonder whether infact stress can be one factor in it).

Any tips on how to chill out and ignore his rants? many thanks

I stopped speaking on the phone, would just hand it to our daughter. All communication is now by email and I only look at it when I am ready and I only answer if it genuinely needs an answer.
You have a right not to be harassed and despite having children without if he is bombarding you abusive calls and emails you can go to the police and they will warn him off -advising him that communication should be about your children and reasonable.

Change your mobile number again and get caller ID on your landline. When he calls on a Tuesday or Thursday the DC can answer the phone. There is no need to answer the phone to his number (or any withheld number) at any other time unless the DC are with him. You don't need to announce to him you are doing this, you don't need his permission, just do it.

You are allowed to put some boundaries in place. You may need to find some coping mechanisms for the short term but long term it will almost certainly be resolved because I suspect the DC will eventually just refuse to go or they will be old enough to manage their relationship with him directly.

You reap what you sow.

Change your mobile number again and get caller ID on your landline. When he calls on a Tuesday or Thursday the DC can answer the phone. There is no need to answer the phone to his number (or any withheld number) at any other time unless the DC are with him. You don't need to announce to him you are doing this, you don't need his permission, just do it.

You are allowed to put some boundaries in place. You may need to find some coping mechanisms for the short term but long term it will almost certainly be resolved because I suspect the DC will eventually just refuse to go or they will be old enough to manage their relationship with him directly.

You reap what you sow.

Lone - you are correct. He is very canny tho (he is a lawyer himself) so the most abusive communication by him is always by phone call (when I am silly enough to take the phone that is) so he leaves no provable trace of it.

looking back on our marriage he deployed that tactic then as well (rows between us when he would come up and shout right into my ear etc) - he had started his affair by then so I can see he was totally emotionally detached from me at that point and really did not care.

at the end of the marriage there is no mistaking in my mind that I had become a total doormat so he paved the way for the divorce process well for several years before he left.....

he could probably write a book for men who leave their wives and how to get what they want thereafter through the divorce courts!!

I do wonder sometimes about his new marriage tho - the kids reported no long ago that one of his weekends they witnessed a row between him and new wife when new wife apparently said "I just want a husband who loves me"

but my kids said they both went totally silent when my kids entered the room (which is good, would rather they did not have to witness any more domestic discord...)

honeymoon period well and truly over trouble in paradise.

He is an abusive person. He was abusive to you and he is probably abusive to his new wife. The abuse has probably ramped up since she got pregnant and had the baby as he will think she is trapped now.

Sun - you are totally correct.

it was only after I had my kids that he really started to change towards me as I think he absolutely thought I was trapped. I always did 99% of the childcare so I accept I let that happen which was an error.

The kids report that the baby (who is just turned 1) does not like my ex husband and new wife also does the vast majority of the childcare.

@Sunshinegirl82 gives excellent advice about the phone. You really don't have to speak to him. And you certainly don't have to listen to abuse from him. Thank your lucky stars you are no longer with him and please realise he has no right to an opinion on your mothering skills or anything else to do with your life.

Don't let someone who doesn't value you decide your worth! You sound an excellent mother btw who has put up with awful treatment in an attempt to be adult and do what is best for the children. Sadly he doesn't care about them. It's all about him. He's a terrible father by the way.

thank you Bless.

yes my confidence is totally shot to pieces as a result of years of this stuff.

and also because I can say hand on heart that the most important thing to me in the whole world is my two gorgeous children so to be told I am a terrible mother sometimes feels like the absolute worst thing to hear from anyone, let alone my ex.

I knew all along from the moment I met him that his own parents did some things which kinda horrified me when I heard about them. (like ask my ex husband and his sister at the age of 11 and 12 to decide for themselves who they wanted to live with on his parents divorce).

why it did not ring alarm bells big time before I married him I will never know.

and he was always fighting with his boss in all of the jobs I have ever known him to have and slagging off people all the time.

I am so grateful for all your very supportive replies on this thread - I still cannot sleep due to the nausea and hot flashes so you have really helped me a lot this evening , thank you

Nothing to add other than a hand hold, Grey Rock, he is what he is . GR will 'help' him to change.
PS What an A Hole he is

thanks Jimbob.

I know I am not helping the dynamic by the way I communicate with him. I can go months without any contact with him and I start to feel stronger and then one of my children tells me something and I genuinely feel it is my duty to try to communicate with him on their behalf but the reaction I get from him is always ranting, angry, and accusatory.

What basis he tells me I am a bad mother I really do not know - he lives so far away from us and genuinely seems quite ignorant about what goes on in our children's lives.

as I say above one of his favourite lines is to accuse me of "withholding" the children from him which I genuinely find astounding as they have not once since he left us not had his dictated weekends or holidays he has specified to me with the kids.

He is as I say a lot more wealthy than I am so can buy them stuff which I cannot but then he also has quite a tight fisted approach on other occasions. For example he and new wife had a 3 week honeymoon in the Sechelles but if he ever takes our kids on holiday it is always to somewhere like a caravan park in a UK seaside resort. To be fair that might be more kid friendly so logical but I suspect there is more to it than that.

Throughout our marriage on the rare occasion he bought me flowers they always had a "reduced" sticker on them because they were about to wilt - I was still grateful for them tho even tho they usually only lasted about 24 hours before they died!!!

You have to take the focus off him. He is history, think about you now. It is hard, but it needs to be done. You are not his number 1 priority sparkly knickers is. So think about YOU.

There is a thread on relationships. Some Friendly Words Support Group.
Please read and join. I think it will help.

In fairness, it sounds like you are not involving him in decisions he is entitled to be involved in. You should not have unilaterally decided your child would not do the 11 plus. Decisions about which school a child should attend are supposed to be made by both parents. You should have involved him in that decision. He was wrong to then enter your child for a different 11 plus exam unilaterally, though.

I worry a bit that your negative view of your ex may be unwittingly colouring your children's perception of their father. It seems odd that they say their 1-year-old half-sibling doesn't like their father, for example.

I appreciate you feel upset - your ex chose another woman over you, and it sounds like you are unhappy you don't get spousal maintenance. But for the sake of the kids you need to try to co-parent, rather than excluding him from important decisions. I'd suggest moving to email rather than phone call so there is a written record of what has been agreed. I would suggest you make it clear that, going forward, you will involve him in important decisions like secondary school choice (as the 11 plus decision essentially was).

the most important thing to me in the whole world is my two gorgeous children so to be told I am a terrible mother sometimes feels like the absolute worst thing to hear from anyone, let alone my ex

He's done such a number on you... has it occurred to you that he's certainly not a candidate for Father of the Year?

@NamechangeOnceMore I agree with you in theory, but in practice here it seems obvious that the OP hasn't had much opportunity to involve her ex in decisions. If he mainly shouts abuse at her and she doesn't have his phone number, opportunities for constructive discussions are limited.

Thanks NameChange.

The point is he genuinely does not know about their schooling or academic performances over the years and came to the party at the 11th hour.

I was in no uncertain terms told by the head teacher that my daughter would not pass the 11 plus.

My daughter herself told me more than a year before the exam she did not want to enter.

Are you saying I should have said to her just before the exam "well now your father has contacted me to say that, contrary to the head mistress view you have to be entered in the 11 plus exam"

Of course it is for both parents to decide schools but I disagree with you if one of the schools in question requires the child to meet an academic standard which more than a year before and monthly since then I was told she would not get into.

As I say my ex husband lives more than an hours drive away; has never been involved in her schooling and suddenly decided to argue with me about it when he found out from the head teacher she was not going to do the entrance exam. Both her teacher and the headmistress were happy to discuss her performance with him.

Jim and Ticket - thank you for your comments I really appreciate them.

No, @Bubblebu, I'm saying that you should have emailed him when the headteacher shared her concerns with you, and/or when your daughter told you she didn't want to do the 11 plus, telling him about those conversations and initiating a dialogue about the 11 plus and school choices. If he'd been involved in the process earlier and made to feel like an equal parent, he might not have then decided to unilaterally enter her for an exam she stood no chance of passing.

Well, his entering DD for a test she doesn't want to do, isn't prepared for and likely won't pass seems consistent with

what mark did you get in your homework? why did you not get a A? and quite often he accuses my kids of lying to him

All awful and damaging ways to treat a child.

Aside from the damage it does to the DC's self-esteem and their future relationships, OP, the other awful part is that you then have to spend your time with the DC undoing his damage and picking them back up to survive instead of supporting them to thrive in life.

This kind of thing sets kids back so much - it's unfortunately quite common, but also heartbreaking.

OK I am not going to argue with you.

He knows what school our daughter attends.

He receives school alerts from my daughters teacher and the head mistress.

He knew the exact timetable for the 11 plus exam process.

He was involved with a multi party meeting at least one year before the exam (which included the head teacher herself) when the 11+ exam was discussed and said he was not interested. He had full opportunity to get involved before the week before the 11+.
He did not.

And no, I do not want spousal maintenance from him. I worked full time until I was signed off sick from work with cancer, in order to support my children.

And no, I do not encourage my children to be negative about their father or their half sibling - they themselves say these things to me when they arrive home from their father's house.

I don't know why you feel so strongly about this but reading your posts and me knowing how the process panned out for my daughter I am certain my ex husband had full opportunity to get involved well before and he decided not to do so - and then he was very abusive to me about my daughter not having entered the exam.

thank you Longlines.

(FAOD I do not say to my children I think his approach to parenting is damaging; but yes, I do find it distressing as their mum to see their own hurt at his approach to these things)

@NamechangeOnceMore I think you have read an entirely different thread to the rest of us. This man is a grade A twat. You cant coparent rationally and co-operatively with an abuser. Which is so very clearly what he is.

Incidentally OP the stuff about calling you a bad mother and "witholding" the children from you sounds absolutely like projection. He's a bad father. He knows that. How can he make himself feel better? By transferring the blame to you.
His kids don't seem to like him and he feels detached from them? How can he make himself feel better about that? Yes... you guessed it: by transferring the blame to you.

Withholding the children from him, that should say...

No, of course not, OP, but it still becomes your job to repair the damage. I spend a lot of time consoling my teen DC when their dad says hurtful things to them and explaining that he does love them even though he doesn't always show it. He gives the impression his love and acceptance of them is conditional, which is shit for them.

You're the one who's there dealing with the fallout when they're stressed or upset about the situation he's created, not him.

What still confuses me to this day (but am trying not to dwell on it as I tend to do) is what the logic of entering my daughter in an 11+ in the north midlands (we live in the south) where (apparently) he sent her into the hall of the grammar school in question and told her to say she lived full time with him (she does not - he was categorical during the divorce process that he did not want custody, only alternate weekend rights etc). IE he asked to her lie to the examiners about where she lived and she signed the form before the exam.

If (which I do not know but I presume as I have heard nothing from him since she sat the exam) she had passed, I genuinely do not know how that would work. Is she allowed to attend a school every day more than an hours drive from my house?

Maybe it is my ignorance of how grammar schools work but in terms of state schools my (limited) understanding is there is some kind of catchment area process.

Anyway, as you all say, don't dwell on it, its all done now.

She is really looking forward to the local state secondary school with her friends.

The only thing she told me about the exam when she got back that weekend was that she found it really difficult but then said with some degree of pride "I was the first to finish". I thought "that is not a good thing" but I did not say that to her because initially she was crying when she told me he made her enter it at a school she had never been to before and with no notice early on a Saturday morning.