40+ Yummy Mummies :-)

[mrsboogie]

mornin' ladies

and the conversation continues...

Hi jj x-posted with you. Am sad to say that ds is staying in Vladivostok for Christmas but is hoping to come home in January when it is the Orthodox Xmas. I say hoping but apparently his fare is £600 and I spoke to his dad yesterday who said he couldn't afford to pay for it. He went on and on about how he'd lost loads of money from his various pension schemes and how lots of work stuff had been cancelled (he's a screenwriter) like I actually cared. Just that Jake might not get home until June and also that we can't afford to pay. DH and I earn a fraction of what my ex earns but he's forever going on about how he is struggling. My heart bleeds for him and his latest wife, especially as his house is worth around £1.3 million.

Perhaps I could afford Jake's airfare if ex upped what he gives me each month for Grace which has stood at £200 for about 4 years now. A while ago he tried to cut it to £150, citing the Writer's Strike as his reason for this. I sent him an e-mail listing everything I could possibly think of that I spent on her and he backed down. The best part of £50 a month goes on school lunches now she's at secondary school.

How does this compare to what any of you other divorcees get for your kids from your exes? I took a lump sum rather than maintenance for myself in the divorce settlement. He stayed in what was our marital home so bought me out.

jw i hope all goes well with the extraction. Let us know.

All my deliveries arrived while I was writing that post jw so I see there was no extraction. How lucky, now he can enjoy toy day!

ladymac I myself pay maintenance to my rotten ex husband and my ex best friend who he is shacked up with (and they marry in January). I pay it directly to my children though - there is only 1 to pay for now as older DS#1 is living with his g/f and is coming up to 20. I still pay for DS#2. I give £60 a month directly to him and also buy him clothes/shoes/mobile phone top ups as and when he needs them. Plus I give him £5 a week pocket money.

Great really as when my exH left me for ex best friend I got no maintenance from him. He said paying the mortgage each month was my maintenance....and he claimed all of this back when the house was sold.

They are both on good salaries btw. She's a social worker and he's a regional manager for a hardware firm.

M&S 50% everything instore ONLY. Food included. (as told to me by my very excited DD#1 just now on the phone). Alas, cannot get out today to look as orders dictate otherwise so I'm giving her a shopping list ...tee hee. Great when your kids do shopping for YOU!

Woot!

Hi all

I'm having a very slooow day at work. And I've been trying to ring CEO on his mobile and keep getting an engaged tone...what's up with that? Shouldn't it go to voice mail??

Today is my last day until after New Year, YIPPPEEE!!!

JW is the sale only today? Do you know?

what? 50% off everything jw ?? really?

jw doesn't he pay anything towards the kids?

And is there really an M&S sale? Can't find anything about it.

I've just been down to my local M&S - which is a Simply Food with a bit of Per Una - and there's no 50% off there

Just phoned Brent X M&S and other than 30% off knitwear there are no other reductions there

Must be just Bury !

they're not closing down in bury are they, jw?!

herbaceous well, lets hope the odds are nicely in your favour! Like you say - Cromwell sounds like a sticking kind of Chap/Chapess!! The fet Med Centre only do the CVS on Weds - so there is often a very long wait as they're really sweet and pile everyone in- regardless of how long they stay!!

redtabby BLIMEY! Your experience sounds almost identical to mine!!! Both had bad odds - both went to FMC and both have younger OHs who thought it looked as though he was chucking in a dart That's EXACTLY what my DP said!! I honestly felt pretty much nothing - and it was soooooo quick - bonkers!

What to do this afternoon with the muchkins? Playdoh me thinks. Maybe painting - if I can face the mess

Off to do a bit of Steam 'n Wean for Verity. I'd sooo call a baby food book that! The veg box has arrived so I'm going to steam a load of veg and ice cube it up for the trip to Nottingham next week otherwise my mum will be trying to feed her potatoes with Bisto

Wait, you can't feed babies potatoes with bisto? Then what do they eat?!?!?!?

Blimey - the posts ran off quickly - all this talk of sales

Ladymac at your exDH - he sounds a dream. Mmmmm, I narrowly avoiding marrying a man a little similar sounding. He had no money yet his three houses were worth more than a million and I paid the mortgage on our joint house!!

He was arty and needed "time to breath to get his creativity going." he was briefly a big name - all lauded and applauded, one of the cool brits brigade. Well, all I can say is - I saw his website recently and his photography career seems to mainly revolve around weddings and porn PLUS - he ran off and married my friend - 6 weeks before our wedding... [phew, close-call emoticon]

What a shame about Jake I've spent a couple of Orthodox Christmas' in Russia - very beautiful - but not like being at home with the folks. Can't belive Ex can't scoop together the £££

jw that's nice that the op was cancelled. Not fun any time but near Xmas is blinkin rough. at your ex DH too. Blimey - what a twatnasty piece of work.

tee last day at work.....Ho Ho HO!!!

Oh my God your talk of exes and money have just reminded me of one of my exes - I met him when I moved to York from London 6 years ago. Was quite vulnerable as was totally alone in new city where i knew no-one. Anyhoo this guy professed himself to be a born-again environmentalist who had downsized and opted out of the rat race. In reality he was a bone idle git who couldn't bring himself to work for a living. He scrounged off me relentlessly for months before I copped on. Once when I had tonsilitis I had to give him my cash card to get me some money for medication and later when I got my bank statement I spotted that he had withdrawn a separate amount for himself but said nothing.

I see him now in the local papers sometimes being lauded for his environmental initiatives and schemes. If only they knew!

Although that's nothing compared to what he did to his previous girlfriend...

Exes are bloody T*ts. I upped and left with the three children and two cats as he was violent and very controlling.

When we were married I had to produce receipts for everything i bought and he would decide whether or not to reimburse me a percentage.

I'm still paying off the debt I got into 10 years later. I had two jobs, one starting at 5 in the morning and then an office job doing normal hours. He refused to pay me maintenance when I left but is now paying maintenace and arrears.

He pays the arrears at £50 a month. He owed me over £4k, so in reality I gave him an interst free loan.

When dh and I got married, I wouldn't have blamed him if he had said in his vows, I take you lilibet, your three children, two cats and your debt the size of a mountain. . The man is a total wonder.

lilibet so some stories do have a happy ending?

Ok Ok after whipping you all up into a frenzy I rang my daughter (who was at the time on her lunch in M&S) and asked her if she had got her facts right. She embarrassingly said she hadn't and it was just the 30% off. So, you can all calm down now and have some smelling salts

On the topic of ex's, glad to read that I'm not the only one who's been shafted in the past although I am glad to say I've never been with someone so horrid as your ex lilibet.

I'm intrigued mrsb....what did he do to his previous g/f?

My punk compilation cd arrived today. I'm planning on locking myself in the office later and cranking it up REALLY LOUD! yay!

Oh I could go on and on JW, I was 20 in the May and got married in the June, he was almost 32 then. I was very young and naieve and really, really wanted a pretty white dress

We live and learn!

When I was 15 I fancied a punk I used to come home on the bus with, he wore a dog collar (one with studs) and looked a bit like Bruce Foxton. Have you seen on DM that Paul Weller has a new girlfriend? 27!!

I can jsut picture you pogo'ing

Actually I have a story about my ex being violent which every time I think of it I blush - honest - bear with me! I'm not telling this as a horror story but for a 'cringe with me at the ending' story!

I had been to see a solicitor and started divorce proceedings but we were still living in the same house, he wouldn't move out and I had no where to go. You can't make someone leave if their name is on the deeds without a court order. My solicitor had told me that the next time he was violent I had to dial 999 and get the court order.

It was a Saturday night, I had a bath, was in my nightie and nice white fluffy dressing gown and decided to write my Christmas cards. The ds's woudl have been about 3 and 6. Dd was out. He came in the living room and told me to move from the couch . I refused - it was a big couch and there were also 3 charis in the room, he started shouting, I refused, he sat next to me as close as he could and used all his strength to push me into the arm and squash me. I still refused. He got up, picked me up by the arms, threw me against the wall and kicked me. Ds's screaming and crying, I got loose dialled 999, told him what I was doing then the ds's started screaming at me not to do it. I hung up but the police came anyway. They talked to us both seperatley and I couldn't bring myself to press charges. (Yes I know). The nice very young policeman asked about my injuries, I relplied that I had none bar a few cuts and bruises, he pointed out the blood.

I had come on , my nice white dressing gown was covered in blood and I hadn't noticed.

I'm now and cringing!! The embarrassment lives with me forever!!!

oh poor lilibet I had similar when v young with DS1's father.

err jw what he did to his ex-girlfriend was: after I dumped him he made contact with her again. She had a good job and a nice house and had supported him and he had nothing and no job so when he moved out he had to leave his dog behind, which rankled. He contacted her and went round to see the dog. I was still trying to do the "lets be friends" thing because he had a young daughter and he had emotionally blackmailed me into still seeing them both for her sake.

So I meet him one day for coffee and he starts telling me how he had gone round to the exes house "forgetting" that she had gone away on business and when he "happened" to look in the window he saw steaming water running down the walls and flooding the house. He also "happened" to have an old key on him so he was able to break in and trace the source of the flood to a pipe under her bath which led from the boiler which had sprung a "leak". He was able to stop the leak but of course her house and everything in it was wrecked and he had to take the dog with him as she had to move into a hotel. As he was telling me the story and how he had telephoned her family as she was out of the country and how her brother wasn't very nice to him considering, and kept shooting him dirty looks, I was thinking "oh my god, you did it, you broke in and messed with the pipe and flooded her house so you could get your dog back and get one over on her for keeping the nice house"

I couldn't prove it of course but I know for a fact he did it. Oh and he had done the plumbing on the house so he knew exactly what to do to set it all off. I never said anything to him though.

Oh lilibet I want to laugh at the last bit of the story but the rest of it is awful. My experience of 'domestic' violence was with a boyfriend after my marriage broke up, I have talked about it on here before. My ex-h was not violent but he made it hell to live in the same house as him and in the end I moved out, I couldn't bear the sight of him. He was so up himself he thought the kids would stay with him and not come with me but they were more sensible than that. Only ds kept a bedroom there as it was near to all his pals and the tube!

We got together when I was 19 and he was over 20 years older and at 19 I thought he was wonderful. However, over the years I grew up and stopped hanging on to his every word and he found that difficult to cope with. Had to keep finding other women who would be impressed by him. Always came back and begged me to forgive him, would say how wonderful everything would be from then on and make some grand gesture, like take us on an expensive holiday etc. I just wanted to keep my family together. Grace was a 'making-up' baby.

When I had an affair though the shit hit the fan, he bad mouthed me to all and sundry, turning himself in to the victim. He even had trouble admitting to his affairs when we went to couples therapy.

When I reminded him that he had an affair when ds was a month old he struggled to remember it, before saying 'oh, that, well it was hardly an affair'! To which I retorted 'Does that mean you only put your cock in a little way?' The female therapist actually snorted!

Cor, there are a lot of freaky and downright nasty exes around! I only have one big-time ex - my uni bf who I was with for 5 yrs. I think we only split up because we were so young when we got together and I got itchy feet. Well, I say feet ; He was never anything but lovely to me and took the split v badly. He's now happily married with 3 kids and we meet occasionally via mutual friends' weddings or birthday parties etc. and will be going for lunch with another uni friend soon. All most amicable and calm. I feel extremely lucky and hats off to you folk who had to up sticks and take the kids with you - takes guts and strength aplenty.

OMG ladies....those recollections are simply awful Apart from previously talked apart boyfriend (who was just super-obsessed with being a star!) I've been lucky. Only sweet, gentle men, who often bored the life out of me once their looks had lost their appeal iykwim. But non-the-less, sweet people.

Like ermintrude says - it take guts to up-and-leave. Seriously - you guys should always remember to 'give yourself a shiny'

But hurrah and a big festive BOOBIES for us all for now finding nice-not-dull-caring men Cos we're worth it!!

Which reminds me I had a lovely night at a friend's party last night for a few hours. Just us girls and a 75 yr old transvestite - dontcha just love life's different people. We sang carols while my mate played the piano - it was lovely. She collects random people - all the ones who don't quite 'fit' into suburban life - I love folk like that.

Have just wrapped some pressies and popped them under the tree. DP will definately be able to tell his is a tool bag - not one of the easiest objects to disguise!

jj your mate sounds great.

The "friendship" with my nasty house-flooding ex ended when I went round to his flat one night to see his daughter, accepted a glass of wine from him and next thing I was waking up on the sofa at 4am feeling like there was an elephant sat on my chest. He had only slipped sleeping pills into the wine - and it knocked me out cold. I ran out of there screaming blue murder at him and never spoke to him again.

We are having a Xmas tree debacle - we wanted a nice fat proper one this year instead of the tiny sparse spindly things they sell at the shop on the corner which look like they were nicked from the side of a motorway or something. So, OH's mum goes off to a fancy nursery to pick one up for us and tips up at our house with a flippin' ginormous tree! We tried everything to get it to fit somewhere bar lopping half the branches off. But its no go so she has to come and take it away and put in in her front garden.

The house is now a tip with a huge fat tree taking up half the dining room, OH has the hump and still no tree .

awwwwwwwwwwww mrsb I'm lol @ your xmas tree! Very funny. I know you aren't laughing nor your OH but it is quite funny.