Maintaining a good relationship with your ex

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for the sake of your children. Those of you who have a good relationship, how do you manage this? I am a year on from splitting with my ex and some days I still feel like I hate him as much as I did a year ago and I don't want to go on like this.

We have 2 young dc and I need to make myself feel ok about things for their sakes. I just wish I never had to see my ex again ever but know that we are connected for life through our dc. He lives a long distance away and is with ow and doen't see our dc much. Everything is a great effort for him and he thinks he is marvellous because he pays maintenance. He can't see dc over Christmas because flights are too expensive when he is making extravagant purchases left right and centre. How do you start to let all of this wash over you and not feel bitter? I feel like I am turning into a bitter and twisted old hag!

Some days I think I have turned the corner, then something else happens and I am back to square one. I feel so upset for my dc that he cares so little about them. My ex thinks he is doing a great job as a parent and wants me to praise him for being a good dad on his sporadic visits. I always feel like throttling him.

I don't know that there is any way of maintaining a good relationship with our ex when you are still full of resentment (and with good reason) Maintenance or not you are the one left holding the babies while he swans about.

I guess it will all be about time, you have to continue being civil as long as he is keeping in touch, but you don't owe him anything of yourself now, you don't need to praise him, or give him reassurance, all you need to know is that the money is in the bank and that when he does make the effort to see his children they are safe, well looked after and that it is convenient for you.

I co-parent with my dc's dad, but then we are best friends after a long term relationship, there was no other people involved in our break up, so it is much easier to navigate.

I know people say it should all be about the children, but as a human you cannot cut your feelings off either.

Just plough through it, you may feel resentful, but that will become less as you start to focus on your own goals with the DC's I am sure...

Thanks for the reply antsypants. It must be great for your dc that you and their dad get on so well. I was having a bit of a wobble last night. It is a crappy time of the year for associations with my ex's awful behaviour and it gets to be sometimes. That and because people keep asking me when the children's dad is coming to visit for xmas and a birthday and I have to tell them he isn't because the flight was too expensive. People then look surprised as they know he is well off. It just reinforces to me the fact that he is rubbish. I know we will have a fab xmas anyway and a much better one than if he had made an appearance so I wish I wasn't effected by it.

I hate all of the resentment that I feel towards him as it only drags me down, not him. I have made a pretty good life for me and the dc without him and usually have a smile on my face. It is just that inside I feel shitty. Not all of the time by any means but at certain trigger points and when he manages to turn up. Note to self - must get tougher.

It is easy to say must get tougher, but not always easy is it?
I am in very similar situation to you, regarding everything except location, he is only a few miles away, but everything else sounds familiar.
my ex will not communicate with me at all, the dc arrange their own access visits with him, he wouldn't even respond to a text from me when our ds was suspended from school!
Just keep telling yourself that it is his loss, the children know you are the parent who is always there for them, and you are doing a fabulous job.
So what if you have wobbles, you wouldn't be human if you didn't. Just keep telling yourself that your christmas will be so much better because you are not waiting for the awful behaviour to start.

First of all you have to remind yourself that he is making another woman unhappy now and that you are free of him.

Then you have to count yourself lucky he's not hankering after the children living with him.

When your friends ask when he is visiting, remind them he has different priorities - you don't need to say what they are, they will know what you mean.

Remain silent when your ex tells you he's a good father. Just don't say a word. If he looks like he's after a fight when you do this, just say 'I'm glad you think so.'

Think how lucky you are that if you have a new relationship, your ex will be far, far away and won't be interfering in everyday life.

I know it must be difficult not having much time to yourself and it must be awful if your children miss him and I'm really sorry about that.

I'm not sure how. It can take a really long time to get over the anger and all that, I understand how you feel. I am Ok with mine now, it did take several years though.

There is light at the end of the tunnel.

atswimtwolengths, you made me smile x he is making another woman unhappy now!

op, I think it needs both parents to want to work together and if one doesn't want to work together or there was ow and she is still around that can cause problems also!

Thanks everyone for adding your comments. I feel better already for having a bit of support and am glad to hear Flight that there is life at the end of the tunnel. I try so hard to be positive and upbeat (which is essential with young dc around)and to cope with everything myself that I don't actually feel able to let people in real life know how I feel when my spirits fall. I never fall to pieces and I don't want to be a 'victim.' Realistically I am not however invincible and maybe I just need to vent ever now and then.

whitetulips - thanks it is good to know that I am not alone. Your ex sounds worse than mine about communicating, that must be really difficult. I so know it is his loss and that I am lucky to have escaped him. I think I am frustrated with myself that even though I know this, he still has an impact on how I feel and I get upset by his constant lies.

atswimtwolengths - you also made me smile. I know he is making someone else unhappy, I just need to remember this at all times. I might write that on my fridge. It is also better that I hardly ever see him. I should think myself lucky. God knows how bad it would be if I had to have this week in week out. The frustrating thing is that when he does see the kids it has to be mostly at my house as they are too young to go anywhere else with him for a long period of time and he is crap at looking after them as he hardly ever does it. I hate having him in my space still. I look forward to the day that I can hand them over on the doorstep and close the door without having to make small talk or hear about how difficult his life is.

My ex doesn't pay planned maintenance and doesn't have the children much. He has them for 24 hours every 7 days if I am lucky and then behaves as if he is a hero for doing so. He pays 30% of the agreed CM and again behaves as if he is a hero and I am a nasty money grabbing ex....

I am exhausted. I am the provider and the sole parent whilst he swans around dipping into parenthood when it suits him. The kids love him and I just smile benevolently at this because I'd wish to encourage it but it's f**king easy to be a great parent if someone else is paying for the cost, doing all the crappy jobs and coping day to day

I think they will remember me as the tired grumpy cow asking them to tidy their rooms and saying I have no money for this and that whilst he is 'fun' Dad

Sorry

I just vented instead of offering anything helpful

My view to having the 'best' possible relationship in the circumstances is that I need some control so I limit his control over me and am very businesslike

Hey no need to apologise VLKS. If venting has made you feel better than that is a good thing. Feel free to vent away. I take your point and think I am going to cultivate a cool and business like persona for his next visit. And at all costs avoid venting to him as it only makes me feel worse afterwards as I do feel like I have lost control.

Seriously this year has been really tough with him trying everything to rile, upset and manipulate me. Because I know longer wish to be dealt with like this or accept it, I get angry and that causes outbursts or silly behaviour which does impact upon my children.

I now insist all contact is by e-mail which forces him to put down in print evidence of his twattery. He also knows all mails are seen by a friend who advises me on a response which tempers my emotional reaction. The friend is not one who knows him and not one who would encourage me to fight or be confrontational but is one who understands the circumstances and can see what he is doing to me and makes me stand up for myself when I'm being bullied but calm down when I am being emotional.

If I could set a site up which offered this facility to other mums I would because it has been very helpfulto me

That reads oddly...

I now insist all contact is by e-mail which forces him to put down in print evidence of his twattery. He also knows all mails are seen by a friend (who advises me on a response which tempers my emotional reaction.) This knowledge tempers what he writes to me. The friend is not one who knows him and not one who would encourage me to fight or be confrontational but is one who understands the circumstances and can see what he is doing to me and makes me stand up for myself when I'm being bullied but calm down when I am being emotional.

I was relatively lucky in that while Ex was a nightmare to live with and an unfaithful git, I knew that underneath it all he was a basically decent bloke. I never stopped liking him, IYSWIM.

It took a good couple of years for my anger re his twattishness and his unhappiness over me leaving to start to mellow - but 15 years later we're very good friends. He pops in a couple of times a week - he and now-DH go to the football together and are good mates, he'll have my subsequent DCs if DH & I die, I get on with his fiance etc.

Hassledge - wow! Triangle - I don't know how I will ever get to the stage of controlling my emotions with mine. We are just starting a divorce and I am struggling (he won't leave);there has been horrible things happen in our history(won't go into details), and I can only imagine that all those strong emotions would go away if I was to go on to have a happy life. I am pretty certain that the best way to be able to deal with this would be to build as happy a life as possible for you and your dc, and count your blessings that you have left it behind.

Do you think it's easier if you had a nice relationship with your ex, and there isn't a bad history involved?

And, it makes me mad how they believe they are wonderful fathers, even though they just dip in and out of it when it suits them.

Its about a year on for me too and I still feel very bitter and emotional, and find it very easy for my ex to upset me.

I'm really proud of what i've acheived this year (moving house on my own with 4 small DCs, getting up and going to work every day, getting Dcs to school clean, smart, homework done etc) but i can't let go of all these negative feelings. I'm just furious with him.

I'm with a lovely new man who I absolutely adore so I really need to let go and move on. I'm thinking of counselling. I think Relate do some sort of post divorce thing. Also it would obviously be so much better for the children if we could get along, and grandparents, mutual friends etc.

taokiddy - how is your ex as a father now to your dc?

My ex and I get on ok now, we can chat and have a laugh, but the first 18 months after we split up was hell! He was very argumentative and aggressive and I was very bitter and resentful, therefore lots of arguments etc etc. It was very stressful and exhausting.

I was very bitter and angry for a long time, but feeling like that made me feel ill, I didnt sleep, it sapped everything out of me, it takes up so much energy feeling so hateful and angry.

In the end I had to 'let it go' and began to really concentrate on myself and the kids and out future. It wasnt so much about forgiving him about being unfaithful, it was about closing the door on the past and not thinking about it anymore. I hope that makes sense.

So 4 years on we get ok, can have civilised conversations, come to agreements about the kids etc, theres no anger anymore. But it did take a long time to get to this point.

I agreee with what others say though, it does grate when you seem to do all the hard graft and they just pop up when it suits to do the 'fun' stuff...

OK, I've been in this situation. 8 Years ago, my ex & I broke up. At first the idea was we'd have the kids 50-50. The reality was I became full time parent.

At first like you OP, I was incredibly angry and bitter. Even more so at the fact that I was a bloke IYSWIM whilst she as their mum was out clubbing and generally not giving a shit.

I've learned a lot of hard lessons over the years. The most important is that all that anger & bitterness about how things should be, what he should do gets you absolutely nowhere.

You can either sit there fuming at him and let it consume you. Or you can let go of it.

How? Well you live your life. You organise your life such that you don't need him anymore. Get your social circle sorted. Get your childcare arranged. Get your finances so that his maintenance is a bonus, not a necessity. I'm not saying he shouldn't pay. From experience I know that if you RELY on his money to pay the bills, he can totally screw you up by simply not paying one month to get one over on you.

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. Te best you can hope to do is get to the point where you don't care what he does/doesn't do.

For me, my ex & I now have a "good" relationship in so far as we can call each other to discuss problems. Contact is regular and we don't get mad if one of us has to swap or something. We've even managed to spend xmas together once and even went on a weekend break with the kids.

But that's taken YEARS to get there. You are still really only at the beginning. Give it time and concentrate on yourself.

No wonder I feel bitter and angry at the very start.

Niceguy's advice is good. But indifference comes finally when the love and the hurt turn to hate and then finally to indifference, I think.

Yup, Love -> Hate -> Indifference. Right now I suspect OP is at the hate stage and she needs to move on. The only way to do that is to let go.

What a good topic. I would say the start of moving forward is to want to let go of the negative feelings. That really is key. Secondly as Niceguys says - it's accepting how things are now, not how they 'should' have been or how you want to them to be.My MIL ended a marriage over 20 years ago and is still bitter, it consumes her because she feels that FIL should have been better, they should not have had the financial stresses they had, he should have provided more for her when the marriage ended.
I also think it's positive to think about what you gained from the relationship. Yes, it was painful but what did it teach you about yourself, what lessons have you learnt that you know will help you later in life? Finally I think it helps to focus on any positive attributes of an ex..Ok he might be a lousy dad but what was attractive about him to you at one time? The reason this is important is that your child might have the same characteristics and they need to know that they can be positive. If you do feel resentful (& its understandable when you're tired from being a lone parent) just remember that what each parent puts into parenting does come back to you. Children once they become teens, know which of their parents act in their best interests. It's really positive and emotionally healthy if a child has a good bond with each parent so whatever effort you have to make make, biting your tongue when you feel angry etc and always putting the kids first will help them to be confident and happy adults.

I havn't read all the posts so maybe repeating some of the comments, but I felt just the same as you did during the first few years after separating from my exH. The hatred became all consuming and rose to the surface with every e-mail, phone call, letter from solicitor etc... It took me about three years to realise feeling total hatred was unhealthy for me.

Fast forward six years and relations have mellowed significantly - mainly due to indifference and then the realisation that I was going to have to communicate with this person for many many years to come and it was just too exhausting to be angry all the time.

The turning point definitely came when all the finances had been sorted out and the court order made very clear. Unfortunately this took 3-4 very long years that I will never get back.

Am sure others have said this but I made sure the DCs never saw how angry I was and I have never made any negative comments about their Dad to them.

You have given me so much great advice everyone, thanks. Lots to think about. I have been having some counselling and had been feeling so much more positive and thought I had laid some things to rest but I think the double whammy of my DD's birthday today and Xmas set me back a bit.

I have tried really hard to keep any hostilities away from my dc and usually manage it. But the other day I lost my cool on the phone with my ex and my one year old covered his ears and was obviously affected. I felt awful about it. That kind of situation is so not what I want to put my dc through as they grow up.

From what many of you say time will be a large factor in me mellowing. I am so impatient for indifference to come around and am willing those feelings to materialise. I have put 100% energy into building a new life this year and getting back to work. I had to move area to be closer to family after ex basically chucked us out of his house and didn't want us anywhere near him. The distance has been helpful to me but I feel guilty that my children don't have a dad around who they can see regularly, even though I know this is beyond my control. I wish I had made better choices about who their dad is but hindsight is everything. I should be grateful that my ex has decided to have some form of relationship with them.

VLKS-that sounds like a great email system you are operating. I have been guilty of a few emotional ranty emails that I shouldn't have sent. I think I would be too embarrassed to let an outsider read them though yet that is a sensible way to keep things civil. The problem with my ex is that he seems wholly oblivious to his 'twattery' and always thinks his behaviour is reasonable e.g. he was justified to want to chuck us out of our home because I was angry about the ow and was being 'horrible' to him. He tries to act nice while doing crappy things and I start to lose a sense of what is right and what is wrong. He makes me feel like I am the one at fault constantly. Hmmm...I seem to be going off the point here.

Hasseledge- that sounds great. You have really done well at getting over your anger and relatively quickly.

Houseproject-I wish I could remember what I found attractive about my ex, it has all become clouded. But you are spot on in what you say about how a good bond with both parents is really immportant for children. This is why I don't want to screw things up. And Niceguy2 the thinking about how things should have been is what makes me still embittered. In my low moments I get enraged thinking this isn't what I signed up for/imagined happening in my life but that wallowing does actually get me anywhere. It is futile.

You know it is such a relief to hear from some people who have felt what I feel. I think it is more useful than counselling in a way. I have been driving myself mad trying to bury these hateful feelings and fighting with myself over them, thinking this isn't me and I don't recognise myself. Perhaps I just needed to let them out. Acknowledge them amd move on. I am so used to being understanding and looking for the good in people that I still find it hard to accept that my ex is a lying twat and that some people are like that. You can't change them, they are not going to realise the error of there ways. It is the way that they are.

deludedfool- I am sorry to here about you being stuck in the same house with your ex. I was in that situation for 4 months and I think it took every ounce of strength I had to deal with it while looking after my dc. I don't know how I managed it looking back. I hope things improve soon for you and you get some space. I know I have been moaning on on this thread but really for me as soon as I got away from being in the same physical space as my ex, life improved tenfold.

taokiddy - You sound like you are doing great with your 4 dc and good to hear that you have found a lovely new man. Up to now I have been so busy with day to day stuff that I haven't put my toe back in the water of the dating scene. Maybe in the new year. A new hobby would be good!

So ninjanurse you are 4 years on and sound well adjusted, dippingbackin you mention 3-4 years. I obviously need to be realistic and patient then. It will be good to draw a line under this year and start the next feeling a bit less burdened and in a year's time I will hopefully be that bit further down the line. Cheers everyone, you have given me some hope about not being an old hag forever (and sorry for the essay, if you are still reading well done!).