OK, fuck, xp has a profile on Plenty of Fish

[cowardlylionhere]

and it's upset me and I need a pep talk. He walked out on me and our 3 month old in the summer, and I moved back to my hometown 2 weeks ago. God knows why I was looking there (well, I do know, we met there and I was seeing if he had gone back there) and I have an actual ache in my heart now his profile is up. Goddamn prick :( How can he be ready to move on? WHy do I even care? I've been doing so well but this has got me like a dagger to the heart. I've been left with a 7 mo, 2 older dc and no life. He clearly has time to spend chatting to randoms on the internet embracing his new single life, while getting his solicitor to send me letters detailign how upset he is . God I wish I'd never looked. Can you all pile in and tell me what a prick he is?

What a prize. No woman with any common decency herself would be attracted to a man who left a woman and a 3 month old baby.

I do wonder what sort of catch MY x could make himself sound on a dating website! He would make himself sound like a cross between a young richard branson and a latino nigel havers. ha ha.

mumstonic is right. Women who are mothers themselves can cut through the bullshit with a scythe. He may think he's been clever enough to portray a caring side whilst simultaneously reassuring young gals about town that he's as free as a bird, but .... let him get on with it seriously.

I remember when my kids were tots I felt very resentful that my x had a different woman in his stupid flash car every few weeks. But that was years ago now. As I could have predicted he has not met anybody who wanted him for longer than a few months. Poor him, I guess there's no easy way to 'spin' having an xw who walked out on you. They can say you're a mad or a bitch but only a very foolish woman will believe what they're told and question nothing. My own x is lonely and wallowing in self-pity at the moment. His profiles and his lies can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

I know. I know. I know if he couldn't get a date before me then realistically he's not going to have that much luck now either. And he's the one missing out on what is actually, horrible tiredness and sad feelings aside, a pretty damn lovely family life. Ds, despite never sleeping, is a joy, and the other 2 are just great kids. I know I'm the one who should be relieved to have this loser out of my life. But that's going to take time. I think that's the worst of it. If this was maybe in a years time I woudl think yep, I've got over it. But seriously, the ink's not evern dry on my new tenancy. I've been gone 2 weeks, and up til about 2 months ago I honestly thought there was a chance for us, and he was acting the same way. It's insulting and massively inappropriate that he even feels ready to be doign this. But maybe that just shows him as the emotionally immature fuckwit he is. But I bet there are girls over there who will fawn over his pics of ds and listen intently while he tells them about the witch who took his son away. It worked with his parents and his work colleagues. I can see why people take their rage to FB, I really can. I want to announce to the world that he's a pathetic little man. But instead I'm sat here in my pjs eating biscuits. That'll help.

What age is he?

If you have two older kids and then you had another child with him as well then I guess he's old enough to know better and no matter how devastatingly handsome he believes he is, or how much he would like to continue dating young women despite his own ageing, he will have to as the years go by, date older, wiser women who will all have lived and learned and will have honed their own radars over the years.

My x tells everybody what a great father he is. But I have the feeling that his latest girlfriend dumped him. I honestly couldn't care less either way. I think he was easier to deal with and less unreasonable when he wsa with her.

A few things clearly didn't sit right with her though... [speculation] In five years you'll be wishing your x would find a woman stupid enough to take him on.

ps, don't vent on fb.

Vent here, anonymously.

He's 32 and far from good looking. A good friend told me last night that he was punching well above his weight with me . But that doesn't bother me. I thought the fact I was willing to overlook so much meant that I truly loved him. Maybe it just meant that I thought I couldn't do any better. The bad thing is, I still don't really believe he's an awful person. He's treated us badly yes, but actually I can see him being happy with someone. I can't see that for myself. I know in time I'll feel better about the whole situation but it took me so long to be ready for a relationship when I met him (I'd been single for 4 years and worked through a lot of stuff to get over my last relationship) that I just can't see myself taking the risk again. For a start, I have 3 young dc and am exhausted. I have become cynical. I'd rather be on my own than take that risk again. He's not coming to see ds for another month but when he does I hope he at least has a pang of jealousy/regret/whatever when he sees our beautiful new house and how happy the dc are.

Just because he's not 100% dreadful doesn't mean that you owe it to him to see the good in him. You know what I mean?

He didn't treat you well. You're not obliged to look for the good in him or see the good in him. And I don't mean that you have to waste energy hating him.

I get it though, really I do. The first two years after I left my x I spent so much time trying to make sense of why he'd treated me so badly. I don't know if I ever fully got to grips with that but I stopped asking myself why, I stopped wondering why. I think you are stuck in that phase now. The figuring it all out now. Why did he not value something real? the answer is so simple you can't accept it. Probably because he's immature and his own value system is not the same as yours.

I was on my own for five years after I left x. And, I'm single again now! You don't have to look for somebody new.