Has anyone been left by their (Ex)H, to bring up their DCs alone, and actually years later realised they are glad that he went?

[LineRunner]

That's it really.

After a couple of years on MN, I am realising that he might have done me a favour.

He was different towards me after we got married. (DD was just a few months old.) He encouraged me to drop my career. He had at least two affairs, one when I was 7 months pregnant with DS who was born prematurely. ExH is a fucking knob.

He told me he was leaving me as he was sitting on the sofa, and I said 'Pack a bag and go.' He did and has behaved ever since like I threw him out. (He went to OW #2.)

Yet he hates me.

I was meant to beg him to stay, right?

Otherwise I cannot make sense of the ten years of utter hatred he has expressed towards me, through at least five girlfriends/partners, that frankly I am now sick of, as the DCs have turned 15 and 17.

And no point in feeling 'guilty' for 'picking' him. You were different then, less experience of life, he was probably different too, hadn't had the chance to fuck much up so could present as a 'nicer' more 'genuine' person.

My ex clearly did have good qualities and that is what I latched onto. But they were superficially good - his core was weak and rotten but you don't get to find that out until he is tested. It is easy to cover that up with superficial charm and niceness.

Suffering doesn't create character - it reveals it. Another of my favourite phrases.

spero I think I am just starting to get angry because the DCs are now 17 and 15 and my ExH can't hurt me any more with threats of SS and court hearings.

Yay!

Anger is fine. Just don't let it consume you. The best revenge is a life well lived.

(I have a notebook where I collect sayings. This might be quite sad but I enjoy it)

My Ex left for me for my friend when my DS was two.

He was an emotional abuser - I could never to anything right. The house was a pigsty, the meals I cooked were dreadful, I was fat, I was ugly - no man but him would want me, the way I did the dishes was wrong, the way I divided the whites and darks for the washing was wrong!! I could go on!! I let him treat me like dirt.

After he left, my DS and I had a totally brilliant life and we don't miss the Ex at all.

I learned than when the Ex was in one of his cruel moods, I just would agree with everything he said and it completely took the wind out of his sails.

My Ex hates me because he can't upset me anymore. Your Ex is bitter and hates you because you don't need him, survived in spite of him and his actions.

Don't waste anymore of your time wondering why he behaves the way he does - you do not have control of other people and their feelings - but you can change the way you react to them.

Let him hate you - his problem - not yours.

I'm glad he left me now too and we do get on better divorced, than when we were married tbh.

So glad we're over now but at the time, I wouldn't have believed you, that 3 years on, I'd feel this way.

Take a look at at this - I'm sure it'll strike a chord with most of you!

The best revenge is a life well lived - what a great saying!

Line - glad exH can't hurt you with the court/SS threats anymore. Maybe you are feeling some kind of release as a result, and all of a sudden, you are able to fully process the last decade? And no, my "new" exH won't be back. He's been an utter sod - and already started on the "you'd best get a good solicitor if you think that exclusive breast feeding is going to interrupt my rights to see my baby". Not enough expletives to describe how I feel about him when I'm not crying my eyes out

Well done to you for putting up with 10 years of that hideous behaviour. Be proud of yourself.

So is my problem ... I don't want him to hate me? (Because I don't think I deserve it.)

Help me

I would be so good with this when it's someone else but when it's me I'm useless.

And thank you, everyone.

Oh, olgaga. Just read one paragraph of that and I'm crying.

And yes, waves, it has taken a decade to allow me to even start to process this.

I am a good person. I didn't deserve this. My own mother and his parents bought into the 'mad ex wife' drama.

I felt like I've done well to keep my sanity tbh.

Good link!

He doesn't hate YOU. He is doing this to avoid hating himself.

Seriously, try to feel sorry for him. What must it be like, dragging this around every day?

I don't judge success or failure in life by big salary, nice house etc but by the strength and trueness of the connections you build with others. He has utterly failed in this regard.

olgaga - it does strike a cord!!

My Ex tried to divorce me on the grounds that I had abandoned him - he seemed to have forgotton to mention to his solicitor that he left OUR home and ran off with my friend!

That would be me. Utterly devastated when he left me with a five week old ds, after SIX miscarriages, and I learned from the neighbour no less of all the women he'd had back to our flat whilst I was pregnant and at work. It's been a long journey to understand how I could be so besotted with such a total knob. Ten years later, happily married to a kind wonderful man, and so grateful for my life. Think I would always have been too downtrodden to leave, so good that he revealed his true colours and brought about the turning point. At some deep level, I knew he was a complete loser, but love makes you want to see the best in them.

On that link, the 'Healing Place' says to stop trying to get any acknowledgment or apology.

I guess that's pretty important. He's never going to say sorry, or thanks, or even 'meh'.

The way you all conduct yourselves, the way you manage and carry on, the reserves you have had to call upon - you may not get any credit for it, you may never get any credit for it!

Nevertheless you know what you've been through and you should be proud of what you have achieved despite such adversity.

to you all.

Re apology and acknowledgment o god yes. Spent FIVE years trying to get that. Big fat waste of my time.

OldRichandGrateful How soon did you realise you were glad he had left? What helped you realise that?

I am quite surprised it has taken me so long to 'get it' deep down inside, properly, that my H was no good for me.

Hello MomeRaths. The problem is that after my (Ex)H left, he barely speaks to me. Not for over ten years.

This is what defeats me:

Day after Christmas: Make love, he say he loves me, everything fine with two young DC having fun with their mummy and daddy and their presents.

Day after that: Calmly, totally calmly, 'I'm leaving you.'

Day after that: He calls all relatives to say I am mad, I have been mentally abusing him, there is no-one else involved [he has already moved in with OW]. My own mother believes him.

Next ten years: Difficult.

And because of MN, I have finally seen The Script.

LineRunner - my Ex left me on my birthday - I came home from work and saw DS car seat in the kitchen. DS was left with my next door neighbour!

It took me a good couple of years to come to terms with it all. I was so angry with the twunt for just dumping my DS and going off with the OW.

I began to realise was a useless piece of shit he was and my DS and I deserved better. Every now and then Ex would try his old tricks, but once I saw him for the pathetic excuse for a husband and father he was, he lost all power over me. I just couldn't be bothered to give a shit about him.

My apathy and dismissive attitude drove him mad! But instead of being glad that I had pissed him off - I just couldn't and still can't raise any energy to engage with him and his drama.

It's easy for me to say ignore him - but honestly - it's the best thing you can do.

I woke up one morning after a couple of years on our own, with DS who had climbed into bed with me. We were watching cartoons and eating Jaffa cakes. My Ex wouldn't have allowed that to happen. It was then I realised how far me and DS had come and how happy we were.

It will happen to you - promise!

Oh yes, OldRich you are right about having the memories of things that the Ex wouldn't have allowed to happen.

DCs jumping off the chest of drawers onto me lying on the bed laughing to the sound of 'Power Ballads 2005';

DCs not liking a dinner and being able to leave it, or being 'allowed' a vegetarian phase.

As we were eating the Jaffa cakes, Line, I was thinking how naughty we were being ! I was 32 for goodness sake! A grown up! I can do what I like!

"Power Ballads 2005" - Mr Mister or Tina Turner?!

LineRunner, congrats on your new liberation!

It is almost exactly four years since I left my ex to go to a refuge as a result of his abuse. We're currently in court-ordered mediation, and he spent the entire first session dwelling on my evilness in leaving him and "stealing" dd. He totally refused to engage with any discussion about how to make the current arrangements work better or how to adjust them. He really did seem stuck in May 2009.

I'm so sick of the ongoing drama. I don't mind so much that he makes me out to be the pantomime villain so he can be the pantomime hero (more like Widow Twankey) but I'm stick to the back teeth of him feeding this narrative to dd(5).

Anyway, on the subject of guilt for picking badly, there's a quote from Maya Angelou: "We did what we did, knowing what we did. And when we knew better, we did better".

He doesn't hate you... not you personally, anyway. He hates what you represent which is a strong, independent example of womankind. Someone who hasn't crumbled in his absence and hasn't begged him to return. When you said it turned sour after the arrival of your first baby that's pretty consistent with abusive types. They prey on the vulnerability of a new mother in order to get the whip hand, being affectionate one minute and cold the next, making demands (like giving up work) to isolate you, being manipulative and swearing black is white. All to get in control. Like all bullies they have to 'win' in this way in order to make up for being inadequate cowards

This one 'lost'.... and that's what he resents. He's still trying to pull the emotionally abusive stunts... guilt-tripping about maintenance etc. All the time you take no notice it will infuriate him no end. Keep up the good work :)

those sort of 'polite' emails and texts that men do when they think they are being Kofi Annan but they are actually just being a twat.

I'd probably say LOL if I were ten years younger!

What the fuck is your Mum playing at Linerunner?

I'd be more bothered about that, ex is clearly a knob.