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.

Yeah, well mine was confusing, I had him leave then 'he changed' so came back then he found OW and moved out with her.

I'm so grateful to her and have told her so.

She thinks I'm taking the piss, I'm being deadly serious, I might have been stuck with him for life.

Close call tbh

Oh thank you all for responding to me. Really thank you. Just catching up reading your posts ....

OldRich I recall 'Alone' by Heart featuring a lot - the bit where the snare drums lead into an instrumental break would be where they'd launch themselves off the top of the furniture onto the bed.

NicknameTaken Mediation is a pile of shit I reckon if it's with a former partner looking for a guilt-free ride to a better financial deal / easier parenting deal. It's just an extension of the abuse / control. Can you 'shuttle' instead?

I had one mediation session after ExH had left me and the DCs high and dry - it was appalling. Ex was so pompous, and I was still in the midst of the cognitive earthquake, and all he wanted was to know about money, money, money because 'This relationship was never going to work', like it was my fault he started shagging the OW and walked out and left his kids.

The mediator was a wimpy bloke who was pathetic and I started crying and I said I was leaving and not coming back.

That got held against me for the next 12 years as well. Fancy, crying, just because my life was in tatters.

Thanks for the MA quote. You and spero are filling my mind with better words each day!

That is very similar to how my mediation went....

Looking back, and having trained now as a mediator, I am appalled at the mediator for ever allowing it to go ahead. I made it clear at the initial meeting I didn't see how we could possibly mediate as he was refusing to answer basic questions about how much maintenance he would pay and this refusal had gone on for six months... I suspect they just wanted the £270 per head we were paying!

I also cried and walked out but I don't care if he holds that against me as it was a bloody stupid idea - no mediation should take place if one party is withholding information from another.

I am quite sceptical about mediation in family cases - as you say one party often feels their life is in tatters and it is quite difficult to put on a mediation hat when emotions run so high.

I have very little hope of any positive outcome from the mediation. There are a couple of practical bits and pieces around handovers that it would be useful to agree, so I'll give it another go, but I doubt we'll get anywhere.

I feel stuck with this mediation because it's court-ordered. I've refused before, and at every opportunity my ex waves the refusal letters around and uses them as evidence that I'm not being cooperative. I do feel like past refusals to attend mediation have counted against me.

On the positive side, the mediators (there are two present) seem very alert to the dynamic. I feel as if they're are almost drawing his fire away from me. They look at him almost incredulously when I (or they) say something perfectly reasonable and it sends him off into a rant.

As I left him four years ago, I also feel rather more detached from him and his power-plays. In your excellent phrase, Line, the "cognitive earthquake" has died away.

My MIL's dad was an abusive, cruel, gambling, drinking shit of a man. My MIL had to run to nieghbours more than once when he was beating up her mum. Her mum left and returned to him many times, disrupting her daughters' education in the process (not to mention their emotional well-being ), but he left her in the end. She had nothing except her daughters, and had to get whatever benefits were around for women in her position in the 1950's, but buggering off was the best thing he ever did for her.

Line runner seriously were you married to my EXH? Joking but seriously that Kofi Annan approach is him!. my DC are 16 & 14. I left XH when pregnant with DS. He hates me with a passion & after 14 years shows no sign of letting up. It really is mind boggling. I have no doubt that the last ten years have been hard for you. like everyone says he has to hate you so that he can face himself in the mirror.

EXH assaulted DC s a while ago & police and SS got involved. Had to go to meeting with social workers, police, school reps & at the meeting XH said he has always had concerns about my parenting & thinks I need monitoring. He hasn't paid one penny towards them, is violent and is a selfish prick. The most staggering thing is because he was being K Annan they all believed him. Strangely he thinks it's ok for their crap mother to rear his kids & pay for everything they need.

All I can say is you really are not alone! I agreed to mediation once & when I said something he didn't like he lost his cool. The social workers both women, were distinctly unimpressed, and saw the real him. Needless to say we didn't go back. SS asked me to give it another go but I told them I would never mediate with that nutcase. I can't wait until DC are adults & I will struggle to remember his name. STAY STRONG x

Cogito Yes, my gut tells me the best response to him now is no response. Because I don't have to respond. His power - the power to threaten to try to take my children away from me - is gone.

I have just been out with a friend for a nice chat and a drink (because I can!) She said, 'Because you are such a good mother he has been able to be such a crap father.' That after only one Chardonnay!

I love that line about being a good mother to allow him to be a crap father. I fully intend to steal it and apply it to myself.

WhiteBird There should be a 'Best Of - My Ex Thinks He's Kofi Annan But He Is Actually A Twat' compilation thread on MN one day.

'Dear Soon-To-Be ExWife,
Your sad reluctance to end the relationship at a time and convenience of my choosing reflects, I feel with some regret, very poorly on your ability to make the correct choices on the part of our wonderful, wonderful children whom I have left with you. Therefore it is again with some very considerable regret that my new partner and I feel we have no option but to consider reporting you to social services should you not adhere to our reasonable plan for our completely new and remarkably re-written future.
Yours, your actual husband.'

Jengnr Well, my mother. That's a whole other Talk Board thread.

I have behaved in ways towards her of which I am not at all proud, but the bottom line is she is another one whose withdrawal from me was probably a blessing in disguise. I haven't chased after her for five years and I'm not going to now.

I do not want to become her. I am fearful I will. 'Choose me or your bloody father.'

Funnily enough she left him and he feels he had a lucky escape. He was meant to beg for her to come back, I think. She is very bitter, and I have tried and tried with her but she won't be happy till I hate him too, and I cannot give her that.

You are right Line. He has no power over you anymore because he can't take your DC from you or threaten you with SS. How liberating!!

My Ex used to threaten me all the time with coming over and taking DS away because I was such a crap parent. One day, I told him to do it. He didn't come over of course. He didn't actually want the responsibility of looking after DS. I had called his bluff and the power dynamic shifted that day.

Makes me smile thinking about it now!! Twat!!

ItsYoniYappy I feel sorry for his current OH. I really do. But if I told her that they would assume I was 'jealous' or some crap like that.

But I want to tell her to run for the hills.

He has already had her sell her property.

This thread is really interesting to me.

How about this for a curve ball then? I have absolutely NO IDEA how my ex feels about me.

He gives nothing away whatsoever!

akaWisey If we hadn't had children I guess I wouldn't have the slightest relationship with my Ex, nor would I want to have, frankly.

Unfortunately I have to, because we do have DCs, and he - for some reason - chooses to hate me and let me know it. Hence my 12 years of 'WTF?'

I feel a bit sorry for OW but not a lot because her 2 DC to her previous relationship are in care as she is with him. She chooses him over her own DC.

I'm not sure I could have done that. She called me one day when he was out is hushed worried voice, asking me to make up a story if he arrived during the call... she wanted to know if when I 'had locked him in the house and he stayed overnight did you kiss him' and she said 'he tells me you would take him back anytime'

I told her I would never ever take him back as he makes me feel physically sick, she doesn't seem to believe me, they detest me, no idea why.

wol1968 You can write a fair description - 'an abusive, cruel, gambling, drinking shit of a man.'

Yes, when someone like that leaves, I guess you bolt the door and thank the angels.

When my particular shit left, I bolted the door and would have thanked the angels except I had to have fucking mediation and divorce lawyers and his OW phoning me and insults about my mothering skills and threats and intimidation and all sorts of shite. And if I can change that for one other woman I would.

whitesugar Sorry you and your DC have had to go through all that.

'Being K Annan' will always be a red flag for me now. And yes, they often do lose their cool eventually when someone says something they can' process in their fake worlds. Mine did it in court.

Sorry the last line of my post to wol doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I mean if I could make things better for someone else in my position in the future I would like to. Not talking about OW per se.

Duh

Just to thank everyone again for their help and as a bit of an update, I have started thinking of the Ex in my head as GuiltBoy, and it helps! Takes the power right away from his image.

This is a great thread. I love the Kofi Annan comment. I sent this thread to my friend, who regularly receives absurd emails along those lines.

Also like GuiltBoy but prefer GuiltMan tbh. It brings to mind a comical anti-hero, rather like the pathetic F4J types in their fancy dress.

It's no laughing matter really - but this has brought my friend and I some light relief - her settlement was finally achieved last week after two extremely difficult years.

Best of luck to you all.

olgag I hope your friend is doing ok and rising appropriately to the Kofi Anann Email Challenge.

I just ignored the last one he sent me. I am stepping off that bus.

I have kept the KA emails and will publish them one day to give mums a laugh, they are priceless. He joined a creative writing course a few years ago probably to enhance his already amazing writing skills. My kids told me that on the first night he walked into the class there was only one seat available. Sadly for him the one seat was between his XGF who left him when she realised he was not KA, and his next door neighbour with whom he had got into a physical fight cos the neighbour doubted he was KA after EXH attacked him.

He went back the following week probably to read aloud his short story on diplomacy and sat down between 2 empty chairs.

whitesuggar

The kids tell me that my Ex now believes that as well as being KA he is also some kind of musical genius, an undiscovered Bono if you will, hiring studios for vanity recordings.

God, I am so well off out of it.

Unbelievable Line, my EXH spends all day playing guitar, prob waiting for some producer to peep through his window and discover him by accident! I hope that laughing at him helps you cope with his feelings of hatred towards you. His feelings are not yours. Let him do his worst. It is reassuring for me to know that other mums have faced this on going venom. I thought that I was unusual being separated for 14 years with no let up on the anger from him. Now that I realise it is not uncommon I can look lightly on it. Glad you posted x