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.

Is it a recent phenomenon? Are there websites that teach them to write ponderous emails like that?

I think it is a manifestation of their own inadequacies - the same trait that made them crappy partners. As flipinada said, they want to appear clever so they adopt language that they think achieves that aim but its not real.

If they really were that clever they wouldn't worry about trying to convince everyone else. I think it is all about front, just another example of trying to escape from and cover up the reality of their lives.

Its the pompous superior I 've done no wrong that gets me..

exp is quite happy to list off my faults while denying any wrongdoings himself..by simply dismissing that they ever happened like the 'put him up for adoption' one. Supposedly never happened.
Even tho he told his family and I ended up getting a tearful visit from his mother less then an hour later. Of course in that short amount of time the blame had already been shifted to me.

Hope your chemo goes wellSpero

I love that idea middleastern imagine what it would be like if exp was still living here!!! Oh god i dread to think of it. My life has taken me on a very unexpected journey that i could never have imagined if he was still around. I actually have one

Linerunner a website hmmmm I wonder www.pompousarse. com

Simple tips on how to avoid your kids avoid paying maintenance while always appearing right!!

My exp threatened a solicitor once to I dunno sue me for splitting up.....When I agreed that yes a solicitor would be a great idea to sort maintenance and contact he shut up fairly fast. But also threatened war if i dared go to one myself

Spero, I realise now with hindsight that men like my ExH care far too much about what people think of them.

The Kofi Annan emails are simply part of the architecture of their ridiculous facades. To think that I have actually in the past dreaded reading them. I should have just posted them on MN instead.

Spero best wishes to you, I am thinking about you. This is going to sound selfish but reading this thread has made me feel better. I honestly thought I was the only woman subjected to vile hatred after 14 years being separated. I never thought anyone else was subjected to those mental emails & texts. I never met anyone in RL that was in this position. It's cold comfort but honestly this has been a revelation. To anyone who has been left whilst pregnant I was there 14 years ago & delivered the loveliest little boy who brought me so much joy that it helped me through the crap. He is now 14 & I found cigarettes in his blazer the other day - little shit head- But he was a gorgeous baby. Gotta rush out but will check in later x

That's not selfish, that's what we are here for. The only way to deal with this crap and to stay sane is to laugh at them and pity them.

I think it is awful that so many of us have lived for so long being either afraid of, upset by or enraged by these men.

Anything we can do or share to help people get a new mindset is a positive thing.

You have you laugh eventually at the pompous language!

The "in essence", "without predudice" emails! Hahahahahahahaha!!

whitesugar you don't sound selfish at all.

I think it's good to realise you're not alone in dealing with the madness!

It is comforting to know that I'm not the only one whose exp has behaved dreadfully towards them rewrote the past and blamed its downfall on me (even the 10 years of no xmas or birthday cards for his ds where somehow my fault) 14 years later. No one in RL seems to have encountered this with only one other person having an ex send a few harassing emails for a few weeks after the spilt. But no one I know with kids has actually left or been left by their partner.

It has been 4 years now since I've spoken to him( which was truely awful hated fill malice he wished me& his ds nothing but bad fortune)
The once yearly card to ds brings the dread flooding back to the younger me sitting in the corner of a room crying her eyes out at how joyless and miserable her life had become.The younger me wished she was dead rather then live another day in hell.

Now I'm living life to the full I've travelled the world found a new life, ds has accepted the once a year contact he gets( never a return address tho) I know ds wishes it was different.

legomum but well done for coping brilliantly and making a new life for yourself and ds.

Mine hates me too even though he left 5 yrs ago for OW He did the overnight personality change thing and I was left at not having seen it coming

at the new MN concept of the kofi annan email though

Hi TrickyTreatLou, you wrote 'They become like strangers the moment they leave.'

I have been thinking about this for two days. I think what you said is really, really important.

I feel like I should have had a chance to grieve for a person I lost - but I haven't, because that person is still in my life, trying to make it unbearable. Almost like being haunted.

How is it that you feel, sarahseashell?

linerunner I found the shock and it's aftermath terrible, on top of the betrayal. I read a book recommended on here called sudden endings (amazon) which explained a lot. It helped to know there were others - thank goodness for MN

Thanks for that book recommendation, sarah. I will definitely look for that.

It really does help to know it wasn't just me, like you and whitesugar have said. My ExH of course told me it was only me who could possibly feel upset about being left for someone else, that 'other people' got over it and moved on like good girls.

He obviously had had months to prepare. I had 20 minutes. Yet he was the one who changed, utterly, on the doorstep, having kept up a brilliant pretence for all that time before.

Line I am so happy you started this thread. I was out for a drive today & cos of all mn posts I felt I was free for first time in years! I have spent way too long second guessing how he will ruin everything for me & now that I know he is a textbook tool his power is gone! Doesn't mean he will stop trying to sabotage me but like one poster said - laugh about it.

Hope anyone in this situation will wake up & smell the coffee 14 years before I did. If anyone consistently makes you feel bad about yourself, get the f**k out & don't engage. I am hardly in a position to give advice but have finally realised that 14 years of taking criticism from someone I don't even know anymore is totally ridiculous. Thank God for advice from women who have been through it & have come out the other side. I am starting to believe I am one of those women - finally!!!

That is so true whitesugar why do i take criticism from someone I dont know and infact doesnt know me?? 14 years later...i'm certainly a different person now then i was way back then.
My ex likes to re -write the past but I know what happened I was there also.

He also liked to blame me for the years of no contact with his ds when infact he used it all throughout our relationship as a threat if I stepped out of line. Ds was a few days old first time he threatened to have nothing to do with ds if i refused to do as told, his dad was there too and just nodded in agreement

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

It's great this thread has proved so positive. If we can't write a book how about we start a Facebook page to collate some of the most unique uses of 'heretofore' 'notwithstanding' and 'eventuate' in emails?

It could be a beacon of light in the darkness. I really do think if you can laugh at them, you take their power away.

I feel like I should have had a chance to grieve for a person I lost - but I haven't, because that person is still in my life, trying to make it unbearable. Almost like being haunted.

Line that's almost exactly what my friend said. "It's worse than a bereavement - he's gone, but there's no funeral"!

Tricky were you the respondent in the chutney possession order? Congratulations on the birth of your son. Hope you found a good solicitor eventually.

Yes, my H took all the chutney. And half the other contents of the house. Whilst I was at work no less.

The hardest thing was realising he is a stranger. I'd been with him for 10 years. He had been having an affair for several months, got someone pregnant and had been planning to leave me. I had no idea, no time to prepare, no time to grieve.

I had 'our' baby 4 weeks ago. I'm still going through the motions in terms of processing how I've been treated. The only way I've been able to cope is to have no contact with him and to do it all through solicitors/mediators.

I found 'Runaway husbands' very useful (the book), plus the book by Lundy Bancroft about controlling men. I read them both with a highlighter in my hand and then gave up because I could pretty much highlight all of the books!

, spero. Hope the chemo goes well. I always really value your posts. Lots of good sense and humanity.

Tricky, I snorted with laughter at him taking all the chutney. You couldn't make it up.

Thankyou nickname. Just finishing last chemo now hurrah!

I hope he enjoyed the chutney. What an arse. I wonder what is going thru their brains at times like this? She doesn't deserve ANY chutney....

LineRunner I could have practically written your OP!

My ex walked out when I was 7 months pregnant with DC3. DC1 & 2 were 1 and 3 at time. He arsed about for 6 months claiming he needed space to 'find himself' whilst shagging everything that he possibly could. He then returned full of self pity amid claims that he wanted us back. I gave him a second chance for the sake of the children. He was then a complete knob to me for the next 3 years before finally announcing he wanted a divorce.

DCs are now late teens/early 20s. Ex has never paid any maintenance, has always seen DCs (due to my hugely encouraging them to keep a relationship going with their father) and is STILL massively bitter and full of hatred towards me.

I cannot get my head round it at all - he left, he wanted a divorce and he managed to continue a relationship with his kids without having to financially support them. I am not sure what it is that makes him so bitter towards me - but suspect that it is basically because I didn't fall apart and am clearly perfectly happy without him.

TBH, 14 years down the line I couldn't give a shit about his opinion. I think he's a bit sad, bitter and pathetic and on the very rare occasions I see him I am simply massively grateful that I am not still with him. I don't harbour any hatred or bitterness towards him - perhaps the strongest is a mild sense of irritation that he clearly thinks I ruined his life when I have always been civil to him and tried to rise above pettiness for the sake of the children. I would have like to remain on fairly friendly terms, simply for their sake.

At the end of the day I feel he is a bit sad for focusing so much negative energy upon me and my life when I simply feel indifferent to what he is doing with his.

Glad to hear it - hope it's a great success and you never even have to think about cancer again.

On the chutney (and everything else), I don't think the thought process goes any further than "I want it". The fact that someone else might want it is irrelevant. The focus is so much on what they want that another person's needs and desires are just an irritating irrelevance.

"The focus is so much on what they want that another person's needs and desires are just an irritating irrelevance."

Agree with this.

My H took some strange things. He came back one day whilst I was at work and emptied the freezer! Later he sent a solicitor's letter asking for his jigsaws from the loft. He also requested the television (even though he'd gone to live with someone else in their home, he was quite prepared to take the tv off me).

Three days after he left I met him in a pub. He told me about his affair but told me he didn't want to discuss that. He then got a list of my pros and cons out of his back pocket and said he was there to discuss me, as represented on his list. My cons were longer because he'd "gone into more detail". If I could address these cons he would attend counselling with me.

All this and he was angry that I didn't want him back.

These men are highly entitled, it's all about control.

I had a chat with a friend on Saturday about this kind of thing and she gave me a useful perspective - she said that people fall roughly into two camps - service to self and service to others.

Those in the 'service to self 'camp see everything in terms of how it benefts them. Anything else doesn't register. She suggested that if I want my ex to do something I would have to frame it in a way that made it clear it would provide benefit to HIM.

I am not sure I can be arsed however.