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.

A list of pros and cons! hahahahaha

I hope high up on the 'con' list was 'has been in a relationship with an utter tosser'

Spero fingers crossed for you!

I like the idea of a private Facebook group too. Invitation only, what about "Kofi Annan's words of wisdom" as a title ?

My top 'con' was I didn't trust him.

Followed by he didn't have enough freedom to do what he wanted.

He'd just confessed he was having an affair ffs!

sowornout

Your comment about your ex being pissed off your are happy without him freaky rang a bell with me.

I think mine is secretly furious that I've had the sheer temerity to build a successful and happy life without him. Also that DS loves me. I know that annoys him a lot..tough shit, you freak

I mean really, not freaky. Sabotaged by auto correct!

I am not really on FB yet. (Set up a fledgling page; immediately forgot password.) But I would make an effort for this.

Thank you everybody who is on this thread. It's been a very positive eye-opener.

And for Spero

flippinada I think you just touched on something really significant there. "I think mine is secretly furious that I've had the sheer temerity to build a successful and happy life without him. Also that DS loves me."

I have a dear friend who says that my ExH sounds bitter that I have a loving relationship with our children. I find this hard to process - that a father would be bitter that his own children love ther mother and vice versa. But the horrible truth is that it looks likely to be the case. How bloody awful.

Brilliant , producing a written list when he has been having an affair !

Yesterday DS popped over to see XH off the cuff and casually mentioned that Dad had turned up "battered" after playing golf all day. I had been having a few "Bank Holidays are for families poor me" moments but that snippet of info had me feeling better !

This thread is fantastic! It's so good to laugh! My ex said he "absolutely insisted that I seek counselling to look at my issues as our situation wasn't his fault" (he physically, mentally & sexually abused me during pregnancy) & recently after 9 years since splitting up asked if we could meet for dinner to "bury the hatchet". I replied that I don't have a hatchet to bury especially after being married to someone else for 5 years but I know that our DD would like to see more of him than 2 days a month. He replied "having considered your text I am confident that DD is & always has been satisfied with our current contact arrangements & do not feel it is necessary to amend it at this moment in time" Fnarrr!!!

And talking of taking things, my ex took all the mirrors in the house (narc by any chance?) & my older DS's Tigger pyjama case (not even his son!) as well as the 3 piece suite so that when we came home from the school run we had nothing to sit on!

I laugh about it but yes, it is really horrible LineRunner

Mine does try to sabotage every now and then. I've had the "Daddy says we are not a proper family because there's only me and you", "The (my family surname) aren't my proper family, the (exes family surname) are"....etc.

DS seems more baffled by these comments in a why is Dad saying this weird stuff way....I mean why, just why would you say stuff like that to your own child?

I could fill pages upon pages with his awful weirdness.

I never truly believed, flippinada, that he was actually bitter (as opposed to being Kofi Fucking Annan) for the longest time because he was the one who left us. How could he be bitter when he put his own desires first and left his own children behind with me? What possible reason could he have to be bitter and to hate me? Surely he would be deleriously happy?

But to sum up this thread, he does what he does because he's a twat.

Nice men must hate men like him. And I suspect he knows it. Hence more bitterness - directed at me.

Is there a magic powder we could spinkle on them to bring them back to their senses? Some kind of 'Nice Man Powder'. I don't ever, ever want him near me again - I just want him to be a nicer dad and the kind of ExH you don't have to call the police on.

Does leaving give them mental breakdowns?

If only it was that easy!

Funnily enough, my ex has the ideal life on the surface; he's married now (to OW) and DS has a little brother.

I think..in his mind he's engaged in some sort of who's the best parent competition in which I temporarily have the upper hand and that is NOT ALLOWED because he has to win.

Just popping in to say how much of this rings true with me. I always trusted in the fact that the dcs needed no help from me in working out what an idiot he is....
Recently one of them was justifiably very upset whilst at his and OW's house. It ended with him dumping them at the local railway station after spending 15 mins assassinating their character in the car (no arguments were offered). Of course, it hadn't occurred to him to refuse to take dc and sort it out. As they arrived, dc thanked him for the lift (and meant it) and got another load of abuse as a reply. As dc walked away, they said 'why don't you just fuck off?' which at that point was an understandable response from a teenager.
I could not restrain my horror and laughter when I collected dc from the station (no trains were actually running that day). I would have loved to witness the embarrassment that xh must have felt (why is it all of these men are perfect?)
When we were talking about it later, dc said 'you don't understand how horrible he is mum'. The only thing I could think to say was 'why do you think we're divorced?'

O yes to Kofi Annan's words of wisdom ... Or from the pen of Kofi Annan.

Must definitely include anything which includes 'this moment in time'. We could do a top ten of most used pompous phrases.

I used to work at a solicitors dealing with letters from this type of man, always screaming about costs when they had basically harassed their wives via the courts and solicitor. Then they would start harassing their solicitors too, they seemed to think they could just wear the firm down with sheer will power, the way they had abused or harassed their wives. I fucking loathed every single one of them and dreaded the phone ringing as it was always some twat doing ' a Kofi'.

Did any of you ever just say something like 'you prioritised your own needs above your children, failed to financially support your own children and have treated me like shit even though it was you who left after an affair'? I can imagine feeling so bewildered and under attack that it would be impossible to get across to these men just how awful they are.

Just dealing with them in work affected how I felt about men in general for a fairly long time, can't imagine dealing with them forever.

Can I add my 'Ex's wedding day story' to the thread to (hopefully) amuse some of you?

Having paid no maintenance for the DCs (3, 5 & 6 when he left) DS got to 15 and - you know what it's like, ladies - he suddenly came home on a Fri in April and said 'That trip money was due in today'...and I realised with horror that back in Oct I'd agreed he could certainly go on a History GCSE trip to the Somme and paid a deposit of £75 and then forgotten entirely about the fucking thing.

£240 still outstanding. Shit.

So I rang the Ex and explained - asked him really nicely, 'Do you think you could possibly go halves with me on it? I don't have the money as I'm supply teaching and haven't had much work this month. Money is very tight and I can't come up with £240 for DS by Monday'. To my amazement he agreed, no problem. So I sent in a cheque with DS on the Monday - and then couldn't get the fucking money out of Ex! He claimed he didn't believe me, didn't trust me, kept refusing to answer the phone - all sorts of shit...and I knew my mortgage repayment would bounce without his contribution.

It was also 2 weeks before his BIG wedding to new partner - we are talking £20,000 job, the full works.

Eventually I got DS to ring him on his mobile and took the phone off him saying to Ex "You do NOT want to upset me 2 weeks before OWs big day! I still have my wedding dress - and I will be there outside the church like Miss Haversham - draped in cobwebs, holding a bunch of dead flowers and weeping! Give me the fucking money you agreed to pay for your son's trip - or the children will be joining me, dressed in rags!'

There was a cheque through my door an hour later...

Brilliant so worn out!!!

I like from the pen of Kofi Annan best

What does everyone else think?

That did make me laugh sowornout thank you for that!

Thank god for this thread. I thought it was only my ex H being an unreasonable prat after leaving and moving in with OW. I've spent months wondering how he could turn instantly into a stranger and blame me for everything even though I now know he had numerous affairs and moved away to be with OW. But it doesn't matter because it was me he left and not the children.

I've come to the conclusion that this denial of the truth is the only way they can live with themselves.

Wossname - my solicitor used to call my XH Mr Clipboard because he turned up to court (repeatedly) with his "evidence" on a clipboard. So professional. Unfortunately he spoilt it by interrupting the judge's summing up by saying in a booming voice "Can I visit the lavatory?" In other words - what you are saying is unimportant & only my needs matter. Entitled prick!

"they could just wear the firm down with sheer will power, the way they had abused or harassed their wives"

Yyy to this, woss. This is the way that my ex lives his entire life. And he congratulates himself on it and thinks people should admire him for it.

Oh, and my ex kept trying to talk over the judge. She was not impressed. Very unfortunately, it's not our usual judge and whenever she (usual judge) has seen him, his solicitor has had him on a tight rein, so she's never really got the full flavour of the man.

Spreadsheets? Do they do spreadsheets?

In teeny tiny type with lots of different colours? Those are my faves.

Spreadsheets for household contents, finances and child contact no less...

This was a classic, from my friend's ex - not an actual quote, but you get the gist:

I feel so terribly sad that you cannot agree and communicate with me. I feel very surprised about this, as this was not the case when we were together - there were very few occasions when we argued...

As my friend said "Yes when we were together - before you left me for a friend of mine who I was due to meet for lunch but she cancelled because her husband had discovered she was having an affair with you, you cheating toerag".

Deep breath and ignore. You really couldn't make it up.