very it is a tricky call re: waiting, it might be good to wait even if you feel you are being less than truthful with DS and it may just delay some issues. But on the other hand, if you just tell him now it may help you and make the process a healthier one, so to speak, for both of you moving forward. Although I haven't been there, I imagine the ideal scenario would be that he just doesn't appear in your day-to-day lives for a while, DS gets used to it, then you matter-of-factly mentioned that P is living somewhere else now, but I know that there is so much more to it than that and there will be some good advice to be found on here (and in books). If only it were all easy! So much more complicated with children involved.
Alice so right about the hurt not being solved simply by 'sorry'. Because the world revolves around them and how they are feeling so when they hurt others that is only a secondary consideration.
Peg funny in a very sad way about the TV... and that you could were perfectly able to function watching the old one speaks volumes!
Pony your story of having to tiptoe (literally) around P's demands and be so quiet in the morning brought back memories for me, it was always like that and it always meant that weekends always started off badly. What's really annoying now is that as soon as H gets up he starts making huge amounts of noise, TV comes on full blast or talks loudly, feels it's OK to wake me up even if he knows I've slept badly the night before and want a lie-in (rare) to make up for it...
I had a strange couple of days... H is really 'escalating' re: the house sale/purchase. I went out with him on Friday to our other house (project which has consumed all our 'retirement' funds, I like the project house but H makes it no fun to go there, the usual reasons) and I kept saying that although I liked the house he wants to buy, because of the hateful time we've had over the past year (while renovating the 'project') I wasn't keen to pursue his new passion house, clearly pointing out to him that he behaves like a FW in that he only considers things from his own point of view and that everything is all about him.
Sorry, a bit of a me-me rant but it really helps me to write it down.
For example, we already have a house on the river (practically in it, we had problems with flooding last year, just the garden) and the new house is on a river as well. I am not wildly crazy about about rivers, more like take-it-or leave-it. But he 'likes rivers' so I have to as well, (and what really is annoying is that we have THE river house already so we don't need another) but if I say that I am ambivalent about another flood-prone house he shouts at me that I have no interests and no hobbies (FFS-- I do but he doesn't see that!).
Also the new house is two bedrooms, 2 small cottage-y bedrooms, and really too small to have more than one guest. But because he has this vision of himself living in that house he doesn't see that as a problem. And it can't really be extended, we've looked at the planning. The house is in a small village with no work prospects for me-- no problem he says, he will buy me a nice car with the money we've saved, then I can just drive into London if want to work there (hour's drive 
). Then he suggested that we set up a firm together and I could work for him. I think the look on my face made him drop that conversation, we've worked together in the past and it's a disaster, I feel like a slimy abused PA. Anyway I framed all of my objections in such a way, that it was the bossy, selfish, controlling nature of his attitude that was making me not want to go ahead with the purchase of his dream home... Well he wasn't having any of that, naturally.
All day he acted all nasty at me, finding fault with everything, but late afternoon I tried a change of tactics-- said (almost pained me) that maybe the house was a GOOD idea, maybe I was just being too cautious, of course it was a nice house and maybe it just took some time for me to get used to the idea... guess what, instant change of his mood, he became more communicative, talking about how much fun it would be when the kids brought their grandkids around (WTF?) and how never mind about it being too small, he would build a studio in the garden etc... the sad thing is, that if he were a nice person and we had a good relationship it might be true. BUT IT ISN'T THAT WAY!
Then he got all melancholic, saying that he'd worked like f*&k over the past 20 years and hadn't enjoyed one bit of it, and now for the first time in his life he just wanted to have something (that house) that he really wanted, now that he didn't 'have' to live in London any more because we didn't need to be near schools etc, what a sacrifice he'd made for the sake of our family he'd put all his needs and desires on the back burner so he could support us... then he gave a little cough and said 'I think I might be dying. I need to get out of London [and get a house by a river], or I'm just going to die'... of course hearing that I was thinking YIPPEEE if he could promise to be dead in a year I'd agree to buy the house 
but FFS!!