Dear STBXH

[WellWhoKnew]

Thank you for trying to save me costs of divorce by selecting a solicitor for me and by covering their costs, you are doing me a favour, I know.

Thank you for being fair by offering to take only 40% of the assets in my name to enable a quick resolution to the end of the marriage, which is what you want.

Of course, I realise that the assets in your name aren't mine because you are the man. Sorry you are THE MAN. I do keep getting things wrong, so I perfectly understand that you want a divorce.

All the same, thank you for offering me a speedy divorce by asking me to agree that we have been separated for two years so that I can move on with my life. Okay, we both know it's less than two weeks in actualment since you walked. I remain in shock but I'm so grateful that you have my best interests at heart during this difficult time.

So, Soon To Be Ex-Husband, thank you.

Because you are a twat and I'm so much better off without you.

what a miserable philosophy though!?

i would far rather rush in and help and love and wrap arms around disaster.

but we have to survive - we're mothers for one thing - we don't have the luxury of failing.

Dear STBXH,

You write again wanting to know if I sorted out the car tax for your car.

You know when you sacked me, you sacked me. We did, in fact, have an email dialogue about your car tax. It's in your inbox. If you've deleted it, like you deleted me, then that really is not my problem.

If your carefully laid out plans are going a little awry, again, this is not my fault. You sacked me.

You like to be the one in control and the one to make the decisions. So be in control and make decisions. You sacked me.

But your email has been deleted.

Wife, who knows.

you know how i subtly or overtly told you to fuck off? well forget that for a second and just let me know if you've serviced me as per our old agrewement whereby you took responsibility for all manner of details of my life.

errr............no!

you sacked your PA and ran out on her without even paying her 'salary' so no, you don't get to call her at home and ask her what she did about job x.

fuckety fuckety fuck him.

Dear WWK,

I salute you. And please truly think about publish the book once you get to the "and she lived happily thereafter"... Which will be sooner than you imagine and far sooner that his.

I am so glad you deleted the email wwk after all he is accusing you of harassment so to reply would only exacerbate your harassment of him.

Or does that only apply when you contact him?

TheHoneyBadger , you just totally put your finger on why I spent 25 years with the idiot that XH was but didn't have to be; the person you believe they could be if you can only love them enough and reason them out of the self-destructive behaviour, the hope when they seem to "get it" always followed by disappointment when they move the goalposts again. (That, and my upbringing that said you stick with your chosen person for life - that one took a lot of unlearning.) He was so afraid of being "found out" that he wouldn't admit to his issues, and in the end it was save myself or go down with him. I still have those (psychological) bruises too...

WWW , how very funny. Clearly although he does not want to be married to you, he wants you to remain married to him. What you need is a kindly judge to explain to him that unfortunately divorce works both ways.

i'm glad you saved yourself anniegetyourgun (always love your name). there's a fine balancing act between love and compassion for others and boundaries that allow you love and compassion for yourself. trust is another weird one i find. not trusting people is seen as bad yet whenever i trust someone it seems to end in disaster yet if you stopped trusting, loving and having compassion where would you be? i think still getting hurt is a sign of still being alive and fully human. it sucks but it's a good sign.

Civilisation only works because most people trust and are themselves reasonably trustworthy, innit. Some unscrupulous types can make a living on the fringes, but if everyone were like them the whole thing would break down. They rely on us, but we can't rely on them. Thus we, in the mass and over the long term, are stronger. It hurts getting stung though.

that's some heavy shit there annie. i like it.

Dear STBXH

Just back from another solicitor's appointment, just crossing a few i's and dotting a few ts, or whatever it is I do with my life these days.

It's quite a drive away for me, so I had some thinking time.

And I was thinking about communicating.

I mean, I know in your one and a half page essay of my mercurial and capricious nature that you wrote about, you stated that I had asked you to make some phone calls, relating to matters of which you had superior knowledge than I. You claimed you found it 'stressful'.

I note in your sixteen page annual health report that you sent the court, prior to the telephone hearing, it failed to pick up on your telephonophobia. Is it a recent thing? You are otherwise in good health: we've had your medical report second opinioned! It wasn't difficult, just a couple of phone calls.

You used to ring often, daily in fact. I mean I realise you don't work in a call centre, but you own two phones, and two landlines. A little excessive would you not say?

Do they taunt you in your sleep? Chirruping away to say 'we are coming to get you'...in a techie kind of way?

Here let me give you a lesson:

Pick up phone. Press 0800 SOLICITOR and talk to him/her. Listen for 'ring ring; ring ring', when a voice says "hello" say "hello" back. Explain you're a fuckwit in need of help. Quite a bit of it, in fact.

You have managed it twice, when you paid for our initial solicitors, and er, to pay my solicitor's legal bill as you were ordered.

Did you need a lie down after that? Specialist medical attention?

It did occur to me, as my solicitor walked into the consultant room: my file is massive, it's so massive now that even they are commenting on it.

Now I wonder what secrets that file contains?

Oh, yes - bulked up with your endless decrees sent by email. And your emails of yesteryear, undermining many of your claims you made in court. Claims, that should you rely in future, are readily dismissed.

But you have never even tried to ring me since you informed me you were never coming home again. Not once. And that's because you'd hear things that you didn't want to hear.

And you couldn't cope with it.

But I agree you have a disorder: a particular strain of telephonophobia unique to cowards.

As, I said, you really have got me thinking about communicating.

Wife, defiantly incommunicado.

Perhaps the RSI from writing all those e mails prevents him pressing the buttons on the phone.

Dear WWK's STBXH

I am delurking because I fear for you, my man, and I think it is only right that someone should at least attempt to warn you of the chaos you have unleashed yet seem so reluctant to acknowledge responsibility for. You see, once you marry someone, your lives become entwined. So if you fuck with your dw's life, you unavoidably fuck with your own.

But that's not all. You see, WWK is proving to be a woman of intelligence, integrity and determination. Even in a hideously stressful, hurtful situation she has kept her cool, gathered her resources and calmly manouvred herself from a position of ignorance, and therefore weakness, in to a position of strength. Just the sort of person I would want on my team. But she's not on your team anymore. You kicked her off it, remember?

I am worried for your mental health too. Despite your medical records demonstrating that you are sound in body, I fear that you cannot be sound in mind. Seriously, you thought she would organise your car tax for you? Unfortunately, I don't think that our current legal system recognises grandiose and selfish delusions as justification for abandoning a spouse, cutting off their income and refusing to co-operate (although I note that you have now accepted that the form E is not an optional piece of paper that can be ignored at will).

I will be blunt: frankly, your prognosis is not hopeful. Women like WWK tend to make men like you look good. And you have been used to this - ahem- 'boost to your natural assets' for a long time. She is funny, articulate, excellent at managing paperwork and other tedious administrative tasks: you must have profited from these attributes for many years although she gave them to you freely. How good are you looking now you have chosen to manage without them?

I don't know you, so perhaps it is unfair of me to make judgements (and, after all, a REAL judge has already started to do so), but I think you are about to discover your STBXW's true worth. You see, when marriages end, there comes a day of reckoning when all those years of willing and free contributions are costed up and awarded a price tag. WWK is a classy lady and class doesn't come cheap.

But I'm sure you know what you're doing. My xh certainly thought he did. It was just unfortunate for him that the judge disagreed...

Yours,
total-stranger-who-once-had-the-misfortune-to-be-married-to-a-man-like-you-but-is-now-absolutely-fine-thanks-very-much

YvyB - I love it.

An acquaintance of ours once said 'Don't ever divorce her, mate, she'll cost you a fortune'.

My life in pictures:

During Big Bang:

Following recruitment of SHL

, and

The future:
to

Him: on his .

I love your letter

WWK

You are going to be just fine. I know it. ;-)

Love your life in pictures; very eloquent!

seriously i stick by my equation:

arrogant + stupid = fucked

It's not just mountain thought is it, he's losing a serious amount of face too!

He can't afford that either.

:-)

Money, not mountain
Stupid tablet.

He contacted you about his car tax after accusing you of harassment. Sorry but

Dear Myself:

Just so I never forget,

After dealing with 'the Mother Component', I went to a cafe for a detoxing latte:

And the 'My Silver Lining' song, which I'd never heard before it emerged on this thread, was playing in the cafe:

Then I headed up to get my weekly dose of counselling.

I KOKO.

Yourself, Well - doing okay all things considered.

Shiver down the spine moment! Koko WWK from your army of mn cheerleaders.

TheHoneyBadger your equation has cheered me up just now as I have started to wade through the latest version of my Ex's measly settlement offers dictating me how every penny would have to be spent and that HE would be choosing a car for us as well as any new furniture that we require.

This thread is a great idea and I think something like this is required as an ongoing thread on Mumsnet, such as the other ongoing support threads in "Realtionships". Especially as in this situation post separation, once families are safe, agencies such as WA have no resources to continue to support us.

Where do you go for support when the paperwork, Ex's solicitors, ongoing aggressive correspondence is wearing you out, but of course we cannot afford or should not just give up just because we cannot stand it anymore.

This week I was very tempted to accept his outrageous offer just to put an end to this. I pulled myself together and didn't in the end, but it is not easy.

Oh and WWK my ex stated in his form E1 that he was unable to provide 12 months of bank statements, as some were sent to the family home. I was his personal secretary too (amongst many other things) and have many times tried to explain to him the mysterious world of the internet where you can print off your bank statements as well as buy car tax, obviously.

I sincerely believe that he is unable to print off his statements, he is very nervous around computers.

of course we cannot afford or should not just give up just because we cannot stand it anymore

You're right Karen - divorce is very attritional, exhausting and pre-occupying.

That's why I try to find some humour in it (some times it takes days, and there are some things I just cannot find humour in). but I try consciously to lighten the frustration rather than just getting upset/taking offence/getting resentful (which is our instinctive reaction). I do moan about him a lot though!

I find patronising him/mocking him also helpful.

"Diddums" sums up a lot my attitude to STBXH's problems - because I have my own set of problems to wade through every day, and he's seems to be the cause of a fair few of them!

And now he's divorcing me, guess what: I have no option but to manage by myself, cope with my own problems and not burden myself with his.

I do find myself saying out out NOT.MY.PROBLEM quite a bit!

Dear Toad,

I am sorry to read that you are deficient and refuse to ask for help. Let me help you:

Helplessness is a learned problem - unlearn it. I don't have to be your teacher.

You're paying solicitors a lot of money to advise you. There are at least four solutions that I can think of to resolve your "ishoos" with the bank statements but I have just lost...

...the will...

...to

typ...

Yours, wife with typing speed of 60wpm.

I do like "helplessness is a learned problem" I have over an hour's recordings of him ranting on at me how he cannot operate household appliances. He has been staying in a hotel since last December, as he "cannot" even make himself a cup of coffee. Which is my fault.