I admit it, I'm bitter. Any advice?

[mytitiferssungtheirsong]

And if you don't have any advice maybe share a similar story to not make me feel so alone!

In the past three months exdp has had a baby with ow, bought a nice big house and got a promotion at work. He rarely sees dd and doesn't pay enough maintainance.

I have a 2 year old dd and am tired!! I have put career on hold and live in small rented property. Argh how do I stop being bitter!!!

Oh how annoying!

Things you can do:
Sort out proper child maintenance through official channels
Explore returning to work, yes childcare will cost you but accerating self back up the ramp to the motorway of career and all it's plusses is worth considering*
Build your own support network, maybe find a babysitting circle

Take control

*sorry for appalling metaphor!

I would suggest you build everything around your life with your DD and treasure the wonderful times of seeing her grow up , times your ex will never enjoy or even know about.

For all his trappings of material wealth, you have your DD and she has you. He doesn't and for that, he will always be the poorer for it.

And, for your self respect as a woman, see out this year with a decision to not stoop to these sorts of thoughts anymore. He's gone, so what? You are above it now, and each time you begin to think about it, consciously change your thinking to matters regarding how you can move forwards in your own life in a direction that pleases you.

There is a 5th Century Buddhist commentator who had this to say on bitterness and anger.

“By doing this (having angry or bitter thoughts) you are like a man who wants to hit another and picks up a burning ember or excrement in his hand and so first burns himself or makes himself stink.”

Visuddhimagga IX, 23.

The only one who is hurt by your bitterness is you. It doesn't change your situation and it doesn't affect your feckless ex partner in anyway. If you carry on this way you will make yourself ill.

Don't give your ex partner any more of your time or energy, start focusing on yourself instead. You deserve the best of yourself!

I would bet money that the wheels come off your ex-partners happy situation one day, whether it's next year, in the next ten years or the next 20. A man who can effectively ignore his own child is neither a responsible or sensible man and he's bound to screw it up eventually.

So while your situation may seem unfair at the moment, do be aware that things will not always be rosey for him either.

Thank you all. I definitely needed to hear some of those wise words today. Just found out about house and job in past two days...just needed to vent.

Have lots of real life support and I know I'm blessed with dd it's just sometimes it galls me!!! But yes, my bitterness only hurts me.

Oh you poor thing. I went through similar but admittedly not as extreme. Exdp got a job after we split and started seeing someone six months later (fair enough you'd think but the bitterness took me over) I used to look up her Facebook and see her tagged having meals out with him, Valentine's presents he sent her etc. He was a lovely guy and still saw DD and paid over the odds for her but that just seemed to make it worse.
We stayed friends though and let me just say, things are usually very different on the inside of these "fabulous relationships" than you can tell from the outside. If this man cheated on you and isn't paying enough towards his own DD who he doesn't even see enough, then you genuinely are much better off without him! Men like this don't change, tell yourself that. She's lumped with him now and you're free to go out and enjoy life, your DD and meet lovely people along the way.

What really took my mind off it was really making the best of my time with DD, she was 2 as well. We went to mother and toddler groups, I joined meetup and met lots of new people with similar interests, saved like mad and brought DD on a cheapy little sun holiday and I remember splashing in the sea thinking to myself, I'm definitely the lucky one.

It does get better