Just come back for a browse on MN after being away from it all since before lockdown & seen this thread had been resurrected a couple of times in my absence...! 😂
Lots of love & hugs to everyone going through similar - it does get easier with time, I promise - and your mojo does come back eventually.
May as well give an update then seeing as how I'm here....
It's a mixed bag overall - I'm good, I'm bossing life again - but the damage done by that cunt to my (our) kids is immense, and it just keeps coming.
Have come to the conclusion that he's an actual bone fide psychopath & in his determination to destroy me he is unbothered about making his kids collateral damage.
So... 5 years on...
I graduated last year with 1st class Hons in Psychology & Sociology 🙌 😍
Am not using it though - instead I've got a job as an admin assistant. It suits me to do this for next few years as I can do the job with my eyes closed & I work vey close to home & school so I can leave & be where I'm needed straight away.
Divorce proceedings were ignored by him until this year - he has now engaged with it, but only because he wants to sell the house from under us & get half the equity.
We have now entered endgame...
Since he cheated on the original OW & moved in with new girlfriend in 2018, contact with the boys waned pretty quickly.
There was practically no contact for most of 2019, then zero since around Feb this year (not even texts or phone calls). He completely abandoned the pair of them.
Eldest child is now 18 - left school & working full time. He's doing well, happy & settled.
Youngest child has been hit very hard by his dad's abandonment & things hit a downward spiral around last October/November - very quickly he escalated from never being any trouble, doing well at school etc, never even tried smoking - to taking drugs regularly, shoplifting, even dealing drugs, excluded from school on several occasions, sneaking out at night and culminated in stealing his brother's car one night.
We now have a social worker, he's on the exploitation register & he's on his last chance at school.
I've been engaging with all services & shining as much light as possible on everything, not covering anything up at all as I believe it's the best way to help him in the long run.
It's been hard, but we've (me & his big brother) have stuck by him & made sure he feels safe, wanted & loved at home - it's been a long slog but small glimmers of the old him have been returning.
Since the incident with his brother's car, he has turned things around at home but it's baby steps with everything else - Covid & lockdown didn't help at all wrt school but lockdown helped a lot to reengage him at home.
Very recently he was violently assaulted - his dad didn't contact him at all after being informed about it, until a few days later when he phoned him out the blue just to berate him for being a failure.
So cunt ex is still holding true to cunt status & being a cunt 🤷🏻♀️
I despise him with all my being now.
Ironically, one of my biggest sources of support has been the original OW 😱
When she contacted me back in 2018 we started talking & managed to piece together all of the lies & blank spaces - she was as much his victim as I was tbh.
So....
There's the mammoth update.
It didn't have to be like this, but it is what it is.
I will continue to fight for my child and am trying my hardest to get him through all this - ultimately he'll need professional help to help him work through his emotions & get him to acceptance of everything that's happened to him.
He's definitely turned a corner recently, but the angry, sad little boy is still very much there & it breaks my heart to see his devastation.
Fingers crossed there's a happier update to give next year 🤞🤞
Love, hugs & kisses to everyone out there who's going through similar - be it with kids or shitty cunt-fuck exes.
Xxxxxxxxx