Why do some men who leave for OW treat their exes with such contempt?

[ChooChooLaverne]

Just wondering about this as it's happened to a couple of my friends recently and I really can't understand what goes through their minds. Wonder if anyone can enlighten me.
*Disclaimer: obviously I'm only talking about some men here.

So the scenario goes something like this:
Couple have been together/married for a long time and have children. Woman is plodding along in the relationship unaware that anything is wrong. Man suddenly starts acting horribly, picking fault with the woman and comes out with the "I'm unhappy/not sure what I want" speech. Woman bends over backwards trying to sort things out only at some point later down the line to discover there is another woman.
Relationship ends and man becomes completely unreasonable about sorting out finances and childcare. Tries to get the woman out of the marital home, seemingly aggrieved that he is having to pay money to her (even though it's for the children), makes unreasonable demands about wanting/not wanting to have the children, and he talks to her in a way that is disrespectful and downright callous and lacking in empathy.

What prompts someone to behave like this? I get that he might paint her in a bad light to excuse himself for cheating on her - but I don't understand how he doesn't feel some sympathy for how she might feel and I really can't understand the level of contempt.

Can anyone explain this to me?

[iPost]

I think sometimes there aren't any obvious red flags. Maybe sometimes there is a whole side of somebody that they don't show you. Until they do whenever leave. Or in the process of rewriting history, they sacrifice parts of themselves permanently, and become somebody they didn't used to be.

We found out a few weeks ago (via Internet randoms) that my father had died some months earlier. One place they were talking about his death was a forum, and the thread tied dad's real name to his user name.

Stupidly I went through the archives and have read years of him posting. It's nice in a way, becuase I am quite comfortable in this denial stage, and it's his voice reading his posts, so it's like he is talking in the same room as me. Which works well with the "I am not believing he is actually dead" thing I have going on.

But dear god, some of the bollocks he's posting. There is a whole side to him we never knew. A really UKIPpy, anti immigrant flavour. I'm an economic migrant. Have been since not so long after he left us destitute. Sometimes he sounds off benefit bashing with the best of them. I've been on benefits, all his children have via mum. No much choice when your father is averse to supporting his kids. He evidently hates the "leeches" we had to be, despite him having made it a necessity. And it stings like vinegar in a cut when he rails about free school meals for infants saying (and I quote) "you make 'em, you pay for 'em". What, like you did ?

I'm reading years and years of his opinions, thoughts, points in debate... and at times it stops being comforting and starts instead to feel like I am being punched in the head. Wondering if I ever knew this man at all. In some threads it's like all his compassion, his sense of fairness, his belief that you can only say you have principles if you hang on to them even when it hurts to do so.... all that must have burned up and died when he employed the "history:rewrite & airbrush" strategy on mum and us.

He didn't just hurt us, he made himself less than he had been.

Maybe the worse he behaved in the history rewriting phase, the more damage he did to who he used to be.

[newname99]

Liney, your posts really resonates.I have experience from my dh's ex and my friends dh.

Dh's ex has remarried multiple times and the pattern is the same.The current husband is 'quietly' slated to everyone, it subtle but paints her as the victim.The OM appears and then in an alarmingly effective way the ex is completely demonised.He was lazy, never contributed financially and was a hopeless dad etc.

She fears being judged and outward appearances are everything so the ex's have to the bad guys.

[dilys4trevor]

Vain was one for me. Stupidly, I had a vain bloke before him as well. You'd have thought I'd have learned.

Very jumpy about his dad. When his dad (a total waste of space I always thought - racist, always starting silly feuds over nothing, a shit grandparent who made no effort but bristled that the kids weren't bothered about him) was due to come over, H went into a flurry of cushion plumping and tidying and then was on edge throughout the visit. He always felt his dad didn't love him enough. I'd say any issues with parents are a massive red flag, whatever they are. I'll certainly avoid it from now on.

Big shows of time/money generosity but then bitter complaint afterwards. In the early days, he once loudly offered to pay - and then paid - for a meal out with my parents. Was almost basking like a lizard in the sun with the 'thank you's. He later asked me for the money. Next time offered to pay again and I called him out on it. He went on not to be that tight with cash in the marriage but he was very mean spirited. So any kind of stinginess would be a red flag now.

Competitive with me about lots of stuff.

Would make fun of me but when I did it back it was 'being mean.' He had been 'only joking' - big difference.

Always about words not actions.

[Pilgit]

In my dad's case it was because he had to cast my himself as the victim. Being a shit didn't tally with his sense of himself. So despite the fact nearly all the bad behaviour was his, everything was my mother's fault. They can't handle the guilt or own their actions so they rearrange reality until their actions were justified and entirely reasonable.

It's a cycle with my dad - we've all been at fault for something over the years that was due to his shityiness.

[brittanyfairies]

There are so many similar stories to mine on here, it's quite scary.

With regard to red flags, I think there were a few but it's only on reflection that I can see them, he was my husband and I loved him warts and all when we were married. I always took his side when he said other people were against him.

I always thought my H was a nice guy, but actually he wasn't, he just told me he was enough times that I believed him. He had a dream of moving and living in France, so me and the DCs moved here, but then he never followed. He stayed in the UK all week and then lots of weekends, told me he was lonely and unhappy so needed money to go to gigs and pubs. I was left isolated in France away from my friends, in a half-built house, two young DCs, one with special needs, working full-time and then some from home for a pittance. All the money I earned went into a joint account and he then gave me £300 a month to live on because he needed the rest because the UK was so expensive. He was on £36K himself. I had no heating, barely any food, couldn't pay the bills. I look at photos taken of me back in those days, I look sad and lost.

Then when he came to France for the weekends he did nothing, didn't interact with the kids apart from to watch a video with them or playing video games, that's if he wasn't sleeping on the sofa. Would criticise my parenting, housekeeping everything.

The week he left he cancelled my card on the joint account, I couldn't open a new UK bank account because I didn't have a UK address at the time, and my UK employer couldn't pay me.It got so desperate me and the DCs ended up at a food bank. When I told him he shrugged his shoulders and couldn't give a toss. He had been taking his partner and her DCs to fancy restaurants, Pizza Express, while mine were being given homemade bread and jam and being told it was a treat.

He needed his parent's approval for everything, if he ever said anything they wouldn't like to hear, he always started the sentence with Brittany says... I just thought it didn't matter because they'd never liked me from the start.

He told my best friend that I didn't like her DH - she only told me this at Christmas this year, which was a year after her DH's death. I was devastated that XH had said such a thing, fortunately my friend is smarter than me, she'd realised a lot sooner than I did that XH would say things using my name, when he really meant his own feelings. She says, she never told her DH that my XH had said those things. I hope not, they've been my best friends for 20 years, I'd be heartbroken if he died thinking I didn't like him, I loved him as if he were my brother.

XH and I were together for 20 years, married for 17, but he has not one friend now from those 20 years previously. He doesn't even have a friend who met me.

I can't look at him these days, but I would struggle to have a conversation with any man that treated their DCs as badly as he treats his.

And with regard to having another relationship, I never will, I've had a couple of near misses in the last couple of years, but I just can't bear the thought of being tied to another man again. I like my freedom these days but most of all I like being happy and having control over my life.

[dilys4trevor]

Some of the revisionist stories friends of mine's exHs have concocted would make Stalin blush.

I'd be interested to hear any stories of xHs/absent dads getting to a certain age and regretting it or realising they behaved appallingly. Does the cruelty of old age again hold up a mirror to oneself? As people start to die off and you realise your kids don't respect you? And no one is going to look after you in your old age?

Or do these people continue to be the victim? Poor me, my kids are awful and they never visit me. I never seen my grandkids. It's all my exWs fault, she's mad....

One thing I have wondered about my H is whether his suicide had anything to do with self loathing. Sadly, having spoken to him just before, I know it is likely to have been fuck-you rage. But I wonder if at the last moment, he had a flash of clarity on his behaviour (all of it, not just his affair). Part of me would like to think so. Does the spectre or moment of death reveal our true selves to us?

[TheFormidableMrsC]

OP, I don't mind at all if you wish to PM, I should put a disclaimer though in that I am not legally qualified and conducting my own case was an entirely hair raising experience that I have no wish to repeat . I am happy to point to resources etc where I can .

Back to thread :

I didn't see it coming either. I also had no idea my husband had had other affairs. I was so blindly trusting, I just didn't have a clue. Looking back, there were very very many red flags. He had cut off two previous relationships in the same way. He was a shocking flirt. He threw money around even when we didn't have it. Came home one day to two new cars...except he'd set up the direct debits in my bank account. He used to blame me for things, things that were nothing to do with me at all. He couldn't apologise. He had an explosive temper. He blamed everything on his childhood and his Dad. Yet everything he says was inflicted on him he has inflicted on our DS. I should say, DS is autistic....his father is too. No doubt about it. I doubt he will ever do anything about it though. I look back and realise I put up with a whole load of shit over the years, his own step-mum said I was a walkover. For better or worse and all that...

[smallspikyleaves]

There is also a case I know of (unique maybe) where the man was so emotionally manipulated by the wife that he really thought he was the unreasonable one and it wasn't until he left that he realised actually his Ex W had been controlling him for years and was actually not a nice person at all. It took for him to get out of the relationship to see her for what she is. And yes, he loathed her once he'd left, she was dreadful and all his friends admitted they'd never liked her and it all came out of the woodwork

I know a case like this. only one. its rare, most of the time I would imagine its to justify their shitty behaviour

[TheFormidableMrsC]

Helenn..sorry you're in this situation too. I am not sure what you mean by general advice..as in legal or how to get rid of the tossers?!

[iPost]

be interested to hear any stories of xHs/absent dads getting to a certain age and regretting it or realising they behaved appallingly

It doesn't look like much when ai write it down. I phoned the number on the website of the charity that had an obit for my father. The manager was obviously caught on the hop when I sobbed all over her telling her that her site was telling us our dad had died some maths ago, and was she sure it was true. And she was even more surpised to hear he had three children, an ex wife and the woman she knew as his wife was his former mistress. That he had left us for.

So the following may have been made up as an act of kindness from a " this is not what I had in mind for Monday morning at work ..before I've even got my coat off" person to an evidently distressed person weeping all over her from the wrong side of the Alps.

But she said that she had noticed he always had an air of sadness about him. And I think she meant it must have been about us.

I don't know if it's true. Or if this sadness had anything to do with us at all. But I've got it tucked up inside me. And I sort of stroke it from time to time. Becuase if it is true, then maybe he did love us.

So it may be a tiny thing on paper, but to me it is huge.

Maybe some of them do regret it. And maybe regret it enough that it shows some how to the people around them.

[dilys4trevor]

iPost, I feel for you. . Christ, it shows the damage that men (and woman) who leave their families can do. Years later, affecting grown ups with families of their own.

I'm sitting here in tears thinking about how people can behave. I'd never treat another human being like that. Ever.

[hurtandconfued2016]

I had no idea at the time my partner was going to leave me!
Some red flags now when I look at it hiding of the phone.
Arguing with me over silly little things.
Not looking after himself when he wast working (that's where he met ow)
So wouldn't wash or dress the way he would if he was working even though he should have been wearing a uniform!
My ex was a very pampered little boy mummy even when we bought a house asked him to bring his washing down so she could do it!
He also left his previous relationship with the whole I love you not in love with you crap (same thing he said the night he left )
He also when it came to Christmas didn't bother getting me a card from him or our son and when it was presents it was like he didn't know me at all the things he bought me (a ring too small, shoes that I would have never wore)
I mean looking back I can see the signs but the day he left me before he went to work he sat on the couch with me hugged me and told me how much he was in love with me and how I was his life and he has never been in love with me like the was then and was excited to bring our daughter into the world. Little did I know he was going to come home from work and pack a bag and never come home!

[TheFormidableMrsC]

I too am so sad reading some of these posts, I can't single any one poster out, they are all just so traumatic. I am so sorry, I really am.

I don't know if they regret as such, I know that outwardly my ex looks utterly awful. He is unrecognisable from the handsome young man that left me and the kids. I know that I was none of the things he described, he knows it too.

The thing is, it doesn't have to be like that. I have two friends, both left, OW's involved. Both husbands held their hands up, apologised, kept OW in the background, away from kids, they made sure wives were financially OK and were invested parents. The results of both of those situations is that there is none of the animosity now the pain has faded. One OW apologised to the wife who had respect for her for doing that. The other OW has stayed well in the background and didn't meet kids for several years. If you're going to be a shit, at least try and be a decent one if you see what I mean!

The damage these people do is incalculable. My DS is going to be 5 next week...he still draws pictures of the four of us as that is what is right in his little head. Yet my ex is trying to shoehorn him into his forth single parent set up, it's not going to happen. None of them think about any of this. I will never forgive OW for what she's done to my son or indeed to me. She is vile, always has been, always will be.

[stopfuckingshoutingatme]

My friends sisters partner also killed himself , also abusive and also a mummy boy - very wierd parental relationships

Like Dilys I think that after the shock - they are far far better off as a family without him , or the IL toxicity hanging over them .

God I really am not advocating Suicide - but I truly think for the family I speak of they will have a far happier life without him in it

[TheFormidableMrsC]

....oh and as for other relationships, forget it. I've tried, but I just can't. I have no interest, don't trust anybody and will never introduce anybody to my kids. I have a "friend with benefits"...that works for me and is lovely. No commitment, no strings. Yet when my ex-h left, he just said "all you need to do is meet somebody else"...yes, because it's that easy to just move onto the next one...that is what YOU do...

No thanks, not for me...

[stopfuckingshoutingatme]

Mrs FC you have nailed it

1/3 marriages end in divorce - it's not illegal to fall out of love .

But what people have described is just fucking cruel , abnormally cruel

They aren't right these men - they are not 100% right something is awry

The problem is the damaged children and the women who can't trust again

[NewLife4Me]

ipost

Be careful, you sound like a strong person, but felt I should say it for some reason

[dilys4trevor]

Stop, that is interesting to know. Of course, I do wonder if my growing (every day) realisation that we are better off without him hanging over us is normal (although thanks to the earlier poster for wading in and shouting at me in caps that it basically makes me a bad mum....).

My DS's teacher spoke to me this week, at Parents Morning. She said he is doing well. Then she hesitated and said 'actually, he seems happier since it happened. I hope that won't upset you.' It made me very happy in fact, that my son is still thriving and not disappearing into himself as I had feared, but kids are simple in many ways. They don't have the complex emotions that we do around how we 'should' feel. He had not enjoyed the toxic atmosphere in the house last year and now it isn't there. But what a sad indictment that is on their father's contribution.

[stopfuckingshoutingatme]

Your DS teacher is a wise woman !

The friends sister was VVV traumatised and had extensive therapy , she only had 1 child compared to your 3

But she has managed to move on and make a new life - quite remarkable really

And I hope the same for you - if something causes you pain (let's imagine a large painful boil ) and that boil goes away - you are relieved and you don't grieve the boil

That's a rather shit analogy I know that! And I am wary of trivialising such a serious topic

Yanbu (trivialising again - agh)

[hurtandconfued2016]

When I met my ex and his ow in a restaurant (even though they weren't supposed to be seeing each other) him and her both looked at me like I was a bit of rubbish on the floor!! Whilst I stood there. Holding my 36 week bump and crying! You would have thought I was the bad guy!
My ex also told me 3 days after he left "you need to move on" hang on there pal I'm heavily pregnant and too busy looking after our son cause you can't!

[friendshipfloss]

Can't read all this properly at the moment as it's too upsetting. I can identify with so much of this on here. My husband left me after 24 years together and he has treated the children and I so badly since. He is living with an OW and has moved away from the area. Never thought this would happen to me.

to all the other abandoned wives out there in this situation. Things will get better.

[Pantone363]

I think I posted about this before but my ex sent me a link to a video on YouTube.

It's was that tons of jellybeans representing everyday of your life video. And how you shouldn't waste one of them and make the most of your life and enjoy every day. Followed up with a genuine smiley face.

I was so poor that all my electricity had run out and I was sleeping in the living room as that's where the fire is. Not eating dinner so the kids could eat. Barely functioning as he knocked my parenting, housework, looks, ran my whole fucking life into the ground. And then he sat there telling me I should make the most of every day. With a YouTube video.

I'll never ever forget that.

[dilys4trevor]

Stop, it's funny you should use the boil analogy as it's exactly what my very pragmatic but wise friend said to me just says after it happened. It's true.

Don't get me wrong. I cry and I worry about the future and I feel lonely and daunted at the thought of raising three alone (it's been six weeks). But I only cried once today and briefly and not at all the previous three days. This week is a marked improvement on last week, which was an improvement on the week before. I ditched my counselling as I didn't gel with the woman, but I think I will soon look to find one I like. My friends are fab and listen, listen, listen whilst I wang on. Talking is important.

[TheFormidableMrsC]

Pantone...Holy fuck. What an absolute TOOL. I am raging on your behalf. I really hope things are better for you my love .

Dilys you are one brave lady...you will be fantastic, you should take huge heart in your child's teachers' comments. Sometimes it's better that they are not here...I totally get your sentiments.

Hurt, I really hope you have some RL support, things sound so difficult and awful for you. I hope you're getting some help . FWIW, any woman that goes off with a bloke who has left a pregnant wife behind is not worthy of being scraped off your shoe...that is the lowest of the low. The man's an arsehole, you are well rid. I know it won't feel like that right now, but I promise you with all my heart that you will come out of the other side.

[TheFormidableMrsC]

That's the other things I HATE and is so patronising and minimising of the pain they cause :

You just have to move on....just wow.

Easy that, it really is, especially when his OW is treating YOU like you're the OW and in the way of her happiness with YOUR husband. Utterly bizarre, it really is..

Move on my arse....