Will I ever get over exdh leaving me for OW?

[Spectacular2]

This is my first post but I have been watching these forums and can see that there are a lot of ladies possibly in the same boat as me.

I have been divorced from exdh for nearly 6 years now and I still can’t get over that he left me for OW.

We were together for 13 years and married for 3 and he truly was the best husband in the world, I idolised him. I thought I had it all, he was kind, funny, clever and handsome and had a lovely family who welcomed me into their family unit. His mum was like a mum to me as I lost mine to a long standing illness when we had been together 3 years. Looking back now I can see that he wasn’t as into me as I was to him and he later admitted that he had been pressured into marrying me, I always felt like he cared for me, but wasn’t in love with me. After we married he seemed reluctant to start a family with me and I know I shouldn’t have tricked him but I ‘fell pregnant by accident’. He seemed happy and loved our ds to bits. I felt like I could make it work.

One day he came home from work and sat me down and told me he was sorry and that he didn’t love me, had never loved me and that he was leaving. And that was that. He left and moved in with his parents. I later found out he had left to be with OW.

I was broken, he was my life and gave me all the security I wanted. That was six years ago and I still can’t move on. I have been to counselling twice and was on anti-depressants for a good 18 months after he left. I am ashamed to admit that I still want him back and pine for him.

I hate that he seems to care so little for me now, I don’t even get a card on my birthday or xmas. I don’t even get to see him to be friendly with him as he had his contact order changed when ds went to school so that he picks ds up from school on a fri night and drops him at school mon morning every other weekend he has him. Its like he wants to forget I even exist.

I feel like a fool. I am nearly 41 for gods sake and still can’t move on. I did try online dating for a year or two to try and get over him but the guys on there were awful!

Iiwy I'd take with a pinch of salt his declaration that he didn't love you when he married you. Or that he 'went along with' the marriage. People who fall for someone else - ie cheat - often believe this shite wholeheartedly. But don't you believe it.

Ok you've made some hideous mistakes, you know that now. Or at least I hope you do.

You said the OW is doing with your ex what you want to do. The word there my darling should be 'wanted'. Because it's in the past: you WANTED to do all those things but you no longer can. You have to accept he is no longer your husband, he doesn't owe you anything.

The ow, however, did owe you something ie common decency. It's not popular on here to say so but we don't just go off picking of other people's husbands. So you are right to feel aggrieved about her. However, what she did was secondary to what your husband did, who broke his vows. This is something to come to terms with in the first years after the betrayal and can take some time.

6 years holding a candle for him is far too long, especially as you seem convinced he's going to come back. He really isn't going to come back, and your friends did you a disservice insisting he would.

Let your boy go on this holiday. Yes it smarts but it's the right thing to do. Your boy can't lose out bcs you've lost out.

Or you're behaving like an OW, pining after someone else's husband.

I have tried to do whats best by him the whole time

Was banning him from his dad, banning holidays with his dad, telling him that it was the OWs fault doing the best by him?

Absolutely not.

A previous poster hit the nail on the head, I am used to exdh doing the right thing all the time, he is a good guy and has always done the right thing his whole life. This is all so out of character for him.

No it's not. He has a solid history of 'doing the right thing' chances are he left you before starting to see someone else because it was the right thing.

You have a history of manipulating him and playing on the fact that he feels compelled to do the right thing. He did it. The right thing was to leave someone that he didn't love. Your actions are very controlling. I think you anger is more about losing control over him. If he was still in touch you feel you could manipulate him back into your marriage. With no contact that's not going to happen.

Thankfully he clearly sees this and has decided on no contact so you don't have a chance to do this.

I know I have done some not nice things but I have tried to make it up to exdh.

What you did was abusive. Not just 'not nice'. He wouldn't be wrong if he never forgave you for using you son to hurt him. You need to stop hoping for his forgiveness, accept what you did and move on.

OP be careful. Your DS will be taking all this in.

I know this because my DM was the same after my DDad left her for my SM.
Angry, bitter and waiting for him to come to his senses and come back, he was the love of her life. He never came back - he has been happily married for over 30 years to SM, and still going strong.

It is confusing and upsetting for a child to watch one parent angry with another for so long. My DM would punish SM and DDad by not allowing them to celebrate our birthdays ( no cake allowed!) withholding phone calls etc.

It caused my brother and I massive trust problems, and also caused us to become angry and quite bitter about their divorce ourselves.

Stop it now while you still can, allow your son a lovely holiday with his family. And good luck on moving on, you're still young enough to have many, many happy years with someone new.

springydaffs I can't believe you just posted all that. You're giving the OP all the triggers again to believe her own nonsense. You don't know that her ex-husband's wife was the OW because OP doesn't know it. 'Pinch of salt declaration that he doesn't love you'. FFS.

Going on about men not 'going along with marriage' when OP herself said that she tricked him with a pregnancy is just awful misandry and you have absolutely no more knowledge of this than anybody else but you're presenting it as 'fact'.

What NNChangeAgain said is spot on; if a man had done all these things to his ex wife that OP has said she's done, he'd have a criminal record.

Oh and please be kind to your DS about his little sister. My DBro from DDad and SM is one of the lights of my life, I couldn't imagine him not in the World and would have hated not being comfortable mentioning him at DM's.
He, my DBro and I are so close as adults, it's truly lovely. And I needed both of them when DM died last year. The more loving family your DS has, the better for him.

I find these posts increasingly odd.

I've never once seen anyone on here be reassured that their cheating ex would come crawling back.

I am used to exdh doing the right thing all the time, he is a good guy and has always done the right thing his whole life. This is all so out of character for him

OP, it sounds to me as though he's done exactly the right thing all along. He stood by you when you got pregnant (a pregnancy which you've admitted you tricked him into), he married you, but ultimately he wasn't happy. It sounds as though he even left your marriage before entering into a relationship with his now wife, when he realised he had feelings for her perhaps. If so, then that is not an affair, and she, if that is correct, was not an OW.

Even if she was the OW, you have done yourself no favours at all. You have behaved irrationally, nastily and out of spite and a wish for vengeance. Your decision not to allow your son to go abroad for a holiday is so sad, and the only loser is your son.

Your ex, it sounds, has managed to pay for his child on time, in full (with extra), sees his child regularly and is a good dad. This has all been achieved in spite of your best efforts to prevent this. Good on him. I am not surprised that he's arranged his pick up and drop off places and times so that he doesn't have to see you. I think he's behaved extremely well in difficult circumstances.

I think that you really need to learn to love yourself, and build up your self esteem. At the moment you're allowing all this to define you, and to prevent you living your life happily. Behaving the way you have (and continue to do so, assuming the holiday request is recent) is damaging to you, and to your DS.

Try a different sort of counselling perhaps - I have friends who have used NLP - neuro-linguistic programming - which may help you to reprogramme your mind, and change the way you think and view things.

If you think I don't know what I'm talking about, my exH left me out of the blue one weekday night, for an OW he'd been seeing for a matter of weeks, leaving me with 2 children under 3. They too are now married and have further children. My situation sounds similar in that he said he hadn't really loved me, and had been unhappy. I didn't trick him into any babies though, they were well and truly planned. However, the difference is in how you deal with things. Very quickly I realised that the best revenge was not to be angry or bitter, but to live well and to the full. At least, it started as "revenge", but actually soon became just how I felt. Now, a decade on, I am remarried to a wonderful man, and I am very happy. But this could not have happened if I'd clung to false hope and continued trying to make his life difficult.

I too was 35, so please don't think this means you are all "washed up".

I don't think you read my post properly, lying.

Moving on: what good does it do the op to pile in with 'you are a dog!'?

So, let me get this straight
You have;
"Tricked" your exh into having a baby
Stopped him seeing his ds
Damaged his dw's car
Tried to poison your son against his dad
Told your son that his sister isn't his sister
Stopped your son going on holiday with his dad.

I'm glad he ran for the hills when he did. Your exh doesn't have a rabbit by any chance.

Fgs let your poor DS go on holiday with them. Give him a rest from the insanity!

I read your post perfectly well. Nobody is saying that springydaffs but they are correcting OP's misguided statements; something that her 'friends' should have done and would have if they were proper friends.

OP has all the potential in the world for a fabulous new life - but not like this and telling her or giving her any notion that her husband really did love her (when you don't know that and she's posted that he told her differently) - or that his wife was the OW (when again you don't know that) so that it perpetuates the feeling of justification that OP has, is just damaging.

Not letting your DS go on holiday with your Ex and his wife is very very mean - it was an utterly selfish and self-absorbed action, and your poor DS has had to pay the price for it. (Can you not even see how that makes you look to everyone else?).
You reap what you sew, so be very careful because your DS will resent you for this (and don't think he will forget).
Likewise, your Ex and his wife going out for a meal with her Exh and their DS. It's down to you that you will never be able to do this with your Ex his wife and your DS.

Yet another thing you have inadvertently taken away from your DS. Can you not see that? Probably not?
Your actions are affecting your DS.
Once the milk has been spilt sending numerous emails is just going to look very desperate on your part :0(.
You must stop it and you must move on.

IF you rectify the holiday situation, which I hope you do, do not have an ulterior motive for doing so - ie. you looking good. It is for your poor DS.
It. Is. Over.
I'm sorry harsh words, but all true :0(

Morris makes a good point that seems to have been ignored... "I've never once seen anyone on here be reassured that their cheating ex would come crawling back."

I too have never heard this said - it just doesn't happen.

And whether the OW was the OW before, during or after the OP's split is actually irrelevant.

Stop thinking what your EX should do or be or whatever. You don't make him happy. Even if OW would break up with him tomorrow he won't come back to you.

You need to become a whole person. Someone who lives a full life on their own and who does things that make other people happy. Only then you are ready to date.

You are too busy with yourself. Ds cannot see his dad because YOU feel blahblahblah. (You say you love your ex but probably cannot have hurt him more by doind this). Ds cannot go on vacation because it's not with you. EX cannot be happy withOW because YOU believe you are a better wife (who deceives and is aggressive and spiteful). Please start a new life for yourself, get help and stop making the people you love so unhappy.

ohno I and several other posters have mentioned And none of us have ever seen it. We can't all have missed it if that's the advice that's being given out all the time.

Op I have one question, wether you are genuine or not, what are you getting out of this?

You seem deeply disturbed. Wether it's true or not.

sorry Phillipp - I missed those comments.. It's all a bit odd IMHO.

phillipp and Morris, ohno et al... indeed no. It would have been jumped on immediately because nobody who wasn't completely clueless - or wanting to hurt the OP by leading her on - would ever promote such a fallacy.

I've never seen it either.

I have seen "he will come crawling back" on occasion but only in the context of then being in the position of telling him to fuck right off again

Which is not what op means. She wants him to come crawling back, and would welcome him with open arms

However, NN I totally take your point that there are women like this in the world but the subtle drip feeding of further dramatic unreasonableness in measured doses just as the thread starts to die down is not ringing true for me.

This can't be real surely and OP talking about the horrid things she has done to her husband and his wife like... it's second nature to do these things!

"He will come crawling back" gets posted often usually with "marry the mistress create a vacancy" and "karma" bollocks. Usually said with the best misguided intentions to comfort/appease an upset betrayed other half.

I'm usually wary of men who pull the "crazy ex" card, but in this case it would be wholly justified. You are absolutely out of your tree. It wouldn't matter if you were the only one being harmed by it, but you're damaging your son and his other family. For the love of God seek help. You are a menace.

*NNChangeAgain

I'm beginning to think this might be a reverse, OP is so unreasonable.

See, that's the problem I was referring to upthread. No one believe it. Unless you've actually experienced this first hand, it's almost impossible to accept that it is true.

It's often said that there is a "script" that cheating men follow, but this post reads as a script to me; the OP is using the same words, and justifications, as my DHs ex does. *

Mine too I think there is an ex wife script but to those of us who would put our dc first no matter what it seems inconceivable that anyone would behave in that way. I think the OP is glossing over her behaviour and its probably quite bad.

I totally believe there are women like this however, I think very few are so forthcoming with everything awful they have done. Especially while feigning disbelief about the situation.

There usually some minimising of their own behaviour, changing situations slightly to make them seem more reasonable.

If the op is serious I think she has severe mental health issues. She is totally Delusional.

I think whoever above said op is grieving her ex husnand because her mum died may be onto something.

I can't belive you've been pining for him for 6 years op. In that time I've had a whole relationship with two kids. It's really time to move on or see a psychiatrist. Counselling isn't enough I don't think.