divorcing and learning to cope alone

[abmommy]

Hi, im new here and after any support I can get! My husband announced he was leaving in July after 21 years together but took til mid august to go. Two weeks after he'd gone our two teens discovered evidence online that he had a new relationship. He had already moved her in in spite of swearing there was noone else when he left. He refused to divorce me but said he would agree if I divorced him. He hasnt returned papers to my solicitor and refuses to see or even text me. Both our kids have additional needs but he's not attending any appointments in spite of professionals asking him to to help with kids mental health. I thought I was in a happy supportive marriage but now.... It's like my loving husband died and has been replaced by monster. He's now informed kids he will be away with other woman from xmas eve until mid jan. They are upset that they won't see him at all over festive period and feel abandoned.

True, only kids still want to send their cousins etc cards so....! Today has been a better day so far, he's calling kids later (not seeing them but it's something) so hopefully he will manage not to say anything stupid to upset anyone this time.

Bless you it is so hard, you are not alone though, so many of us on here have had a similar fight. People can be so cruel, try to hold your head up and each day remember you are amazing, can can and will get through this for your children and for yourself. It won't always be this hard, it's a hard journey but it does get gradually easier. Have you got support locally? Are there other single parents you know that you can connect with? Or friends without children who might be understanding and pop over after kids have gone to bed, so you have some grown up time in the evening? Your children are lucky to have such a devoted mum.

Today is my sons birthday. It's also the day the other woman's husband tracked me down at work and told me that she moved out the day my husband did. He had told me and the children that there was no one else when he left and they only started after he had left. Now I feel a complete fool. And I want to rip the two of them to pieces but my kids and my dignity must come first. I hate him.

So now you know what a total piece of work he is. My ex did this, denied another woman, actually went on holiday with her three weeks after I chucked him out after 20 year marriage. She put fb pics up of their holiday, when my kids confronted him, he still lied and lied. It was only months later when he said he had 'just met' her that I found out through a work colleague who knew her that he had been seeing her for the last two years of our marriage.

And yes, he too made out that I was the she-devil, because he had to justify himself. People will work it out for themselves OP, have no doubt.

You'll be ok, just baby steps, take each day or hour as it comes. Focus on you and the kids. Hope DS is having a good birthday.

This is a lovely supportive thread, I wish you well.

Thank you. Everyone is being so lovely. I don't want to" go public" like he did on the internet but it's great to get support anonymously like this. My ds decided he didn't want to go out tonight and we've just eaten the spag bol he made in cookery class for dinner instead. It's great! I've never made pasta from scratch so I'm impressed. Think he liked using pasta machine. DD has made him a cake too. It's simple and quiet but nice. X

How do you stop yourself going under? I'm exhausted by it all and feel im running on empty. While he plans 3 week holidays to the other side of the world. I am becoming someone I don't like very much, bitter and obsessive. Really low today.

I found rage fuelled me pretty well, and the realisation that i can do everything, I always paid all the bills and did everything round the house. I never realised what a lazy fuck he was until he left. Now the house is always tidy, I no longer have to clean up his manpiss off the toilet seats everyday or pick his stuff up off the floor constantly or deal with his constant bloody whining and misery. Good riddance. I'm feeling pretty good right now. I fixed my PC and my phone myself by googling, have a new lodger (female) who is a DIY expert and is doing my tiling for me and I don't miss him one little bit. The thought of how he betrayed me with other women keeps me going - there is no way I'd have him back ever.

You go girl bikerlou! I know what you mean about not knowing how bad it was until he'd gone. I will have my moment of glory and be happier in long run but it's no fun right now.

It has been suggested by more than one person that my stbxh may still be planning to emigrate with his new partner. Does anyone know what the score would be with child maintenance if he left the country?

I'm not being heartless here but if he did bugger off to the other side of the world it would be as if he was dead, which would be the best for all concerned.

Because one of the worst things about lowlifes like this is we, and our kids, have to keep having contact with them. We discover there is no low that is too low for them to go.

yy money. It may be easy to say but, having experienced my own ex lowlife and the derisory sums I got - which of course he endlessly mucked about with; the awful toll on us all... it would have been a release to get rid of him somehow.

That conscience he's running away from has wings and can make it to Oz, easy. Just saying.

Thanks. Part of me hopes he does go but my kids are so vulnerable I don't know how they'd handle it. I've discovered that both Australia and New Zealand have reciprocal agreements with UK regarding child maintenance so it should be ok. I don't think his mum would be very impressed if he didn't support kids financially either and he's a real mummy's boy.

Tonight the stbxh came to family therapy with kids. I had to wait outside he wouldn't have me in there. My ds came out crying after 40 minutes with therapist in tow. His dad had said the kids weren't making an effort to see him, refused point blank to come and see them at home even if I'm not there and admitted he wanted to go live in new Zealand with OW. I told him i didn't think they'd get visas but ds said that's not the point, the fact that he wants to go means he doesn't care. What do you say to a child hurting like that? I told him i want going anywhere. That when he was old enough and ready to leave me that would be different but that I would always be here for him. He sat on my lap (he's 14...) and clung to me sobbing. I can't believe the stupidity of the man. I'm not even angry anymore. And he turned up wearing skinny jeans that he's at least twenty years too old to get away with! Pathetic. I don't understand. We didn't row or fight, I haven't been vindictive or vengeful since he left (well only in my head) so wtf is his problem?

He's a wanker, that's his problem.

Your poor kids

All the best to him I hope he incinerates

He has now sent the kids a message (that I think she wrote, It's not his phrasing or vocab) saying that as everyone gets so upset and stressed when they talk that he will not contact them again until they show they are ready by contacting him. When dd told therapist this she nearly fell off her chair. She could not believe that that was what he took from their therapy session. Your kids are upset that you are talking about moving to the other side of the world where you won't be able to see them very often so to make them feel better about it you stay away when you're only half a mile away too? How does that work? He also said during last week's therapy with kids "why does it all have to come from me? Why can't they ask me how I am?" And he tried to make them feel bad for him because he will be on planes and in airports alone on Christmas day... I'm beginning to believe in alien abductions because he is sooooo different from the man I've spent two decades with. Therapist asked if he was on autistic spectrum as he was so unable to relate to the kids emotions.

Hey Ab this is awful for you and your kids but I will echo what another poster said. If he doesn't leave the country your life and theirs will be a lot easier purely because of his behaviour. My dd's father lives in Singapore and has no contact now. Our life is very straight forward and when she occasionally asks about him (she is 7 and I left him when she was 1 and nc since she was 2) I tell her that some people are just not very good at being kind or considerate to others.

Your ex sounds like a real nob and he contact with his kids sounds destructive. I am all for 50/50 contact and co-parenting but not when the situation is like yours and mine (mine was an abusive narc) xx

Ab, this man sounds so much like my ex it's scary.

I wish I had advice to give, because my ex was similar with our kids after we split. One DD at 16 had to have counselling, and her counsellor was a lovely guy, who after a few sessions wanted to meet me and her. Session went well, he saw how close we were, it was a positive and open session, with DDs needs at the centre. So far, so good. Next session, DD and her dad. DD came home in tears, said that her dad didn't want to engage, tried to turn all conversation around to him, and at one point the counsellor sat with his head in his hands. Ex wouldn't talk about DD.

Looking back, he wouldn't accept responsibility for breaking up the family home. He wouldn't face his anxious DD, because he would have to face himself, and damn well own the pain he'd caused her.

She had further counselling which helped her, she's fine now.

My ex too could see far more of his kids than he does. Our youngest was 13 when he left, and ex again wouldn't see his DS, because again I think he couldn't understand the utter bewilderment in his son's eyes. He felt rejected, because his dad had left, then rejected many times over, because his dad wouldn't put in the effort to see his own son, choosing to spend leisure time with his new partner's kids instead. Ex will never admit this, because his attitude has always been, "They know where I am, I'm here if they need me, but they need to make the effort.'

Men like this want to fast forward in their new lives. Partly to fully submerge themselves in their new found happiness, which they feel fully entitled to, and partly to minimise the pain those left, their kids in fact, feel. The pain is a mirror to their selfishness and entitled cruel behaviour, so they refuse to glance at it. It helps them then to say that their kids aren't making an effort. They forget the crucial thing though, they are the adult in all this. But taking on that role, manning up and owning their actions is a step too far. They simply lack the balls and integrity.

My adult kids see their father and it's ok. It will never be good, not because he left, but because he didn't acknowledge their pain, or bend over backwards to prioritise them, He just prioritised himself; and that was what caused us all heartbreak in the first place.

I just want you to know I understand. Your kids will be fine, you'll be fine.

It really is his loss, and when he acknowledges this, you all will be in a better place than him. x

Apologies for the essay!

Great post Cary

Cary thank you. Your post does sound so similar to our situation, even down to age and gender of kids. I am so worried for them... They are supposed to be going with him to his mum and dads next weekend to have a fake Christmas as he won't be in country for the real one and now don't know if that's happening and if it is when they're going etc... My dd is now having to email her gran to try and find out because she doesn't want to contact her dad as, like you said, she thinks he should be the adult in all this.
Did I mention the ow is a trained therapist? Her husband says she's never practiced but I'm questioning her professional ethics, leaving her own 3rd husband for a married man with two dependent kids with extra needs.

I got to the point where I was so worried for my kids, because as well as dealing with their own rejection they were supposed to be the ones making all the effort to reach out to their father, that I stepped in to protect them. I got to the point of saying enough.

In your situation, about 'Fake Christmas', I think I would contact gran, or ex, via text or email, asking them to clarify arrangements with you for next weekend. This puts in as a 'buffer' for your kids. Just send one message, and if they don't respond, make alternative arrangements.

It could be, like my ex, that he is with an OW who is bolstering his ego to such an extent that he thinks his kids should be doing all the running. She will have a different agenda towards your kids, especially if they are old enough to have their own opinions, do remember that.

Ignore her, just forget about her. If your kids, or one of them, feels that they don't want to do 'Fake Christmas' with their dad, then the simply don't go, It is their choice. Don't influence this choice, but support it. Because of the way their dad has behaved, right now, they owe him nothing. A decent dad would be ensuring that they know arrangements about next weekend, but he's playing games, because he won't man up, and OW is feeding his warped sense of entitlement.

Youngest DS was due to stay with his dad the first Christmas after we split. "I don't want to go", he announced, the day before. "Then you don't go', was my response. I texted ex, told him XXX would be staying at home. Predictably, rather than accept that DS didn't want to spend time with him and OW and her kids, he blamed me for 'turning DS against him.
I couldn't care less, I put my DS's needs first. I knew the truth, so did ex deep down.

These men cannot do the emotional equivalent of throwing their kids under a bus without feeling the fallout.

I have been blamed constantly over six years for the rift between my ex and his son. It's a small price to pay for stepping up to shield my son from petty games played by his man child of a father, and the enabling woman dripping poison in his ear.

Your DD shouldn't be the one reaching out. So nip that in the bud and try to take control on her behalf.

I wizh you well x

watched a YouTube video on how to replace one and fixed it myself
This made me smirk as since ex left ive done this soooo many times! Youtube is bloody brilliant I've fixed the lawnmower, boiler, loads of stuff & so proud of myself (ex would just huff about and leave it for months or call someone in)

Skinny jeans ha ha ha yes ex started turning up in awful teenager clothes despite being nearly 50 - have a good laugh abs itll do you good!

I try to remember that hating someone is like letting them live rent free in your head