Just one little positive about separation/divorce.

[ThisPasadenaHomemaker]

It will soon be a year since Ex moved out. We've remained close friends/co-parents and the DC have a great balance of time with each of us and time we all spend together. I've had a few very rough periods of loneliness/sadness/grieving for the family we'd thrown away/thinking I wanted him back but in the last few months I've felt really positive and fully feel now that it was the right decision for us to split.

Ex is at his xmas party tonight. I'm not experiencing the low level anxiety that I used to on this night for many of the 14 years we were together feeling fairly sure that he would get stupidly plastered and come home in a state, or worse, not come home at all. More than once I was up all night or would wake to find him not home (full blown anxiety at this point) worried and contemplating ringing hospitals/police etc. He would eventually come home and be dismissive/be too hungover to talk to. I don't remember him being apologetic. It was awful.

Tonight I'm feeling really relaxed and happy. The DC are in bed. I have a glass of wine, some really nice crisps and some great trashy telly. I'll go to bed later and enjoy my new ridiculously soft and cosy flannelette bedding and sleep soundly (albeit with a toddler in with me!).

It's a really nice change .

It's great isn't it? I love watching what I want on the telly without raised eyebrows and "Are you WATCHING this?"

No fags and fag ash in the house.

No more piles of his washed (by me) laundry piled up downstairs because he couldn't be arsed putting them away.

No wondering what mood he will be in the morning (how much had he drunk?)

No more negotiating around his general grumpiness.

I wondered what it would be like the first Christmas morning (children were teenagers so no early morning excitement). I got up on my own, switched on my pretty tree lights, drank tea, watched Christmas TV until I got bored and woke them up - then went to my mum's for Christmas dinner with no moany Scrooge sitting there like Banquo's ghost (to mix my literary allusions).

I didn't have as terrible a marriage as some I have read about on here, but there are definitely more positives than negatives about life without him.

It's my birthday in a few days. I get to see my young children give me presents (he would never buy any for me or for kids to give me).

I get to go for dinner and drinks at my brothers house (he refused to live near my family, even though he didn't speak much his own family 5 mins away).

I get to take my children to the cinema on Sunday as our little family birthday outing (he refused to go, too expensive, but happy to go out drinking every single week).

Very happy to have left him behind.

I love this thread already! ❤️️ My STBX was a drunken arse at the best of times, but Christmas was the perfect excuse (well the whole of December actually) to drink from morning till night, start fights, over nothing, fall out with members of his family, the list goes on! Instead I can drink as much or as little (without being called boring because one of us had to look after the kids) as I want! No chance of being annoyed or abused this Christmas! X

To eat what i want and when I want - without the usual "aren't you on a diet...?". Weirdly I have lost weight eating as an when I like compared to putting on weight when I was dieting 24/7.

Watching Andrew Marr on a sunday morning without having to turn it off or over when he woke cause politics is boring.

Passes round the .

In Ex's defence, he really was mostly a great partner. And I'm not saying that in the usual backtrack way you see in relationships threads! We were so close, worked well together, everything was equally shared. We supported each other through good times and bad but there were these rare occasions when he would act like a competent different person and just be hideously thoughtless. The year leading up to our split was really horrible and I thought I was going slowly crazy .

He's a fab dad and we're working together much better now as mates and parents than as partners.

But I definitely do not want to cohabit with a man ever again!

Well Pasadena I felt the same way when I divorced 13 years ago and I never will, but I also decided I wouldn't even date anyone - and I have to say I do regret that a bit as now I am in my 60s it is a bit late. But yy to NEVER cohabiting again.

Even if I met someone now, it would be a sort of semi-detached relationship with each of us retaining our own home and my wordly goods being left solely to my children.

I had to tone down christmas excitement for the sake of ex, haf to wait around until he was "fully woken up", listen to him moaning about how early it was, getting told not to wake dc up yet, just totally miserable atmosphere where there should have been fun and excitement.
This year will be very different.
Im very similar in that ive had a few wobbles about wether it was the right decision but these last few months i have now embraced it and im loving my unrestricted life. I can put the heating on when i like, i dont have to listen to rediculously loud tv, im not stepping over all his clothes, im not being nagged abt leaving a door open or arguing over whether the window will be open or closed through the night, im not getting silent treatment or shouted at. ( just a few examples) basically im not walking on eggshells anymore in a constant state of fear/sadness/anexiety.
Life is more relaxed than it used to be in many ways, and i am grateful for the peace and quiet cheers all

Lousaint
That used to really get on my nerves getting called boring if i wouldn't get drunk with him, or if I'd go to bed early on a sat night (i work long shifts on a sat so usually shattered)
I never got to choose the tv and quite frankly i was bored out of my skull and had a child to look after.

what I always strikes me as a great positive difference is coming back after a long day out into a clean apartement and it being so peaceful... and relaxingly quiet. Just winding down at our our pace, cooking a dinner without any demands or restrictions, just so peacefull...