More of a rant / looking for support than a WWYD. I have been separated 6 years, divorced 5.5 from exh. Reasonably amicable split but instigated by me. He knew we were both not happy and were only staying together for the dc. But he really didn’t want us to split and initially took it quite bad. We were married 15 years, together 18 years and we have 3 dc (now age 12.13 and 15). After about 6 months separated we stared to get on well and were amicable and worked together with the dc.
Bit of background. We sold the martial home and he downsized into a small 3 bed cottage with a small 5 years mortgage. I bought a large new build property with a much bigger / longer mortgage. He was able to reduce his hours to 2 days a week and take semi-retirement (he is 13 years older than me) and I had to up my hours from 4 days a week to 5 days a week. He was happy and loved his new house. I let him keep all of our old furniture and he helped me with my new house, stuff like putting shelves up, putting furniture together etc. all seemed well and the dc were happy and adjusted well. We share pretty much 50/50 access / residency and live 10 mins away from each other with the dc school slap bang in the middle of both houses, so only a 5 min walk to school from either house. It seemed like the perfect set up and everyone was happy. Even when I re-married 2 years ago everything was still good. He liked my new dh and they got on well, no issues.
Over the last year though my relationship with exh has become more and more strained and has now deteriorated so much that I am posting on here as I am worried and quite frankly frustrated. He seems constantly jealous of me and makes little digs sometimes weekly now. He has become depressed it seems and will make comments that I don’t know how hard it is for him on his own, growing old and having no one etc. that I don’t know how lucky I am etc. I am finding it so frustrating and at the moment I am just dis-engaging with it and not reacting, but it has bought me to tears a few times lately.
He moans at me that I have more money than him (I don’t actually think this is true). That I do more fun stuff with the dc than him (I don’t have any control over what he does or doesn’t do with eh dc) that I have a nicer family than him (this is true, but not my fault), that I am lucky I have dp (again, not my fault he hasn’t met anyone else). He also moans at me at how much he missed the dc when they are not with him (as do I when they are with him) and that they are all growing up now and don’t want to spend as much time with him (nor do they with me, that’s teenagers!).
I think he is depressed and lonely, but it feels like he is blaming it all on me. The victim mentality is driving me mad. Most of the time we get on fine, and are nothing but civil in front of the dc, its just the underlying jealousy and self-pity is driving me mad.
Sorry for the off load!