A thread to moan on until I’m rid of exP

[UnimaginativeUsername]

(Ex)P and I are separating but we have to live together until we sell this house (due to finances). So I thought I’d start a thread to help me get through the next few months.

Fantastic news on the house sale.

Why would his dirty pants be on the stairs? He’d have to put them there, surely.

Sounds like a fun meeting at the council. At least you’ve found somewhere to rent. I’m lucky that I live in a fairly cheap city, so I can buy on my own. I think I really want to get this house - I can totally see myself living there. It felt like it could be home.

Ex is being a bit nicer to me. I’m not sure why. He’s doing more round the house and offered to buy us all a takeaway tonight. I wonder if it’s because he’s realising that he doesn’t have the same power over me any more, so he can’t behave like he usually does. Or it might just be a short lived thing and he’ll be back to being awful and irritating in a day or two.

Because he wants you to accept the low offer...

Well yes. There is that.

That sounds really difficult and annoying. What a totally idiot choosing to go hungry because you weren’t cooking.

Our house is big enough that we can have separate bedrooms and don’t even have to share a bathroom. There’s actually another spare room that I could set up as ‘my’ living room if I felt inclined. So it’s easier to avoid him and his dirty pants stay in his bedroom.

DS2’s pants, on the other hand, seem to get everywhere. And his socks too. Especially his socks.

Ex asked me if I’d run him to work today so we could discuss the offer. It was not a comfortable drive. He’s absolutely desperate to take it. I said that we should simply negotiate with them. He kept going on about how ‘it’s better than nothing’ and how I need to be proceedable if I want to offer on a house. Except we have an offer that is just enough for me to afford to do so, and are negotiating it upwards. That’s pretty proceedable anyway.

He’s just a twat. The most irritating thing is that he keeps repeating things. So we agree to ask for more from them and what to say to the EA and then he cycles back to try to have the same conversation again. And gets annoyed when I point out that we’ve agreed to negotiate.

He also keeps saying that he wants ‘to go forward in the best way for DS2’. I take this to mean that he wants me to keep doing everything exactly as he wants whether he’s there or not.

He’s going to get a bit of a shock when he realises that I can do what I like and he has no say in it. I’m not going to alert him to this, however, until after I move into my own place.

The saddest thing is that he genuinely doesn’t realise that he’s unreasonable and controlling. It’s not that he’s a calculating abusive wanker. He’s just so far up his own arse and has so little awareness that he really thinks that he’s a good, kind, reasonable person.

great news on the house being on the market and getting offers Unimaginative and for finding a place you love too! It all seems to be going well! It's good to hear ex is pulling his weight too.

My ex also wants to sell without a chain, when I wasn't so keen, he tried to make out I was being unreasonable...but a) I earn considerably less than him and b) I will be keeping the cat, I don't particularly fancy paying double moving costs and trying to find somewhere to rent for 6 months...so unless he wants to finance this, he can fuck off.

I am really struggling with him this week. I have come to realise that we cannot have a discussion about the house or divorce stuff without him being patronising, the most recent gem is telling me it's like dealing with a fucking child. I had to bite my tongue. But it's like a switch has been flipped. I don't want to talk to him or even try to be polite anymore.

He cooked over the weekend and has left ALL of his dishes by the fucking sink...I had plans of not doing them either because, fuck him. Yet I couldn't get to the sink or do anything because everything was covered. So I stacked the dishwasher but left the other stuff. But I am going to have to do it because cleaners are coming etc.

The saddest thing is that he genuinely doesn’t realise that he’s unreasonable and controlling. It’s not that he’s a calculating abusive wanker. He’s just so far up his own arse and has so little awareness that he really thinks that he’s a good, kind, reasonable person.

^^This! This is my ex too, he's so convinced that he's the victim and I'm the horrible person who won't give him a second chance (conveniently forgetting all of the times I've stayed when he was abusive/violent), he seems to think he is justified in behaving like a man-child.

Similar to shitwithsugaron ex did his laundry over the weekend...and left it all in the kitchen...bedding/clothes/dirty stuff all over the kitchen. Dickhead.

Yes. Renting for 6 months is not always the straightforward option. In my case, I just can’t be bothered and I do think it’ll be easier for DS2 if he’s got a permanent home to move to.

I guess it’s good (in some ways) that your switch has flipped. It makes it much harder to be polite though. How dare he say you’re like a child. What a wanker.

I totally empathise with the difficulty in discussing anything with someone determined to condescend to you. Over the last few weeks I’ve realised that it’s simply another manifestation of how little respect ex has for me, and how much better I deserve.

We all deserve better than this.

Unimaginative- just tell him you are happy to accept the offer provide he adjust the equity split accordingly as you NEED £x to afford the most suitable property for DS2 requirements long term...

Hopefully will get him to STFU if nothing else!!!!!

I think that’s what I’m going to do @RandomMess. I’ll see if the EA can get any more out of them first. I’m seeing 3 houses this afternoon with the EA we’re in with so I’ll speak to her when I see her (and circumvent ex’s lacklustre efforts).

I saw another house this morning. It’s beautifully done up but it has a (really wonderful) garden that would be completely beyond me. It’s absolutely huge and like going for a walk in a (hilly) country park. I am not a gardener, nor hugely interested in becoming one.

What a great LL. I am so pleased for you.

I am just about to view a house in the steet next to the one we used to live in (before we moved only because ex wanted to). It’s smaller and less nice than our old house (cheaper too though). How I wish I’d just told him to move out and kept the old house!

That’s actually a really good idea RandomMess tell him you’ll proceed with the offer if he will give you 7,5k extra from the proceeds. He might be that desperate to sell that he’ll go for it

I will try it I’m not entirely confident he’ll see the logic of giving me the £7.5k. He is utterly perverse and bloody minded at the best of times. I’m pretty sure he’ll start going on about how it’s better than nothing and that we should share the loss.

It’s ok for him to share the loss if his earning potential is better than yours. I guess it all depends how badly he wants the house to sell now. Stick to your guns and only agree to what you want to

I was thinking more £5k £10k loss split tbh...

Well even a 5/10k split would be an improvement. I still don’t think he’ll go for it.

Hopefully the EA will get more out of the buyers. It’s newly on the market and presumably they didn’t expect this offer to be accepted anyway. Usually people offer something but are willing to negotiate up a bit.

I think the thing that annoys me is how disinclined ex seems to be to try to get more. I guess because he doesn’t need the equity to buy a 3 bed house in the expensive area where DS2 goes to school so it matters less to him.

Do you think the split you negotiated with him is actually fair or did you agree to get it over with?

Well at the moment it’s a 50-50 split, which seems fair really. I have two children to house though so I need more bedrooms. DS1 is not ex’s responsibility though. And I need to be able to get DS2 to school every morning, which limits me to more expensive areas.

His earning potential is better than mine (although our salaries are quite similar at the moment - his is the higher), but I do have a good salary and can get on with things. It’s annoying because I have (stupidly) let his career take priority and helped him out loads. But he doesn’t recognise that (due to his head being up his arse).

The problem is more that the offer is £15k less than we paid, and we’ve done work (such as the bloody kitchen he insisted we put in, despite clearly knowing he was going to call it quits). The asking price was the lowest of the 3 valuations (and was in the lower end of local sold prices). It really is of the Kirsty and Phil ‘you should be embarrassed by your first offer’ type of offer.

He’s doing his usual catastrophising thing and acting like we should just snap their hands off (without asking if they’ll increase their offer) or we’ll never sell and be stuck together forever. That’s just silly.

The other couple that viewed have just put their house on the market this week and are keen to view again once they have an offer. So I don’t think it is ridiculous to say that it’s early days and there are other interested parties so we should ask this couple if they will/can increase their offer. If they refuse, then we can decide what to do from there.

The other huge elephant in the room is that we moved here 2 years ago purely for him. The boys and I loved our old house but he hated it. So I (stupidly) thought his behaviour would improve if we moved to the big detached house he wanted. It didn’t. He also wouldn’t negotiate on this house and just offered the asking price immediately. Plus I had to force him to take the EA’s advice and ask for the multiple bidders on our old place to do sealed bids by a closing date. He wanted to simply accept the first offer (a good £15k less than asking price) and then refused to accept the highest bid for weird reasons. In the end we got £20k more for it because I fought with him.

So we would have lots more equity if we’d stayed in our old house (probably about £40k more). And it has gone up in value by at least £20k since we sold it.

So I’m annoyed because his decision making has already ‘cost’ me c. £30k. And he has form for being a complete pain in the arse about selling houses. I know it’s only money but it really is crap to think about how much of it putting his wants first has been.

Multiple posts...

I do need to just move on from the above though.

I was talking to my mum who just laughed and talked about how much money she had to write off because of my father when they divorced. It was a lot. But she was fine in the end.

It is only money. And I am in the fortunate position of being able to get a mortgage and continue earning a good salary to pay it. In the end, it won’t matter how much he’s ‘cost’ me; what will matter is that I will have made my own life with the children and without him.

So if he has the higher earning potential, DS2 is resident with you and you sacrificed your career for his WTF do you believe 50:50 is fair... it really isn't! I'd expect at least 55% of all marital assets to go to you as a minimum!!!!!

Urgh because you're not married