Hello @onitlikeacarbonnet , hope you and the children are doing well and enjoying the summer ? DS and DD must be 15 and 13 now or slightly more ?
I am an MN regular for a year or two now , have my own thread about my marriage and keep getting wise advice to LTB, but while working up the courage to sort my life , I read threads on here ....a lot :)....thought I knew all the long running classics on relationships , but had never found yours before and it was recommended recently to a poster on the divorce/separation thread , so here I am :) ....binge read the last almost ten years of your life across the six threads over the past 3(?) days including late into the night last night :) , think your journey and your honest record of it here , must have been/and is invaluable for so many women on similar journeys - thank you.
I am in Scotland too - wonder how your back pain is , and one suggestion I had about your most recent posts over the covid/post covid years was (I am mid/to late 40s too and have a 15 year old DS) , that you might like to consider a job change into a desk based job, maybe something like the contact center at JP Morgan for e.g. or even desk based contact center at a big retail - I think it probably is 25 plus years of a job that has you on your feet 20-30 if not more hours week.
Having read your journey in one shot - maybe I had the bird's eye view that some of your regular posters even may not have - and it was obvious to me how all about the money it was for your LCB/asshat in 2016. He is extremely emotionally immature and incapable of being self aware , or able to communicate with self awareness. It was very obvious he built up a (temporary?) resentment of 'having to do it all' during your illness and convincing himself your illness was partly preventable / made up in your head - and then I believe he made the worst choice of his life , one he still wakes up crying about and regretting. The 3am emails to you , the constant need to talk face to face , the pointless battling he pushed on for years - he hates to see himself in the mirror because of what he did in 2016. Which is walk out on a loyal loving beautiful wife and mother, and all because she went through a period of illness after having given birth to two beautiful children. Must be so hard to live with and I am so glad I am not him. The reason for less time with DC over holidays esp, DS is clear to me - a 6 and 7 year old would have no idea of the gray area in 2016 that their dad lived in and got wrong - but at 14/13 , that is not the case anymore. He must see it in his son's eyes now - mothers and sons , which son would respect someone who did that to their mum ? I hope your Ex continues to live with what he did everyday . I am amazed that not once did you use the ammo you had on his 2016 adulterous emails against him - what an inspiration in classy mature behaviour you are Onit !!!!