Half a person after divorce - I will never get over it

[Destroyed1]

I divorced my ex because I often used to walk on eggshells around him, he used to give me the silent treatment for weeks on end during which time I would be in emotional agony, and I couldn’t stand the lack of joint decision making over very big things.

I knew getting divorced would be difficult, and it was horrible. We were in the same house for months and months not talking, during which time he immediately got together with someone else, and I had to endure listening to his very late night and very long phone calls. I don’t know if they are still together.

He moved out 14 months ago now, but my problem is that I cannot get over the grief. We were together for 22 years, and have 3 dc. While there was a lot I found difficult about him, there was also a lot that I liked. He had lost all interest in me however, or so it seemed, and though I tried to keep it together for years, in the end I couldn’t any more.

The silent treatment continues in that I send ex logistical messages about the kids, which he rarely acknowledges or answers.

Due to his living arrangements, he is in the (my) house every afternoon with the dc after they come home from school, but our paths don’t cross.

There is a load of his stuff in the house I have been asking him about, what does he want to keep, get rid of etc, he ignores those messages too. He then told dd that I shouldn’t “throw his stuff away”.

It’s depressing that we cannot speak to each other, but he recently weirdly suggested that I go on holiday with him and the dc so to say that I am confused is putting it mildly. I asked him if we could meet up to talk about it, he ignored those messages, so now I am not going on holiday with them because of course how can I ?

Worse than all this is that I really loved him. I cannot get together with anyone else because they would not be him. It has always been him that I wanted, but aspects of the way he was were too hard in the end.

Sometimes the grief is overwhelming, and I honestly think this thing is going to destroy me and I will always be broken.

It’s the feeling of being hated which is hard to bear.

OP, you are still accommodating ALL his needs storing his clothes, letting him use the home he no longer resides in, as a storage unit...

Stop pandering to his needs and get his stuff OUT. His housing issues are not your concern or responsibility.

Take back control and get this scum out your life.

OP, the person who is doing you the most damage in all this is YOURSELF.

You said that he has to see your teens at your house because he has not got anywhere suitable - that's on him. He can fix it, but isn't choosing to.

You said if he doesn't see your kids in YOUR home, then he would not see them. See above - that is HIS problem and tbf, he's not much of a man anyway so won't be doing that good a job of setting a role model example for your teens.

If you can't afford to shove his stuff in a storage locker in his name - box it up and stuff it in the garage and then give him a month to collect it or it will ALL go to the dump. Do this.

Stop texting him about ANYTHING. He is deliberately using your good parenting as a weapon against you, so by refusing to engage he's tangling your head up in his toxic mess.

Take back control of your life and exorcise this demon from it.

You are an addict. you got dependant on his control, and now he's shunned you, and you're torturing yourself to get the next hit. It's like the mosquito bit you know you shouldn't scratch but you can't help yourself.

His relationship with his kids is his responsibility. As of now, you do not allow him into your home, you do not text him about anything to do with the kids, make your decisions yourself and then bag his stuff up and lob it in the garage or somewhere for him to collect or it's gone.

Please also, do not tell yourself that you won't get over this, you absolutely will, but you have to stop letting him have the space in your head that he has. you're free love, you can do and say whatever you want. So make it count and live the best life you can and show your teens just what you are capable.

OP, you've had lots of good advice. You can make a choice about your life - you can be half a person and never get over it, or you can move forward and heal yourself.

Your teens can arrange their own contact with their father, they're old enough. He can take them out like thousands of other dads across the land, he can meet them places, he can buy them a sodding MacDonalds. There is no reason he needs to set foot in your house. If they can't be arsed to leave the house to see their dad, then that says a lot about their relationship with him. But they're old enough to decide for themselves, without you sticking your oar in.

Bag up his stuff and give him a deadline to pick it up. If he doesn't, then get rid of it. Explain to the dc that you have given him plenty of warning (it's over a year, FGS) and it's time. Redecorate. Reclaim your home.

I was given advice when my first marriage ended and it was that no one else is responsible for our happiness - apart from ourselves.

I totally get that you are heartbroken but for yourself and your DCs you must find a way to move on from this damaging situation.

Your DC are far more likely to judge you harshly for continuing to enable this terrible situation. They must be rather confused about what’s going and be wishing that you’d get a grip.

by refusing to engage he's tangling your head up in his toxic mess.

Yes, and I wonder whether suggesting I go on holiday with them was more of the same.

You are an addict. you got dependant on his control, and now he's shunned you, and you're torturing yourself to get the next hit.

Yes.

you're free love, you can do and say whatever you want.

Yes - free - I do often think of that.

Thanks for everyone’s messages .

I suspect the holiday suggestion was just to see if you would bite. You did, so he's satisfied.

By the sound if it, little has changed since divorce in that he used to give you the silent treatment for weeks then, and he still does! You are letting him perpetuate the controlling behaviour which lead you to split up in the first place. You need to stop calling it texting him about anything but the absolute essentials. What is the point of texting him with info when he ignores it? You are not getting his feedback or any kind of support by his lack of response, so why bother? What is he doing with the information you pass on? Your children are teens so they can tell him stuff themselves - or not if it's just day to day stuff. If it's about, say GCSE options/exams/uni options or something school related, why even bother if you get absolutely nothing back? His loss.

There is zero point in texting or emailing him info which gets no response. He's conditioned you to accept that. Stop playing his game and stop contacting him, unless it's absolutely genuinely essential.

As for keeping all the stuff at your house, another controling act. Gather up all his stuff and stick it in a storage unit for one month only. If he's too pig headed to pick it up, that's entirely his problem. You didn't chuck it out - although you'd be well within your rights to do do given the amount of times you've asked him to collect it.

You will never move on until you stop being emotionally dependent on whatever crumbs you hope to get from him. Cut him out of your life entirely, except if it directly impacts the children and make an effort to build a new life for yourself, getting out and meeting new people and doing activities you enjoy. You've wasted enough years on this man.

The cruelest thing to do is dangle something to get someone to bite, then to remove it.

That’s what he’s doing to you

Your biggest flaw atm is to show him how much you care, how important HIS relationship is with your children and your love for them.

I’m not saying you stop caring about them, but by backing off, letting him run the relationship he has with them the way he wants to and refusing to accommodate his attempts at sucking you back in, eventually he’ll work out that there is too much of his effort going into trying and failing to make your life harder

Get a set phrase kit sorted

“No, sorry, that’s not going to work”
“Not possible at all I’m afraid”
(You can drop the sorrys and afraid whenever you’re ready)
“You’ll have to ask the dc yourself”
“I’m not responsible for:

• your happiness
• your relationship with your kids
• your living arrangements
• etc”

You have to stop caring about what he thinks or does.

He certainly couldn’t give a shit about your feelings or happiness.

((((((Hug)))))

I found the first step I took post controlling relationship was the discovery of my ability to say NO.

It was a revelation!

Ex hated it
My entire family hated it - there’s another thread entirely :)

It gave me back so much power!

BUT...
Eventually I realised it was also saying no to myself- don’t allow that to happen, challenge yourself to do things you never thought you would and you’ll amaze yourself and transform your life!

He's mentally abusive. Silent treatment is a form of abuse. My ex was and still is the same with me.

The holiday suggestion is head fuckery.

I completely empathise. It's so hard when you still see the bits about him you fell in love with - I'm sure he's got some great attributes. But how he's being with you is not OK.

I promise it will get better. Yes, it will hurt, maybe for a long time, but you will get over it. Stay strong, OP.

I suspect the holiday suggestion was just to see if you would bite. You did, so he's satisfied.

Yes, I think so too.

@DarklyDreamingDexter and @RLEOM everything you have said is spot on.

The cruelest thing to do is dangle something to get someone to bite, then to remove it.

Yes, I agree.

challenge yourself to do things you never thought you would and you’ll amaze yourself and transform your life! - I will try .

Thanks all .

Good luck OP, find yourself and your inner strength.

Thanks @BumbleBeee69.

When I left some of my stuff at my exh house (our former home that I did not want in the settlement) I wasn't being controlling and I don't believe he is either. Getting divorced is FRICKING HARD. OP I think you are both grieving and through necessity each grieving alone and that is horrendously painful to deal with. If there was any chance whatsoever of you two sitting down together and coming up with strategies to make it work I would take it because you are both suffering here. If not, the only thing I can say is that you learn to accept the grief. A divorce where children are involved marks you for life no matter how amicable (mine was amicable, at the time) and whilst you move on, you absolutely cannot rush this process and you must acknowledge and experience all the feelings in order to get through it to higher ground. I completely empathise x

I’ve read the thread, I also think you are subconsciously waiting for him to have an epiphany about his behaviour. To realise why you had to end the marriage and so that you don’t feel like you are to blame. You want him to validate you.

You are still probably thinking about what he thinks and feels, how will he react to something. You need to let him go and spend all that energy on finding you again.

Good luck

If you can move, then do so, and never let him cross the threshold again.
Box up and bag up everything of his however small and put it in the hallway for every time he she's the dc and tell him to take it. If he doesn't, it's going to the charity shop. I did this as soon as my x left. When I moved and found more stuff and wanted him to empty the loft and shed I gave him a date and said if he's not here it's going in the skip. I didn't even have a skip but it worked.
You don't really need to communicate with him.
Get some counselling.

Getting divorced is FRICKING HARD. OP I think you are both grieving and through necessity each grieving alone and that is horrendously painful to deal with.

Yes .

If there was any chance whatsoever of you two sitting down together and coming up with strategies to make it work I would take it because you are both suffering here.

At the time he suggested that I go on holiday, I suggested meeting up to talk. I have suggested that other times recently, but he doesn’t reply. I guess it was so difficult to talk when we were together, and that isn’t going to change. I think I made it clear that the offer is open - to find some way to talk so that we could be civil. I guess he has always had and has huge amounts of pride, and he would find it very difficult to make a first step. I can’t take the risk however, as I have been hurt too much. So it’s a kind of stalemate. And he seems to hate me in any case.

I agree that divorce marks you for life.

I completely empathise x. Thank you .

I also think you are subconsciously waiting for him to have an epiphany about his behaviour.. Yes - I think he realises sometimes, and then the realisation goes away and he sees himself as the “victim”. Yes and I agree that through force of habit I still reference him in my thoughts. Stupid really because he moved on to someone else (not sure it still together) at the speed of light.

If you can move, then do so, - I can’t at the moment, but sometimes I really want to be able to.

He wasn't upset about the divorce...he was upset at losing money to you in the settlement.

He treated like crap and continues to do so..because you let him.

Ppl like him know who they can do this kind of thing to. You've given deadlines which have come and gone...so your word on that is worthless.

You've made it far too easy for him and while you think it's beneficial for the DC... him passing on messages via your DD... is just involving them unnecessarily and it can't be easy for them.

He gets to do it...because you've left the door open for him to keep coming in your home.

I think you're still scared of him and he probably loves it.

Nothing will change, while your life stands still and you continue to let him have a hold on you.

If you're passing on info about the kids that doesn't require a response...then he doesn't have to respond.

He wasn't upset about the divorce...he was upset at losing money to you in the settlement.

I think that’s absolutely right - he hadn’t given two hoots about me for years, but “losing” me meant losing other things. Time with the dc which of course is awful, and yes, money. He was ragingly furious and extremely verbally abusive about that.

And despite the fact that the one asset that I had (half a property with a relative - but it was quite valuable) was obviously part of the settlement, lord knows what he will have told his family (none of whom I am in contact with). One of his nephews told my dd that it was “kind of unfair that your Dad did the work but your Mum got the house”. She did put him straight, and said that I had got that but he had got everything else (several other smaller assets and the remaining money, and whatever he had hidden ), but for his nephew to be saying that means that you can imagine what my ex had been saying.

And the stuff he said about me during the divorce . Notably that I had loads of money in an undeclared bank account (ha ha - as if) and other stuff like that. That he was the primary carer (I was a SAHM for 13 years) and that I had never known how to look after the dcs’ best interests. Etc.

him passing on messages via your DD... is just involving them unnecessarily and it can't be easy for them. yes I agree.

I think you're still scared of him and he probably loves it.

Yes.

And I agree with the rest of your post @SandyY2K.

I have vastly reduced the footprint of the stuff of his that I have, and left other stuff by the door for him to look through. He then told my dd that I shouldn’t throw his stuff away. However, while I don’t mind keeping stuff that doesn’t increase the footprint, the rest will have to go.

I did then send him a message asking him to sort through the stuff by the door. He has ignored that, so I think I am free to do what I see fit with it. It’s mostly junk and an exercise machine he used to get fit for his extremely rapidly acquired new partner. One minute he was trying to manipulate me into not going ahead with the divorce, literally the next he was making loving phone calls late at night that went on for hours. And this went on for months while we were in the same house.

So that bloody exercise machine is definitely going. What will be left is two pieces of furniture with some papers of his and sentimental items inside and on top. I can live with that squashed up in a corner of a lean to while he sorts out his accommodation.

Not only that, but he has also got very much back in touch with his ex wife whom he for years referred to as a bitch. That made me feel as if the 22 years with me were him just not being able to be with the person he really wanted to be with.

You’re agreeing with a lot of what’s being said, is it resonating with you? Is it helping? Are you feeling stronger and more empowered?

Divorce hurts, it really does. Even in an amicable situation you will grieve for the loss of hope.

Yes he “moved on” at warp speed, but that is his attempt at coping, ditto the ex. For me that’s showing that it does all hurt, but he can’t process so he’s looking for validation that ‘he’s not that bad surely’ having been divorced (at least) twice.

Make yourself a promise. From this day forward you will take no shit, you will be strong and steady and you will take charge of your home and your life. He and his insecurities aren’t going to weaken or diminish you any more.

I’d suggest a name change, you’re not destroyed, you’re reconstruction-in-progress

Divorce doesn’t have to scar you for life, you’ll learn from it and you’ll learn from the mistakes and the pain. You will be stronger, and ultimately happier. If you want to be.

Also I think 'losing' half of everything you own and feeling negatively about that is a valid feeling for both sexes. Money is fucking important whether we like it or not. So divorce hurts you heart and your whole practical life. Again it's bloody painful all round. And nobody is perfect and yes you should absolutely leave a marriage that doesn't make you happy (I did) but marriage is a financial contract,it's not about love in the eyes of the law so yeh it's horrible having to unpick all that for all concerned.

I think atm this is like an open wound that isn’t allowed to be left to heal.

Although you say you don’t have contact there seems to be an awful lot of contact happening.

If there was no contact then you wouldn’t be being ignored or asked to go on holiday.

You are no longer married. You need to remove him from your life.

If he wants to see the children then it has to be done away from your house on certain days of the week.

If he wants his stuff then he needs to collect it by a certain date or it is disposed of.
I take it you don’t have a sign that says Big Yellow Storage Company attached to your house.

It is time to get tough.

He needs to get all of his stuff. Not just some of it and it needs to be gone by a certain date.

You are divorced that means your marriage is over. Waiting for him to see the light and change himself fundamentally into the person you want is not going to happen. That time has passed.

If you want someone with certain attributes then go find that someone and have fun whilst you look.

It is time to look forward not back.

Your home should be your place of calm & safety

Why is your ex still allowed free access into your home regularly ? ??

Do you freely enter where your ex lives ?
Do you have keys to where he lives ?

His stuff is in your home, get it out asap

He is physically & emotionally in your house, get him out forever

The children can see him out of the house

Tell him to collect his stuff by a certain date as after that it will be thrown out and stick to it.
When they're on holiday redecorate,move things around and make the house yours.Or do it sooner and get your kids helping,my DD turned out to be really handy with a roller.
Instead of looking back look at how you want your life to be and start making it happen.
And maybe counciling to help you talk your way through it.

You need to stop letting his behaviour shape who you are and how you feel Ona daily basis.

Your children are old enough to understand that him being in the house and having his stuff everywhere is emotionally damaging for you and he needs to find somewhere else to see them and to take his stuff.

I guarantee he knows that he is hurting you and he likes still being able to affect you like this.

You take back power and start living again.