Marriage Breakdown - unequal hurt

[JustBeingMoi]

I might get shot down here, but has anyone else found one partner bears an unequal part of the hurt and pain in a marriage breakdown.

I ended my marriage about a month ago after increasing verbal and emotional abuse since I fell pregnant with our dd.

Despite being the one to eventually end the marriage, I feel like he has moved on and I'm left here completely in pain. I don't miss him and I know I made the right decision, but I'm finding this incredibly painful. I have spent 14 years feeling like his family are a second family to me. I have loved them and shared a huge amount with them. It is a very difficult loss for me. He has always had a difficult relationship with my family, blaming the fact they never bothered to try with him, despite him trying his hardest with them. Admittedlythere was probably fault on both sides here, but then spending time with his family hasn't always been a picnic and yet I have made every effort with them. He couldn't care my family are out of his life, in fact I expect he is delighted.

I am almost certain he has found somebody else. He is constantly reinforcing to me that he has moved on and is much happier. He has accused me of forcing him to get married and have children, and basically has ruined his life and destroyed his self esteem. He has accused me of failing go try and salavge our marriage despite years where i felt I did try for a number of years. He is accusing me of destroying our daughters life, and ripping her family apart. I feel awful. Just so miserable. He has made it clear he wants me as far from his life as possible. I feel like the foundations I believe our relationship were built on never actually existed. That he never actually loved me.

To top it all off I have been left with the sale of our house, which I'm finding stressful. He is refusing to help, and then complains when I'm not doing things quick enough. I'm in a financially poor situation due to going back to work part time after our dd was born. I now earn half of what he does. He has fairly good potential to be promoted soon, whereas I don't feel like I do.

And yet I feel he is skipping off into the sunset, guilt free while the foundations on which i have built my life have been ripped apart. I have sacrificed an awful lot for him and us and its all been for nothing. I'm sure many will say he he is lashing out in hurt, but a large part of me just doesn't believe that. I think he believes everything he is saying is true. I hate to imagine what he is telling mutual friends. It has taken me a long time to open up about his behaviour, and even then I haven't told anyone about the pushing, shoving, etc. I have kept it quiet, and said not a single negative word about him to his family, yet I feel they are closing ranks. He has recently accused me of trying to restrict access to our dd, which is just utter rubbish. We are basically sharing custody, with him picking her up on Sunday morning and dropping her at nursery on Wednesday morning, I then pick her up on Wednesday evening. I am trying to be as fair as I possibly can with him.

Men generally don’t react well to being spurned. He’s beyond furious all his verbals attest to this. He’s full of spite and vindictiveness, if you understand where it’s coming from it might help to deal with it. As far as his family goes, and yr relationship with them is concerned, blood is thicker than water. This relationship/friendship with them, will possibly sour as I’m sure they’ve been fed a sanitized version of his behaviour in the marriage. I wouldn't go out of my way to advertise the pushing and shoving you mention, but neither would I hesitate when appropriate to explain the facts, why should he be painted as blameless. As for mutual friends, the old saying - you’ll know who your real friends are, will apply here. It’s not easy for mutual friends either, this sadly is often a casualty of marriage breakup.
Keep yr dealings with him strictly business, don’t let him rant, disregard similar texts.
The sadness will ease, given time it will ease, and remember you left for a reason. Good luck.

It takes ages to get over it. It's horrible but it will get better.

He's being an absolute dick and is most likely saying those things to hurt you. He's being purposely awkward and trying to play the victim.

Make sure you get a good solicitor so you get a fair share out of the house sale etc. Don't let him bully you into accepting less or doing things to his timescale if he isn't willing to do anything to help.

Even if he has found someone else, the poor woman will only be a rebound. He won't be over his marriage ending yet no matter what he says. He's just pretending to be ok.

It will get easier but you've got to try and not let him get to you in the meantime. I think the term is greyrock.

Good luck OP and keep posting here if it helps. I've had some great support from MN and these guys talk a lot of sense!

My Father was so enraged when dm left him that remarried an incredibly unsuitable, much much younger woman to prove he 'still had it'. He now says my mum forced him to marry the new woman. I don't think women have any idea what goes on in the head of these enraged middle aged men.

@JustBeingMoi I could have written large parts of your post. I asked my partner of 15 yrs and father to our two DC to leave which he did [rather excitedly] a couple of weeks ago. His behaviour in our house prior to my asking him to leave was nothing short of disgraceful. Most importantly he was lying about drinking/hiding bottles/drinking in secret etc but also he was messaging women online too.

He is now posting online about how he is really getting into exercise, no longer drinking [ie that was due to his unhappiness in the home so clearly my fault] and life is all great and of course he is now free to follow up any leads he gets with these poor women who think he might be a catch without hassle from me. It is me that got him out of debt, me that paid all his rent and bills to do that, me that got us out of London, me that endured years of IVF to have our children, me that sorted our mortgage, finances and got him jobs sorted. He has left a trail of destruction, extreme pain, confusion and anger in his wake. His family and friends are all rallying around him as the injured party. Over the years I have become smaller and lost contact with people and, to be honest, lost my sense of self and self esteem. It is not a great place to be but I am working on building up my support network with old friends and online too. In our case, towards the end I was full of resentment towards him and comms were so poor. However, there are ways of behaving - he has not left the door open for a future friendship.

I have to remind myself that I am not a bullshitting, lying, gaslighting fuckwit and I get to look in the mirror and know that my conscience is clear [not that he would think to question his own].

I am here if you want to DM.