Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Abandoned in your fifties?

225 replies

Mycatandme · 09/08/2020 20:31

I’ve been divorced for a few years and last year I met a new DP. We are both in our mid fifties with now grown up children. We want to make a proper life together but his XW is so angry and bitter about ‘being abandoned’ that I’m not sure we will be able to. Will this ever get better?

OP posts:
Sssloou · 10/08/2020 08:12

Any chance he left under the guise of a trial separation?

Stannisbaratheonsboxofmatches · 10/08/2020 08:16

It sounds like he got together with you very fast - 3 months after they split is nothing, and tbh even 15 months is still the immediate aftermath.

I think the better think for him to have done would have been to live and be alone for a decent interval - and then wait a while before making any relationship public and serious. That would have been healthy for him personally and also would have given her time to get used to the idea of being apart.

Sssloou · 10/08/2020 08:22

I am not sure if the right questions are will she ever get over it and what can he do to help.

Her emotional recovery should have zero impact on your RS. She may never get over it and he can do nothing to impact that. The question is how and why does this impact your RS? Is he consumed with guilt - does this bring your RS down? Is he divorced?

All he can do is continue to behave with dignity, keep in contact with his DCs and protect himself emotionally by having zero contact - the DCs are grown adults he can liaise directly with them. Also he could have individual counselling to help him come to terms with the end of a v long marriage if the guilt is consuming him?

How has the family event been resolved?

HolyForkinShirt · 10/08/2020 08:43

She is upset and being dumped. You may not technically be the OW. But you swooped in pretty quickly. I can see why she would make that assumption. Sounds like she just needs more time to come to terms with the relationship ending.

Original poster
Mycatandme · 10/08/2020 10:48

@Pacif1cDogwood @sunflowertulips are you now able to be civil to your XHs. Can you put a brave face on for sake of DCs? I have done this for my XH and DCs almost from start although I was heartbroken at the time.

OP posts:
BeChuille · 10/08/2020 11:22

If some manage to be serenely calm that is to their credit, but years ago, before kids, i was dumped before my 30th. We had a lot of mutual friends. His expectation that I act like nothing had happened was such an abuse. I stupidly hid the pain and colluded with his narrative that I was cool with his disgraceful treatment of me. Dumped me with a character assassination and then socialised with my friends, came over to my house to see my flatmates. He was outrageous. I regret buckling to the demand to hide my pain to deflect away from his bad behavior. I always regret it.

Pacif1cDogwood · 10/08/2020 15:53

Yes, I have always been civil - I have no desire to engage with him at his level (he was the one who cheated and when it came to light started shouting/swearing... Hmm).

I wonder wether your partner now is agonising over his relationship with his XW the way you are? What is his take on the situation with her? What is HE doing to improve things?
While this situation obviously impacts on you, it really is not yours to solve.

Original poster
Mycatandme · 10/08/2020 15:59

@BeChuille - so you regret behaving calmly and if you could go back would do it differently and been more angry?

OP posts:
Original poster
Mycatandme · 10/08/2020 16:02

Anyway I guess I had hoped to hear from XWs about anything that might have helped make it easier.

OP posts:
Pacif1cDogwood · 10/08/2020 16:09

I don't think there is anything the new woman can do to make it easier for the abandoned ex-wife.
You are going to have to make your peace with living with that discomfort.

I think the issue may be more that HE has moved on quite quickly and his XW is making her feelings about that know, maybe towards you as an 'easier' target?

BeChuille · 10/08/2020 16:17

@Mycatandme yes, he hurt me so badly with his selfish and cruel behaviour and in order not to cause any inconvenience i tried to mask my pain and humiliation.

I ended up in an abusive relationship. I dont know if i blame the xbf who dumped me with such a full stadium of mutual friends all witnessing everything, but it was a follow on consequence. It took another 7 years to get out of abusive relationship with controlling man. He met me when i was so vulnerable. And because he didnt know any of the same people, i showed that vulnerability and it didnt turn him off.
I should have been able to feel what i felt openly even though i had friends in common with xbf.

If i could go back in time i would say no, you cannot come to my house to socialise with flatmates, are you f*ing serious.

MarshaBradyo · 10/08/2020 16:19

Well it’s not going to be easy for her.

Original poster
Mycatandme · 10/08/2020 16:21

@Pacif1cDogwood - he can’t face years of her insisting that children must choose whether he goes or she does. Saying that the children must never meet me. I know I don’t want all this hassle.

OP posts:
NebbiaZanzare · 10/08/2020 16:30

Anyway I guess I had hoped to hear from XWs about anything that might have helped make it easier.

Not an XW, just an XD, but I don't think there was anything anybody could have said to or done about my mum to "make it easier". She broke into a million pieces in her 40s, the day dad left. That was the mid 80s

My sister says that since learning of our father's death a few years ago a change started, and recently she's been more similar to the mum we used to have. Time will tell if that'll last, but possibly not much time cos she is dealing with a significant illness. I hope she finally does get some peace. At least one of them getting some would be better than nothing.

I think what my father & his now widow didn't factor in is that we all get to make our own choices, but they don't include our preferences in terms of other people's reactions to those choices. Nor how long they will last. And no amount of wishing it were different will make it so if the other person feels (justifiably or not, depending individual opinion) destroyed, abandoned and angry.

Personally, having lived through that kind of dynamic on the child side of the equation, I'd run a million miles at warp speed nine from anybody lugging similar looking baggage into the latter part of my adult life.

billy1966 · 10/08/2020 16:51

OP,

Think long and very, very hard about whether you wish to be involved with this shit show.
Because a shit show it is.

Step motherhood is the most thankful job from what I read on here.
The women are largely sainted 😁doing a really thankless job.

Do not underestimate how awful it is having an exwife who loathes you always trying to cause trouble and making things more difficult.

This is his baggage.
Whatever the truth, think long and hard about getting in the middle of it.

I may be biased having 4 children, but I really would have zero interest in picking up after a partners children.

Best case scenario....never move in with him.
Never share a home.
Stay in the background for years until the children are adults at least.

Never expect a happy endingFlowers

BeChuille · 10/08/2020 16:53

@NebbiaZanzare yes, true, we do not get to choose other people's reactions.

My advice to @Mycatandme would be to get her bf to say to his xw 'i hurt you. I am sorry'.
He may think fuck that, but it could speed up her process. She doesnt want to be treated like her pain matters to nobody. Acknowledge it.

billy1966 · 10/08/2020 16:59

thankless job!

RantyAnty · 10/08/2020 17:02

How old are his children?

PiataMaiNei · 10/08/2020 17:02

Three months is fuck all really. I would've been very cautious about getting into a relationship with someone so fresh from a break up, because stuff like this is par for the course.

Sssloou · 10/08/2020 17:55

She has tried to get children family and friends to cut contact so he must choose between a new relationship or the people he loves.

Why does he have to choose between the people he loves and a new RS rather than the people he loves and abandoning/divorcing her? Is the issue specifically that he is in a RS or that he has left?

Original poster
Mycatandme · 10/08/2020 18:33

Thank you all - your experiences are really helpful and useful. Our children are all young adults. We met three months after they spilt and have been together a year. We don’t live together, it’s something we thought about after my youngest leaves home. His children don’t live with him but they visit, life events are things like engagements, weddings, big birthdays. I’m not included but don’t worry about that. We’d like to have a normal life together in a year or two.

OP posts:
Original poster
Mycatandme · 10/08/2020 18:40

@Sssloou - the issue is (I think) she has lost her comfortable lifestyle and her status, she wasn’t very happy with him but wanted everything that went with their marriage if that makes sense.

OP posts:
Totickleamockingbird · 10/08/2020 18:46

How old are you OP? What is her age and your DP’s age?

JamieLeeCurtains · 10/08/2020 19:27

[quote Mycatandme]@Sssloou - the issue is (I think) she has lost her comfortable lifestyle and her status, she wasn’t very happy with him but wanted everything that went with their marriage if that makes sense.[/quote]
That's a terribly reductionist argument, OP.

You're not even acknowledging the emotional pain she is displaying, which is the thing you are complaining about really, isn't it?

Are the DC still only 18/19? Trying to understand this (as an ExW).

Sssloou · 10/08/2020 19:32

I 100% agree JamieLee and beyond that no acknowledgement that his xW was an equal contributor to their families comfortable lifestyle and status.