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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:
Original poster
Mycatandme · 11/08/2020 07:50

@JamieLeeCurtains so yes good point they definitely see mum as home and not dad even though I guess they could have chosen either.

OP posts:
litterbird · 11/08/2020 07:57

Buckle up for a stormy ride of a lifetime. Same thing happened to a good friend of mine. Met DP 3 months after leaving wife and kids. 4 years on my friend is still reeling from the fallout of the EXW. She is digging her heels in just like your partners ex. Its causing my friend a lot of anxiety and stress and truth be told she is not happy and wishes she did not jump into a relationship with someone just out of a long marriage. 4 years on there are still huge issues and still she can hear her scream down the phone....still court cases going on and on regarding the child from the marriage. Its a total mess still to this day. I would either accept your life as it is as it may not improve or head off out and find someone 1 year past the divorce papers being signed. It will make life easier for you.

MaybeDoctor · 11/08/2020 08:10

@PamDemic

I think it's really soon OP for the wife to be over a marriage that presumably lasted many many years. It's only 15 months! Of course she's nowhere near moved on.

You can see her perspective can't you? She raised children with this man, lived with him, maybe supported him, and suddenly at age 50 she's facing a very different future. While he's moved on. And yes, her finances may be impacted, but why shouldn't she be upset about that? Her whole world has flipped upside down.

She may feel angry, betrayed, unbearably sad. She is grieving her marriage and her future . you are expecting too much too soon.

Completely agree - just because you were able to be amicable fairly quickly doesn’t mean that everyone can process things in the same way.

Speaking personally, I hate the whole ‘move on’ narrative. We promise ‘till death do us part’, but are expected to be over it in months just because it’s convenient for someone else?

Also, you are only getting his side of the story.

Original poster
Mycatandme · 11/08/2020 08:11

@RhiantheMunter thank you for saying that he was entitled to move on after three months. I know this was too soon but this was three months after the complete finalisation of everything which had taken two or three years before that. I’ve been asked how we met, it was through an outdoorsy hobby we both do. This is a hobby they did for a few years and stopped, he wanted them both to start and do it together but she didn’t want to do it again. Probably makes things worse that it’s something we really enjoy doing together.

OP posts:
PiataMaiNei · 11/08/2020 08:20

[quote Mycatandme]@RhiantheMunter thank you for saying that he was entitled to move on after three months. I know this was too soon but this was three months after the complete finalisation of everything which had taken two or three years before that. I’ve been asked how we met, it was through an outdoorsy hobby we both do. This is a hobby they did for a few years and stopped, he wanted them both to start and do it together but she didn’t want to do it again. Probably makes things worse that it’s something we really enjoy doing together.[/quote]
You said upthread you met three months after he moved out. That isn't two or three years after the complete finalisation of everything.

MaybeDoctor · 11/08/2020 08:26

I also think it is very easy to paint a mother of now adult children as a lazy woman who wanted to stay at home while her children were young.

The fact is that before the late 1990s/early 2000s (huge investment under New Labour) childcare was very patchy, loosely regulated and the quality was highly variable. Some local authorities had invested in nurseries, many had not. Some places had good day nurseries or playschemes, others did not. Just because some mothers managed to return to work during that period it doesn’t mean that everyone should have done, as the infrastructure was still emerging.

If she had 2 or 3 children with an age gap it might have been very tricky to keep a career going - easy for him now to rewrite history and say that he wanted her to work.

Original poster
Mycatandme · 11/08/2020 08:57

@MaybeDoctor can I ask if you are mid fifties? Are you talking from personal experience?

OP posts:
Original poster
Mycatandme · 11/08/2020 09:33

@PiataMaiNei it’s difficult to make sure I don’t give outing information but that is how long he had been in own home which he couldn’t buy until all the settlements were done.

OP posts:
lilybetsy · 11/08/2020 09:49

I think unfortunately you met too soon after the end of his marriage. There is always going to be emotional practical and financial fallout from the end of such a significant relationship and much more so if one party did not want it to end.

I doubt he has processed and learned from the issues that caused the marriage breakdown, instead he has just replaced the woman in his life with a newer model so he can recreate the honeymoon period and avoid looking too closely at the painful fallout for his wife and children of the breakdown of the marriage. It is (almost) never one persons fault when a marriage breaks down and it takes time and reflection to consider ones own part in it. (And i say that as a divorced woman who left her husband because he was a drug addict. I don't blame myself but there are characteristics that I have that definitely contributed to his decision to take more drugs)

This is unlikely to improve. If you walk away he will replace you quickly I expect, but this in itself a sign that hes hiding from the consequences of his actions ...

Sssloou · 11/08/2020 09:51

Are you sure this thread is about his xW not allowing him to be part of family events - rather than insisting on excluding you?

It seems that his adult, post uni, children with jobs who have their own independent homes and lives visit their DF and have a good RS - why would they exclude him from their events? Has he not been to any events since they separated?

PiataMaiNei · 11/08/2020 09:52

[quote Mycatandme]@PiataMaiNei it’s difficult to make sure I don’t give outing information but that is how long he had been in own home which he couldn’t buy until all the settlements were done.[/quote]
Are you saying it was 3 months after he'd moved out or not? The level of goalpost moving you're engaging in is going to make it difficult for anyone to give useful perspectives.

MaybeDoctor · 11/08/2020 09:56

No, I'm mid-forties and married - but I've seen and experienced the fallout from men moving on very rapidly from the end of a relationship and expecting everyone else to suddenly adjust to their new world view.

Techway · 11/08/2020 10:07

Op, it might just help to provide the background rather than fear outing. The story you have is so common that it could apply to many others.

If you are just 15months into this relationship and his departure was under 2 years ago then it is too soon for his family, I really suspect the children are factors here.

If that's the case he will have to first restore his relationship with them and only then will they feel happy to have Dad's girlfriend included.

The biggest mistake you can make is assume that you and your ex had a similar break up to your dp and his ex wife.

Assume that the hostility is valid and you may then start to jointly solve the issues.

I am speaking as someone who got involved with a man that had been married before and I believed his narrative. The ex wife didn't always behave well so that helped the story BUT I now know he was more at fault.

You mention she felt like they should try to save the marriage so that does suggest she was open to compromise. I say this just so you don't waste years of your life with someone and endure the fallout of conflict he created.

billy1966 · 11/08/2020 11:27

OP,
The difference between you meeting him 3 months after he left his marriage and the marital home, and 3 months after the finalisation of his divorce is absolutely enormous.

You simply can't compare the two.

Also you really can't compare divorces.

Some couples divource amicably because they both feel the marriage died and divorce was beneficial to all.

One party deciding after years that they want out and now wish to conveniently rewite history is vastly different.

Is he really likely to tell you that he worked very hard, .....she worked in the home rearing their family.
He decided he had grown apart from her, so now that the children are almost reared, he decided he would like a fresh start on his own?
Upon reflection,..... he wished she'd also held down a FT job on top of rearing the family...... whilst he was so focused on his big stressful job.....🙄

He's entitled to leave his wife......but it certainly doesn't make him a particularly good man....more like a right selfish bollix.....and his wife has every right to be pissed off.

PamDemic · 11/08/2020 11:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MaybeDoctor · 11/08/2020 12:23

The answer really is that women must be exactly what is wanted by men at every stage of life.

Sexy high-earning twenty-somethings.
Fertile, domestic thirty-somethings.
High earning, have-it-all forty-somethings.
Ready-to-move-over as fifty-somethings.

But if not required to move over for a newer model:

Carers as sixty-somethings.

Keep up, women. Honestly! Hmm

Sssloou · 11/08/2020 12:48

There is quite a bit of inconsistency in your account and timelines and they are significant I think to realistic expectations as to where this situation is in the emotional spectrum for everyone involved - are you able to clarify:

Their children are young adults and still live with her so they can’t cut all contact.

vs

His children live independently they have been to university and have jobs. They’ve both got decent homes but not anything grand.

And

They tried to work things through on their own and with a counsellor before he left. About eighteen months of trying in all.

vs

I know this was too soon but this was three months after the complete finalisation of everything which had taken two or three years before that.

So was the divorce completed 3 years before he left the marital home?

Techway · 11/08/2020 13:15

@MaybeDoctor, scarily accurate for some men I think. You must also add that they must at all stages in life facilitate their hobbies/adventures, be that joining in or just acting as a cheerleader.

Sssloou · 11/08/2020 13:24

Can I also ask if the outdoor hobby they used to enjoy together was club based and if you were part of that club could she be wondering if there may have been something going on before he left the marital home between you?

JamieLeeCurtains · 11/08/2020 13:27

@MaybeDoctor

The answer really is that women must be exactly what is wanted by men at every stage of life.

Sexy high-earning twenty-somethings.
Fertile, domestic thirty-somethings.
High earning, have-it-all forty-somethings.
Ready-to-move-over as fifty-somethings.

But if not required to move over for a newer model:

Carers as sixty-somethings.

Keep up, women. Honestly! Hmm

Oh jesus that's my ExH to a tee. Then he wonders why his adult DC think he's a joke. He can't blame me any more and the last we heard he's blaming his own late-70s parents.
ravenmum · 11/08/2020 13:35

So the story is that they were falling out, say in 2017, they had counselling for 1.5 years, but it became clear in 2018 that the marriage was ending? Then it took him 1.5 more years to actually move out?
And you are saying that things were over in 2018 because that's when they wanted to split up?
Don't know if I have got that right, but as long as he was in the house, things were not over for her. Things were absolutely awful.

Pacif1cDogwood · 11/08/2020 16:05

MaybeDoctor, good grief, that is scarily accurate and pithy! Thanks

MaybeDoctor · 11/08/2020 17:05

I must be on a roll today! Grin

BeChuille · 11/08/2020 17:06

Wow that is so on the nail. Ill happily "move over" at 50.
So glad i wont be caring for my x's mother in my 60s!

OVienna · 11/08/2020 17:34

@MaybeDoctor you've nailed it. 100%.

😡🙄😔

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