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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

So the the grass belonging to the OW wasn't really greener then was it?!

557 replies

jemimathecat · 07/12/2020 12:53

This is light hearted post but I just wanted to hear if there were any stories out there where your partner/spouse went off with the OW and the grass suddenly turned to mud?!!
After being deeply hurt, I now find myself chuckling when I think of the ex (mid 50's) back to changing nappies and sleepless nights and telling his mother that he has no time for himself and cannot BELIEVE how expensive baby formula is!!
Most of his friends are driving sports cars and have grown up kids (like we also do) yet the only thing he's driving is a new double buggy ! LOL!

OP posts:
jessstan1 · 07/12/2020 13:59

I would think there are plenty of middle aged philanderers in the same boat as your ex, op. However, everyone feels like that with a new baby and the feeling doesn't last, he will be pleased again soon. In the meantime I don't blame you for laughing.

Personally I think people are barmy to go through all that again but there's no accounting for taste.

HitthatroadJack · 07/12/2020 14:00

Regardless, it might be time to move on OP, instead of finding alleged misery in your ex's life.

The ultimate revenge is to have such a new life you don't even think about him. Being bitter only hurts you, no one else.

Candyfloss99 · 07/12/2020 14:03

Did he hate being a Dad to your kids too OP? He might like it better now he is older, often the case.

AmICrazyorWhat2 · 07/12/2020 14:06

It sounds as if he’s perhaps more involved in the child rearing this tone around, and realizes how exhausting it is.
I know some lovely older Dads, not all of whom were cheaters- one’s first wife cheated on him. But there’s no denying that they find it exhausting, especially when they hit their 60’s- even though the children are older.

As the OP said, they can’t slow down on the same way their peers can.

ForeverRedSkinhead · 07/12/2020 14:08

I had a different situation , but I feel it's fitting.

My exh paid probably about £400 cs over 10 years for my two , he was always self employed and slippery af whilst spending like crazy on frivolous things to impress the children. I could never match the amount he spent on them for birthdays etc. I struggled in a 30hr week job as that's all I could do with the lack of support around me.

One day my dc told me that their dad has a new baby and that his gf left him and sees the little boy eow. I got a phone call from exh moaning about single parenthood , he gets little to no cs, hardly any time to himself and it's so so hard...he's had to cut his work hours and woe is him.

I didn't know how to react to his thinking I'd be sympathetic towards him. The little boy has my sympathy , but exh? No. Just no.

lostintheday · 07/12/2020 14:12

I heard a guy on the radio who left his wife for OW and was making the broadcast to tell ex-wife he wasn't happy, still loved her and missed her and regretted the whole thing.

Another journalist documented his friend who dumped his wife for a much younger woman, pathetically tried to keep up with her young woman lifestyle, it inevitably broke up. He regretted it, grew up himself and married someone his own age. (his ex wife remarried too).

Oh and my friend had a one night stand with a middle aged man who left his wife, thinking his life would be full of shagging new women ( I think my friend was a ONS outlier for him!) but said instead his life was largely sitting at home alone eating baked beans from a tin.
How could he possibly have imagined there would be scores of women lining up to shag him? Pathetic!

crochetmonkey74 · 07/12/2020 14:17

brilliant OP - it feels so nice to feel vindicated after being treated badly- ignore the people who will line up to give a cheating man they don't know the benefit of the doubt but not you!

A woman's place is in the wrong and all that

ThanksMateThanksMate · 07/12/2020 14:17

Just yesterday I got told the absolute GEM that...
The fiancée of my bastard-cheat of an exH got caught with a secret phone containing messages and meet-up talk with HER exH!
Now you know how it feels ya big arsehole HA!
(I feel better now!)

Oreservoir · 07/12/2020 14:18

I remember going to a campsite in France when dd's school had building work first two weeks of September.
So many 50 something men following toddlers around the play area whilst presumably their much younger wives were preparing dinner. I suggested to my dh that somewhere an amazing 50 year old woman was hopefully enjoying a well deserved social life.

EssentialHummus · 07/12/2020 14:18

It's often greener because it's covered in bullshit OP!

Redannie118 · 07/12/2020 14:18

Now quite OW similar. After 20 years of horrific abuse and cheating i finally found the courage to break up with DH. Within 2 months he was engaged to a woman 17 years younger than him with a small baby( Def not his he had the snip years ago). He paraded them around like trophies, which made me furious aswhen his own kids were babies he wouldnt even hold them. They were married with 4 months. She was vile. Picked on him constantly. Always starting screaming fights. Woukd scream at him in the street. Refused anything to do with his family ( which would have been horrific for him as he was totally ruled by his narc mother) Kids wouldnt go around as they were always having screaming rows. She left one day with no notice. Sent him a message to say her and baby had gone back to babies biodad who was " a real man". Whole sorry mess from start to finish was over in less than a year. Left him a gibbering wreck and 10 years on hes still single. Im married 8 years to wonderful DH. Arf :)

MarshaBradyo · 07/12/2020 14:21

Double buggy - twins or two? If two I guess he kept going after one

AmICrazyorWhat2 · 07/12/2020 14:22

How could he possibly have imagined there would be scores of women lining up to shag him? Pathetic!

🤣🤣. What’s what I meant by being past their sell by dates. I know someone (father of one of DD’s friends) who I’ve heard on the grapevine, isn’t particularly happy in his second marriage. He was horrible to his first wife and had the nerve to say she was too old. ☹️ But, I think it’s slowly dawning on him that despite the Botox and hair plugs, he isn’t such a catch...younger women aren’t necessarily thrilled by a bloke in his mid-50’s with two failed marriages behind him.

Oh dear.

AmICrazyorWhat2 · 07/12/2020 14:22

*That’s

PatriciaPerch · 07/12/2020 14:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

2me2u2u2me · 07/12/2020 14:25

@cardswapping

No RL per se, but on the same train of thought, I can recommend the now dated movie She Devil 1989 wiki link.

Particularly like how the idyllic OW/H life goes wrong when they have to look after the kids.

I expect the writers knew a few RL people...

ohhhh I remember the series, the lives and loves of a she devil with Dennis Waterman and Patricia Hodge, loved it
HitthatroadJack · 07/12/2020 14:27

@crochetmonkey74

brilliant OP - it feels so nice to feel vindicated after being treated badly- ignore the people who will line up to give a cheating man they don't know the benefit of the doubt but not you!

A woman's place is in the wrong and all that

you got that completely wrong.

One day is the news that a newborn is exhausting, and costly. Makes the OP chuckle.

What about if the next news is the ex throwing the best Christmas for his new baby, or the ex is taking his new family to a holiday of a lifetime, or doing something better than he ever did for the OP?

It's only the OP who will get hurt. It really is never a good idea to bitterly follow your ex (or a former friend, or anyone you dislike).

AmICrazyorWhat2 · 07/12/2020 14:28

@PatriciaPerch

My Dad did this. We were teenagers and he was actually really abusive to our Mum. He had affair after affair and one of the women became pregnant and he moved her into our family home! My Mum took us to our Grans. He then had another baby with this lady, then left her for another woman, this woman got pregnant aswell, so he moved her in and the other lady had to move out with her two children. Then he had a few more with this one, had more affairs, they split up, got back together and it went on for ages. He is now abroad somewhere in 60s with yet more small children Shock

he is an absolutely RUBBISH Father aswell

Of course none of his own behaviour was his fault, it was all everyone elses fault. He was also desperate for a son but I don't think he has any contact with either of them Angry

However, my Mum met a really nice man who has been a wonderful partner, Dad and Grandad. She really was the one that got away :)

It amazes me though that women actually tolerate this behavior, they must have terrible esteem. Who on earth would want someone like that ( I don’t mean your Mum, obviously, I mean the affair partners).
RUOKHon · 07/12/2020 14:28

My ex cheated on me with a woman who was a high-end drug dealer. She used to supply all of London clubland with coke, etc. She lured him away from me with freebies and he spent 10 years addicted to ketamine before he ended up on heroin and she left him.

It’s such a bleak story that I can’t even enjoy any schadenfreude from it.

AmICrazyorWhat2 · 07/12/2020 14:28

*self esteem

HitthatroadJack · 07/12/2020 14:30

Are any of the posters actually parents? I assure you that some of us actually enjoy our children! It really is not a curse to have them.

PatriciaPerch · 07/12/2020 14:35

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ZednotZee · 07/12/2020 14:35

My dad was an unrelenting bustard to both myself and my mum.
He had numerous affairs and was physically, financially and emotionally abusive. He left for the OW, fourteen years his junior when I was eight, married her and had two further children when he was forty two and forty five.
I've been NC with him more or less for the past fifteen years as I became a mother and quite frankly he didn't warrant a place in my DC's lives, plus I had a wonderful stepdad who had all but replaced him since I was ten anyway.

So, he turns up on my doorstep three summers ago because the OW has left him (good for her) and now at the grand Old age of 65 with diabetes, a paunch and grey hair he has just lost his very smart second marital home, so zoopla kindly told me and with his half of the proceeds will be lucky to buy a shoebox in his preferred Post code.

To say I am ecstatic would be an understatement

PatriciaPerch · 07/12/2020 14:36

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Lavenderfieldsofprovence · 07/12/2020 14:36

@cardswapping

No RL per se, but on the same train of thought, I can recommend the now dated movie She Devil 1989 wiki link.

Particularly like how the idyllic OW/H life goes wrong when they have to look after the kids.

I expect the writers knew a few RL people...

That was brilliant!