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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:
Scbchl · 07/12/2020 14:37

@RUOKHon that's quite a sad story.

Candyfloss99 · 07/12/2020 14:37

@HitthatroadJack

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.
Indeed. It is a very strange thing for OP to be thinking is awful. I thought OW was going to have cheated on him or bankrupt him not had a child with him! We can only assume he was an awful father and this is her train of thought.
Circusoflove · 07/12/2020 14:37

@HitthatroadJack

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.
Children are marvellous but I wouldn’t want 2 more baby versions of them in my 50s thank you very much.
UnholyConfessions · 07/12/2020 14:41

Mine had full blown breakdown. I don’t usually revel in someone else’s mental health difficulties but in this instance the ex left DC suicidal after he abandoned us and never saw us again and here we are 3 yrs later still picking up those pieces.

The ex hasn’t suffered enough for what he did.

Blimeyoreilly2020 · 07/12/2020 14:43

DH & I v much love our kids - but there’s no way we’d manage to muster the sheer energy required to parent babies/young children well now - and we thought of dh as an old father when we started - he was late 30s😆....we both agree it would be tortuous! (I’m 40s, he’s 50s)

AmICrazyorWhat2 · 07/12/2020 14:43

[quote PatriciaPerch]@AmICrazyorWhat2 they did have terrible self esteem :( My Mum was very young and did what was expected of her at the time. He punched her for having a miscarriage for example and my Mums parents encouraged her stay as 'he was just upset' and then I think he just wore her down over time. I remember she used to buy clothes on tab at the village shop and hide them for example. He was very controlling in all sorts of ways which I don't really want to fully go into.

The woman he moved in with us was very fragile in alot of ways, had had trauma in her life, was much younger than him. He was horrible to her :(

Then the next one had MH issues, quite obvious tbh even to me as a teenager and the cycle just began again.

I became estranged from him in my very early 20s because his behaviour was awful to everyone in his immediate family. I'd had a son before one of his was born (he was born a few weeks after) and he came to the hospital to see me and wouldn't hold the baby and he said to me 'you have made an absolute fool out of me' God this is terribly outing :( but I just started to realise he wasn't normal and he added nothing to my life just took stuff away (and I had a shit load of therapy)

Of course he can charm the birds out of the trees as far as anyone outside our experience is concerned but I gave up being bothered about that a long time ago.[/quote]
Wow. So glad your Mum found happiness.💐

likeamillpond · 07/12/2020 14:44

Sadly OP you're looking at it from a female perspective.
From his sad, mid age crisis point of view, he has fared well.
He has managed to score humself a much youngeeger wife AND fathered a child.

He will imagine that in the eyes of other older men he will be enviedcand have gained status.
In the meantime, in the real world, his life has turned to snot.
But he won't be able to see it because he's not thinking with his head.

CaMePlaitPas · 07/12/2020 14:46

@PatriciaPerch I am sorry you have had the misfortune of knowing such a disgraceful waste of oxygen who even has the audacity to call himself your father. Such a traumatic story, I hope your Mum, you and your children are OK x

LimitIsUp · 07/12/2020 14:49

"Children are marvellous but I wouldn’t want 2 more baby versions of them in my 50s thank you very much."

Spot on Grin

lostintheday · 07/12/2020 14:49

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

I had my kids late in life and I totally get what OP means. I would heartily recommend having kids early, so they grow up and go away when you are still relatively young in your 40's and are free to start a whole lovely new phase of life. I love my kids but I do look with envy at peers whose kids have grown and have freedom again at this mid stage of life.

ImInStealthMode · 07/12/2020 14:52

He didn't cheat with her but I must say I was absolutely delighted to hear recently that my EXH had split up with the hot younger woman he got with immediately after we separated. Back living with his Mum at nearly 40 years of age GrinGrin

(Meanwhile she's doing great according to mutual friends. I hold no grudge against her, I'm pleased that she's finally seen the light and got rid of the nasty narc).

TizzDeSeason · 07/12/2020 14:52

Not me, but my best friend’s husband walked on my friend - a beautiful, professional woman in her 40s, dedicated stepmother to his teenage son from a first marriage and mother to their 3 yr old child ....for a 22 yr old.

He left the family home and set himself up in a luxury apartment with his young OW. It was so expensive - as were all the luxuries the sad git showered her with to impress her - that he ‘couldn’t afford child maintenance’.

The 22 yr old left him 6 months after the divorce came through. He was devastated , massively in debt and had a breakdown. I wouldn’t wish poor mental health on anyone, but my God did the guy bring it on himself....

20shadesofgreen · 07/12/2020 14:52

Sadly OP you're looking at it from a female perspective

I think most like the OP is looking at this from the way that she gets to make peace with the situation which is judging him with her own values not those imposed on her by men or really anyone who would find her Ex’s behaviour is tolerable.

lostintheday · 07/12/2020 14:52

He will imagine that in the eyes of other older men he will be enviedcand have gained status

I really think that 50 year old men, who've raised their families, do not look at other 50 year old man and think 'envy - he's got a new born!'

crochetmonkey74 · 07/12/2020 14:53

It really is never a good idea to bitterly follow your ex

This is not what she is doing- but with children, you obviously will know what is going on with them, and when you've been treated terribly I should think it makes you smirk when things don't work out the way they wanted- nothing to do with bitterness or as others have said, not liking children- it's the contrast between what they were expecting and how reality bites

LemmysAceCard · 07/12/2020 14:57

@lostintheday

He will imagine that in the eyes of other older men he will be enviedcand have gained status

I really think that 50 year old men, who've raised their families, do not look at other 50 year old man and think 'envy - he's got a new born!'

You have read it wrong, in his head he is thinking other men in their 50's are jealous at his younger model and produced a baby where as in reality other men in their 50's are glad not to be changing nappies at their age.
ShizeItsWeegie · 07/12/2020 14:58

My ex tried to move OW and her 9yo son in with us and expected me to go home to my folks. you can imagine how that went! He buggered off tomove in with her and her husband moved out and is now married to a nice lady.

Within six weeks I heard from a friend that knew us both that he was speaking to her like crap. Six weeks later again and he was back asking to home. Somehow I managed to resist hi! : ) Haha.

He left her soon after and moved into a renter. He's still there nearly twenty years later and he is now single. He was in a relationship briefly and moved to Australia but she soon copped on to him too.

I married DH and he is a decent sort. At the time I was in a state over it all but now I wouldn't piss on him if he was alight. He just joins the ranks of men that are abusive, lazy, difficult, entitled arseholes. What a cock!

PatriciaPerch · 07/12/2020 14:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NiceLegsShameAboutTheFace · 07/12/2020 15:02

Ah fuck your ex's struggles, OP. Who gives a shit?

And yes, I'm generally a kind person Smile

likeamillpond · 07/12/2020 15:02

@lostintheday

He will imagine that in the eyes of other older men he will be enviedcand have gained status

I really think that 50 year old men, who've raised their families, do not look at other 50 year old man and think 'envy - he's got a new born!'

But they will envy him having a younger wife. I remember years ago eavesdropping on a group of men talking about a mate who'd dumped his wife for a 23 yrs old. Hi wife was stunning and the 23 yr old really quite plain (friends daughter). The men were all Good for him And Never knew he had it in him. All said in tones if sickening admiration.

The fact he ended up living in a one bed flat and was with someone really unremarkable was neither here nor there.
She was YOUNG .

Really quite depressing.

Shetoshe · 07/12/2020 15:05

Ha! What a sad sack. Why can't posters let OP have her moment for goodness sake?! I assume the sour guts on here have been in a similar situation as OP's Ex/OW.

His poor DC will be mortified when he rocks up to the school gate looking like their grandad. Sad bastard!

AmICrazyorWhat2 · 07/12/2020 15:06

@likeamillpond. In that case I’d be feeling sorry for the 23 year old.

SchadenfreudePersonified · 07/12/2020 15:08

@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...

The book was written by Faye Weldon - she was ace regarding relationships, and particularly how manipulative and gaslighting men could be.
likeamillpond · 07/12/2020 15:08

@Shetoshe

Ha! What a sad sack. Why can't posters let OP have her moment for goodness sake?! I assume the sour guts on here have been in a similar situation as OP's Ex/OW.

His poor DC will be mortified when he rocks up to the school gate looking like their grandad. Sad bastard!

Well said. Enjoy your freedom op.
GenerallyCoping · 07/12/2020 15:16

One of the 50 year old area directors where I work had an affair with one of his (much younger) staff. His wife also worked for the company so it must have been awful for her as everyone knew what was going on. Anyway, he left his (fabulous) wife for this new woman.

Almost immediately things changed for him. He looked unkempt, stressed, exhausted, took up smoking and became a complete mess. His work deteriorated and rumour has it that he was being performance managed as things had taken a nosedive and he lost the company a substantial sum of money.

He now has a baby with this new woman (she insisted on it) and looks like he hasn’t slept for a year. He left his very comfortable lifestyle for this and a woman who is refusing to return to work after her maternity leave. He had plans to retire early and move to Spain with his wife before all this happened where he could play golf every day. No chance of this happening now because his new partner is very attached to her parents and siblings and wants to move across the road from them.

Everyone thinks he’s an idiot.

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