More Legs chapter three - the one where there’s a little light at the end of the tunnel

[MoreLegsThanMe]

New thread. Can’t believe I’ve got to three.

It’s a good chance I think that they’ll stick together, happy or not. They’ve given away absolutely everything (although she still sees her children) so they do need each other don’t they.

I have my fingers crossed for the marriage certificate tomorrow. I really believe he thinks I wouldn’t go ahead with it. I also think it might prompt a flurry of messages asking what he’s supposed to do. Bloody pay a solicitor that’s what you can do.

I think of the two of us I will come out the other side better than him. I have the support of his family, all the DC, and you wonderful women. He has her and that’s it. I don’t know about her family and I’m sure as can be that the pair of them have created yet another lie as the backstory to how they met. Can’t exactly tell the truth can they. ANC in a few short years he’ll be 70. Yuk.

It still doesn’t feel like I’ll be better off at the end but I’m hoping that feeling will come.

If anyone knows how to link this thread to the old one can you let me know please?

x

My BFF's happy life was also blown apart by cheating. She was absolutely destroyed and left with 2 small children to raise whilst he waltzed off into the sunset with his childless slut to live a carefree life as an EOW Disney Dad. Now, 20+ years later BFF is still single and dates if she feels like it but takes no shit from any man, owns her own home (mortgage free) and her 2 DC are grown in to lovely adults. She is loving life. She now 'blesses' the OW for taking him off her hands as she realized some years after he left how downtrodden and unhappy she really was.

He, on the other hand, appears to be pretty unhappy 'within himself' and has a huge mortgage and a struggling business that both of them are at hammer and tongs. He deals with it by shouting and verbally abusing the OW (now his wife).

Who was the real 'winner'? The answer is obvious. And you'll feel the same in time. You'll look at OW and laugh at her. Because she will be the one to deal with his bullshit and wipe his arse in his old age. Unless of course, she dumps him for a better offer.

@MoreLegsThanMe - You need to learn to trust yourself before you consider trusting anyone else. I think you lived your life in a romantic haze of how life “should” be. I think you’re angry that this bubble has been burst. You need to open yourself up to the beauty that is ACTUALLY there in life around you and start feeling and trusting that. The real world stuff, not the storybook version of your life. Life isn’t in your head, you don’t want to dream what’s left of it by, or spend it wrapped up on resentment or fear. You said that you had some good friends. Try and see more of them and open yourself up to joy and embrace being loved in that way. Feel the version of you that they love and respect and know.

Hi Legs, more blips......

I'm sorry the friendship wasn't as expected but your boundaries have grown and you know what you don't want now.

Any upsets are going to throw you back to to thoughts of the the life you thought you should have had, and that means him. Life will throw these blips at you but you will learn to dust yourself down and keep on, keeping on.

New experiences are there for the taking, try to get out as much as possible and from that hopefully your trust will recover in others.

What about the dog idea you had, any more thoughts, something small and manageable that gets you out even on your own.

Friendships may come and go but animals never seem to let you down, they can be great stress busters.

Keep well

Hello MoreLegs. What a shame about D but good for you to have reacted so appropriately. You have been through too much this year to be sucked into someone else's crisis. It would be a bit like reaching the summit of Everest and being asked to go back and help another person reach the top too. You don't have the reserves of energy to spare for any more drama after using them all this time to cope yourself (even if you have done so magnificently).

I think during the blips it's all too easy to imagine STBXH and OW are leading some sort of charmed life. I really doubt that bears any relation to reality. Neither of them can really trust the other for a start. If they last it will be because they can't find anyone else to cling to. You, however, have dignity, independence, self-respect, intelligence and the unqualified support of all your lovely DC.

Oh and by the way, definitely send the bill for half DS's uniform to STBXH. It's not going cap in hand. You and DS are entitled to that money and as far as asking him to exercise some parental responsibility goes, it really is a drop in the ocean of the many obligations he's shuffled onto you.

How's the garden going? Mine is looking rather higgledy-piggledy because I'm lurking indoors away from the heatwave but it still gives me such pleasure to look out at all that lovely lush greenery. I'm sure my family must be sick of me banging on about how lucky we've been to have the garden throughout the pandemic but every time I look at it I'm grateful.

Take care MoreLegs. Keep on being you. Keep on being marvellous.

Thank you x

If I’m jealous of them at all it’s because they have each other; someone to sleep with, be close to, I can’t put into words how lonely and awful I find the nights. And then I think Blow-it-up Bob and Fanny Fishwife have each other. Scummy cheaters who’ve blown apart two families. I’ve never done anything bad to anyone and yet here I am with a snoring farting cat for company.

I’m trying to keep the garden decent but I wouldn’t call it beautiful! My dad loved his garden and would happily spend whole days out there. I think I’ve got this from him.

I try to keep the house and garden so that if, just if, he turned up one day, he’d be taken aback by how well I was managing. I am doing everything without him. He’s literally superfluous isn’t he.

The only communication the DC have had are his ridiculous copy and paste jobs - “hope you’re fit and well”, “are you relaxing in this lovely weather”. It’s just not how you talk to your own bloody children is it. DD4 and DS just delete without even reading them.

DD4 had an interview today for a well-known northern bakery chain. It would be so good for her to have things like this to put on her personal statement etc. So it’s 🤞🏻🤞🏻.

Thank you all so much again for your kindness. What’d I do without you?

x

Ah MoreLegs, I don't underestimate the loneliness but you're so much much better off snuggled up to a snoring, farting cat than a snoring, farting, scummy cheater who can't even communicate with his own DC.

Those messages are embarrassing. You would think he was texting an acquaintance or a colleague, not his own children. But what can one expect of a man who abandoned them without a backward glance to follow his inflatable dick. He is, as you so rightly say, utterly superfluous.

I'm sure the garden is going to be beautiful. You sound well and truly bitten by the bug and it's obviously in your genes too. I've been watching Monty Don's garden documentaries on YouTube - Japanese gardens, Italian gardens, the history of the British garden - and they are fascinating and so inspirational. I learnt gardening from his lovely book The Weekend Gardener years ago when I first had a small town garden.

Best of luck to DD4 with the bakery job. My DD worked for one in her gap year. Nice colleagues and she saved a lot of her wages for university but in hot weather she said the temperatures in the shop could be truly insufferable.

Dear MoreLegs it is no hardship to chat to a good, kind person. And if we can help a little that's wonderful. But I think you do pretty damn well all by yourself.

Hope you can get a decent night's sleep tonight. It's a lot cooler where I am. Fingers crossed it is for you too. Take care, lovely.

Those are the sorts of messages blokes send to younger people on Instagram when they’re trying not to appear old and creepy. Shows that he lived all that time amongst them and doesn’t know a single thing about who they are.

@MoreLegsThanMe - it’s quite usual to have periods of self doubt and self pity. I had those MUCH more when I was married!

Someone suggested I should book a massage in, once a month, as the sense of touch is so important. It’s not my kind of thing, but I understood the concept. Is that something you’d consider?

I’m a firm believer that you should ONLY have people in your life who ADD something to it.

I’ve got 2 close friends who have supported me through my divorce who are both having a terrible time… marital issues and cancer. It kicked off with them both in the same week, and I learnt that I still have very little to give to others atm. I was completely wrung out.

And as for my STBEX…? I gather his gf is asking around some of our mutual friends as to how she can ‘help’ him with his anger management issues. It didn’t take him long to show his true colours to her.

It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that the cracks will start to show in your STBEXs relationship. It’s just patience…

You, my lovely kind, upright, intelligent, humorous and wonderful mum will be ok… you really will.

Thank you x

I was scrolling my phone earlier looking for a specific photo and kept coming across photos of him and the DC on holiday etc. So totally natural but what he was hiding underneath….I deleted everything with him in it.

You’re all so right about the messages. I actually pity him for his cluelessness. I just never saw that he had/has so little emotional intelligence.

I’m just so glad for the DC that they are all still totally themselves.

I’m not quite sure who I am at the moment. I feel very wary of people in general. If he could lie to me, so could anyone. Does that make sense?

Im obviously carrying on as normal. Nobody knows how I feel (except you lovely women) but it gets hard to keep this game face on. At the beginning I was so frightened if I just went out anywhere I’d just collapse, physically and mentally. How he doesn’t even try with the DC is still like twisting the knife. He claims he has so much to tell them but he doesn’t even contact them properly.

I still sometimes think this is a dream and I’ll wake up.

Bless you all for helping. In a way it’s a good thing you’re all so far away - if I met any of you in person I think that collapse would happen.

I guess I’m just having a shitty blip time. It’ll pass won’t it…

x

I think the feeling of 'distrustfulness' is pretty normal. The one person you're supposed to be able to trust above all others has proven to be completely untrustworthy. That would knock most of us for a loop. And as far as your current feelings, maybe a dose of skepticism will be a good thing for you. After my divorce (and counseling) I realized I was much too trusting in the first place. I accepted people exactly as they presented themselves no questions asked, and as a result I was hurt more than I really needed to be. I learnt that some skepticism and a wee bit of 'prove yourself to me' doesn't make me a 'bad' person. It makes me a wise and cautious one.

You need to learn to do a little photoshopping. Then instead of deleting the pictures you could 'shop him out or put a pig head in place of his.

I know it's hard to see your children treated so shabbily, but your DC have 'got this' when it comes to him. Not to say it hasn't hurt them, but I think perhaps they've known him better all along than you realize. His behaviour may be more of a confirmation of what they always suspected about him, whereas with you it was a total shock.

Oh my dear MoreLegs it will pass, it really will. It's just a bit of a bad patch and no wonder - you've been through a lot recently.

I also think it's completely normal to feel wary about other people after such a betrayal by the person who was always meant to be loyal to you. It would leave anyone questioning their own judgement. But I'm also sure STBXH can be very charming and excellent company when he chooses so it's very understandable that you didn't see the moral vacuum. I doubt many people would before he chose to let the mask slip himself.

And it's not a bad thing to be cautious in your dealings with others. I think quite a good rule is to look at what they do rather than what they say. Words are cheap and I am sure we have all run into people who make promises they don't keep.

I am glad for your DC that they have you. It is a measure of the rock solid support you have always provided for them and of STBXH's inadequacies as a parent over the years that his flight has had so little effect on their lives.

Look after yourself, lovely. He isn't worth a hair of your head.

Sleep tight.

I think you need to look at your kids and then start to take the credit for what you have achieved. Who did that? YOU did that! Where was he? Certainly not there for them!!!

It's been a bad week Legs, disapointments and frustrations, sometimes it just piles up. It always does but I'm sure these bad times occured when he was still at home, he can't make things better.

You were the one who always shouldered the hardships I bet, you just felt that you had him helping you but really you didn't. You were doing it all yourself, thats probably why the kids are taking everthing in their stride and think you are ok with shouldering everthing still.

Like we have said you are strong Legs, you just don't want to be strong, you wan't to relax and let someone take over and look after you, we all do at times.

I know I have times like that, but I don't think he's the one who could ever provide that, he was too selfish.

Put it down to a bad week, rest, relax and recouperate and then start again, do something nice, push yourself and don't stop dreaming, you don't know what the future holds.

You are the capable one and that is so tiring, you need a break from that.

Thank you x

Hopefully I’ll read your messages properly tomorrow. How I don’t know, and I’ve had both injections, but I tested +ve today.

Feels like awful flu. Just woke up for a drink. I’ll check back in tomorrow. Sorry for such short nessage m.

x

Oh Legs, sorry to hear that, my family members have just had it and they were really very ill.

Allow your children to understand you need help, explain even without Covid you are going to have periods where you need support and are going to feel depleated whilst you recover.

Take care
xx

Don’t forget to take your paracetamol (and ibuprofen if you think you still feel crap.) Snuggle up and drink lots. You’ll feel better in a day or two. Xxx

May it pass quickly.

Hope you feel better soon Legs

Hope you feel better soon legs x

I hope you feel better soon Legs

Hope you feel better soon

Hope you feel better soon I am sure your lovely children will take care of you x

Sorry to hear this Legs hoping you'll soon feel better

Get well soon dear MoreLegs. I hope it's a mild bout and passes quickly.

How are you feeling legs