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

How about morelegs emerging into the light?

@Billybagpuss

How about morelegs emerging into the light?

Yes!

I never thought in my whole internet life I’d type: “more legs!!!!”

But here I am.

"MoreLegs is dancing through life with two less legs"? Meaning his useless two legs (as well as his other useless appendage) are no longer 'attached' to her life.

Onwards and upwards sounds a good thread to me and sums up your direction!

Up, up and away, @MoreLegsThanMe….. You’re taking off now!

Thank you x

Mr NM took me away for the weekend. I’ve never been so surprised. He ordered champagne from room service. I was just blown away. Nobody has ever done that for me before. Now we’re back I wonder how I ever deserved it. It was really hard for me not to pay for stuff. I’ve never not paid - usually for everything. He is such a nice man. I genuinely don’t know what he sees in me.

We talked about STBXH and he said the DC and I should have no compunction about blocking him. As he explained, STBXH didn’t even care enough about his DC to offer an explanation or a goodbye. Why should they give him any leeway at all? Ridiculous messages asking what they’d want for Christmas when he can’t even pay towards a uniform…..

I’m going to do it once I have Decree Absolute. That’ll be some kind of closure at least. Once I have my divorce costs from him that’s it. I have no reason to contact him. God forbid any of the DC fall ill or get hurt but if it happens I’ve already decided not to let him know. They wouldn’t want him near them anyway.

I’m still having moments where I miss him desperately but they happen less and less.

DS has made his A level choices and applied to school sixth form. He’s doing mocks this week and next. It won’t really be long before the real thing arrives will it. And STBXH will have no idea about DS’s results or what he goes on to study.

You’re all still keeping me going you know. I come on and rant and rave but you all keep me going.

x

Ridiculous messages asking what they’d want for Christmas when he can’t even pay towards a uniform…..

If I was DC that's what I'd ask him for, payment on my school uniforms. But I like to twist the knife so......

Your new man sounds amazing. You know why you think you don’t deserve it? You were conditioned to think you didn’t deserve anything from a very young age. You miss Shitforbrains because you are basically recovering from a Stockholm Syndrome. Please allow yourself to be loved and respected. This can also mean being occasionally treated and spoiled, but mostly it means being listened to, being heard and valued. You might just come out of this feeling like a person who knows that they exist from inside themself rather than as a reflection of their (arsehole) reactions to them in that moment. (* this is not a criticism of you at all, Legs. This is a criticism of a man who married a child and emotionally abused and neglected her.)

BTW, the kids should write back “I want you to pay Mum what you owe her in child support and uniform fees, your share of the mortgage and to grow a conscience and to continue to contribute financially like a decent human being.”

What @Justilou1 said x10. Definitely this.

The kids should write and say don't bother with Christmas preesents this year just pay some money towards school uniform as they know mom is struggling with costs on her own.

Merry Christmas Dad.

I've just caught up with thread 3!!! You are doing amazingly well!

Definitely what Justilou said

Dear MoreLegs it's a measure of how STBXH behaved towards you all those years that you are genuinely surprised that someone would want to treat you well and think that you don't deserve it. Well, you most definitely do deserve it and I hope, as time goes by and you heal, that you will come to realise it too.

You and the DC will go from strength to strength. STBXH will just go on behaving selfishly and unreliably, and making the same mistakes for the rest of his days.

Thank you so much x

As ever, you’re all so wise. I’d like nothing better than for the DC to ask for uniform costs as a Christmas present, but it wouldn’t be fair to ask them to do it. He might even guess it came from me….

@Justilou1 you and Mr NM have both mentioned Stockholm Syndrome. I laughed it off when he said it. My life wasn’t that bad. But now you’ve named it too…..he also suggested PTSD and again I shrugged it off. Things like that don’t happen to me, or maybe they have and I just can’t see it?

I wonder if STBXH will ask again about Christmas. I can’t imagine a parcel full of presents will arrive. He never bought nor wrapped presents for the DC before so why should he start now. If he did send something she’d probably do it. The lumpy brown mass of birthday cake back in March springs to mind… I imagine he’ll just put some cash in a cheap card and consider his Christmas contribution duly made.

Mr NM is also being more supportive than I could have even imagined. He seems to know when to talk and when to listen. It’s fair to say he has a very low view of STBXH. I am staying over with him on Sunday and Monday night next week, and then again next weekend. I’m being very careful not to jump in too quickly. I’m still at the stage of finding it hard to believe what he sees in me. He’s very generous with time and money and I find that hardest of all. With STBXH there were never really presents for me at birthdays/Christmas. He always said he couldn’t afford it. We never once spent a night in a hotel etc. I’ve already spent more time away with Mr NM in the few months I’ve known him than I did in thirty-eight years with STBXH. I am careful to ask the DC every time if they are happy for me to stay overnight. If ever they’re not, then I won’t, but so far they are absolutely fine with it. I suppose it shows the level of their maturity.

Can I ask your thoughts on when would be best to ask STBXH for my costs? I plan to wait for Decree Absolute then invoice him. No doubt he’ll say he can’t pay in full/at once/ever but if that’s the case I’ll apply for a CCJ. See how that goes down at the Beautiful Home. She certainly won’t like it and it would make renting in the future very hard with that around his neck wouldn’t it…

Reading that back I sound very vindictive I think. Maybe I am. Rather that than an amoral cheating lying bastard though…..

x

That's not vindictive at all, it's realistic!

I'm so pleased Mr NM is a good one. He sounds lovely.

AFAIK you ask for costs in the initial divorce petition.

My solicitor didn't tick the box, although I had wanted to claim costs. She said it was a mistake, and didn't charge for the actual divorce, only for the settlement negotiations.

In the end, I was glad she hadn't, it would just have enraged him. When we did agree a settlement, my solicitor managed to get him to cough up £500 as part of it.

Yes tick the claim for costs box!!!
I also named the other woman in my divorce petition.
Our financial settlement was made, then I filed for the absolute. It's a ballsache, but necessary!
3 years on things are much rosier in my garden.

Thank you x

Yes I have an Order for costs in full (yay).

Today a letter came from our mobile provider. I assumed it was for me so just opened it. Soon realised it was for STBXH to remind him his contract is nearly up and that his current deal has him paying £61.00 per month. Twice what he provides for his DC.

I was so angry seeing that in front of me. He pays more for his fucking phone than he does for his children. I just find it impossible to take in.

What a bloody fool I’ve been all these years. I can’t believe my own stupidity sometimes. If I wish anything it’s that I didn’t forgive him the first time.

The pair of them are just skanks. He’s completely morally bankrupt isn’t he.

As you can tell I’ve spent much of today mulling over his letter…

Need to just let it wash over me but it’s so so hard…

x

Yes, lovely, he's a shameless waste of space. As is the charmer he's taken up with - two of a kind, really.

But don't blame yourself. He's the one at fault. He's the one who's let his entire family down. He's the one who has always, and will always, put himself and his grubby, selfish desires first and foremost.

You did the best you had, with the knowledge you had, and the proof of how well you managed is the marvellous job you did in bringing up your DC.

Now you know better and he'll never be able to deceive you again. And there's nothing wrong with being angry. You're entitled to be. Just make sure it's directed at him, not you.

You'll be ok MoreLegs. I doubt there's much you can't do if you put your mind to it.

Oh god I hate saying this, in his defence (arggghhh) he will have been tied into that contract and would have had to pay or default to break it.

The silent high ground is still the best way to go, although you’d like to think now it’s ending he’d do the right thing, but he won’t and there’s no point calling him out on it.

I am serious about the PTSD @MoreLegsThanMe. It’s a logical response to it all. Some counselling would be really helpful. (I know the signs from personal experience, btw.)

I am so very pleased you are seeing him for what he is @MoreLegsThanMe and no longer needing to project the mirage of Ex as a good father, provider and husband. NM is definitely a good contrast. Your kids are psychologically and emotionally sound without him in their lives. You are doing great things without his input as a family. His Christmas present inquiry was just empty words, just like every promise he ever made prior to this. He is insubstantial and once you are legally free of him (and hopefully get the finances sorted) will be insubstantial like he is to the kids.
The past is a country that you can never return to. Don’t even update your passport for that particular journey. Your future offers many adventures though. Real ones this time - not empty promises.

Thank you x

I wrote a really long post and somehow deleted it all! I’ll update properly tomorrow.

I’m so annoyed with myself. I don’t even know how I managed to lose it…

x

@MoreLegsThanMe

It's really annoying when that happens! Especially if, like me, you do something daft like trying to edit out the spelling howlers.

I've started highlighting and copying the text of what I've already typed and pasting it into a blank email so it's totally retrievable. There may be an easier way to do this - but it works!! 🌹

I’ll try again

So Wednesday marks exactly ten months since STBXH and I last spoke. I can barely remember the sound of his voice to be honest.

Next month I can apply for Decree Absolute. I don't know how I feel about it. There’s a sense if relief that it’ll all be over but also a sense of real sadness and regret that it’ll all be over, if it’s possible to think two such different thoughts at once.

Throughout all this the only thing I’ve ever really cared and worried about is that the DC were/are okay. Taking stock now I really think that they are. I hope I haven’t forced DD4 and DS to grow up too quickly, but they’ve been amazingly mature and don’t seem affected at all. I wish he could see how little they seem to be bothered by him.

@Billybagpuss I take your point about his phone contract of course. When it ends though he’ll just upgrade it and pay even more for a phone which this time will mean it costs more than he contributes to his DC. It’s a matter for him and his conscience though isn’t it. If he even has one.

I am so lucky to have found Mr NM. I’m still coming to terms with how different he used to STBXH. He is taking me away for the weekend again. We are staying by the seaside and we’ll just go out and walk and walk. When we go back to the hotel we’ll watch a film on the iPad and drink wine. It’s just so lovely to be taken care of like that. It’s probably quite a normal thing that normal people do, but until I met him I had never been away for a weekend, not ever.

He’d be very easy to fall for but I’m just accepting it for what it is. It’s probably closer to what a real real relationship is than what I’ve had throughout all those years.

I wish STBXH knew about him and knew how different he is. I wi set if he’d feel inadequate or guilty if he did. He deserves to.

@CatChant you’re so right that he’ll never be able to lie to me ever again. I wonder if he’s lying to her. It’s all he knows really and can someone ever change after living virtually all their adult life telling lies??

And I love the passport analogy @Justilou1. My RL passport has expired and it’ll be another fresh start once that’s renewed. I’ll never use it to go on holiday with a liar and cheat, ever again. That sounds good doesn’t it.

I’m starting to feel stronger as time goes by. I won’t ever forgive him this time though. Once was enough. Not forgiving keeps me strong.

I’m also realising that I genuinely feel hate towards the pair of them for this. No second chances ever.

x