Ex and Regret

[fejkalove]

Hey,

To give a bit of backstory; we have a 10 month DD together. During the pregnancy, the relationship was pretty toxic. We lived together and had our ups and downs. I was pregnant and hormonal too so not blaming him completely but one day he said he was so scared about not being involved with the baby that he cornered me in a room and tried to through my work laptop out of the window. I tried to move on with the relationship following this, we spent Christmas Day apart (he spent it alone) but one thing led to another and resulted in him kicking me and my oldest DD out of his house overnight (we had moved to his from a different county so this also meant my DD was without a school for numerous weeks/never got to say bye to her school friends).

I admit I left him out after this and was unsure where it would leave us when the baby arrived, but he continued to show up to NCT classes etc despite not knowing where he stood with me. He supported me through the tough ending of my pregnancy and the new arrival and we tried to make things work again (living apart). In October, it became apparent we weren’t happy and I felt brave enough to make the call on ending things. Admittedly I really haven’t addressed this or my feelings since.
He has continued to visit and seems to have sorted himself out, so I decided to try and see where he was at, to which he tells me that he’s moved on and it’s too little too late and how basically it’s all my fault. I now suddenly feel heartbroken and I know it’s absolutely my fault for not doing something sooner. Not sure what the point in this post is but I have nobody to tell (as none of my friends like him/will judge me for being okay until now). I know 5 months is a fair amount of time for him to have found someone else but it hurts like hell that he really did give up on our family.

How do you coparent with someone you have feelings for? Knowing they’re with someone else. I can’t eat or sleep and feel like I’m numb to everything.

Well Gwen, what a lovely thing to say.

Do you get a kick out of coming to an online forum and being so cruel to suffering strangers?

Sorry you seem to be getting an ear bashing on here, don’t know why. All I can say is give it time, that’s all you can do and look after yourself and your children. I hope your parents are supportive.

What an awful comment!! The OP is asking how to move on from an abusive relationship, and you say that! In the real world, parents have to work, and risk being sacked for not being on time. I’m sure the OP would have loved to have given up work to be able to drive her daughter to school, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually possible!!

Well that comment suggests in your eyes this is worse than all the other parents on here who haven’t left their shit situations. It’s an absolute awful comment to make on a strangers post. I’m struggling mentally as you can tell from my OP and now I have to deal with unkind words. Whatever happened to be kind for fuck sake.
You really are a horrible person and I’m glad I don’t know you in real life.

Are you serious! You have dragged your child through your romance dramas and she has suffered quite considerably as a result. You maybe need to stop prioritising your own love life for a little bit and give her some stability.

Paid for childcare ! Just round the corner from school dropped DS off at 7.45am to 8am scrapped into work at 9 to 9.15 ish. They allowed me 15mins grace if late to be made up in lunch break. Thankfully afterwork journey wasn't so bad for traffic.

I think this is good advice OP, it will be difficult to coparent whilst you still have these feelings but consistently reminding yourself of why you left will help take control of them eventually.

This is actually ridiculous. Why are pp badgering this fellow mum?

She made the best choices and decisions she could at different points in time with the knowledge and resources she had. Keeping her job and enrolling her dd in a new school was the best thing she could do. Why risk additional stress and exhaustion during late pregnancy? Run herself to the ground and lose her job before mat leave? Making her unable to emotionally or financially support her children? With the right support and help her dd will know no different and will catch up.

She is now asking how to move forward with the best intentions.

What you're feeling op is natural. You will automatically see the positive side to him especially if he's made positive changes. Good Relationships can often become toxic during pregnancy and once baby comes along. You're yearning for the what could have been. He has shown his true colours and who he is. Yes, you admit to not being in the best place and being toxic yourself. This is not your fault it's a result of accumulated reactions from both of you. Understanding the part you played and how he reacted will open up a whole new world of hurt. Honesty, is often painful. But, once you've sorted through that. You'll see that you've made the right decision. He wasn't right for you. And yes ppl can act in extreme ways when the feel cornered and threaten but what he did was unexcusable. That's only the tip of the iceberg on what he could do. He then blamed you and tried to guilt trip you, because obviously it was you who pushed him to it. Bullshit! He told you and demonstrated who he is. You would end up walking on egg shells around him scared of the next reaction.

Moving forward and on is going to hurt. Take your time. Keep all communication to a minimum and only regarding your baby. Don't reach out to him first. He will keep you hanging. Make small positive changes for yourself and celebrate each and every success. Take time to reflect and keep busy. Allow yourself to have a good fucking cry when you need it. It can help cleanse the excess emotion. You're allowed to feel like shit but don't wallow in it. Think of your beautiful children and be proud of what you have and have achieved. Remind yourself that you are strong, capable and resilient. Because you are. You've got this.

Take some bloody accountability woman. You have a duty of care to your dd . Your decisions had consequences for her education, her emotional well being, her mental health. Posters have rightly called you put on your behaviour and feeling sorry for yourself instead of your dc.

I have taken accountability. This happened a year ago and I’ve taken the time to make sure my children are okay, now it’s time for me to address my feelings.

You have had some negative comments but nobody has said anything untrue it unfair.
This man is abusive and due to your relationship with him your child has suffered - that’s a fact.
Thankfully you are not in a relationship with him now (although I suspect if he was to come crawling back you might let him) so instead of whittering on about missing him you should be celebrating the fact.

I think the way you cope with your lingering romantic feelings towards him is that each time you start to feel yourself thinking in that way, you reflect on the other ways he has made you feel.

How scared were you when he cornered you? How big a problem could he have caused for you at work if he had ruined your work laptop? How scared was your dd hearing rows like this? How confused and sad did he make your dd feel? How angry and let down and scared did you feel when he made you homeless in the middle of the night? How worried are you about the lasting effect this has had on your dd? Every child would be affected by this. If she’s not showing it yet, it does mean she’s ok. It means she’s hiding it from you. How does it make you feel that your dd no longer feels confidence in you, or is so confused she can’t process her upset?

Don’t get sad, get mad. His behaviour has been abusive. You’ve been gaslit into thinking you caused the relationship break-up. You’re still so damaged by him that you can’t see it yet. Other posters are trying to open your eyes. They’re trying to shock you into seeing how disfunctional the situation is.

OK how to co-parent with an abusive ex, limit your contact with him as much as possible - don't have contact in your home, have someone else do drop offs and pick ups if possible if not do it at a neutral place, communication you can have a cheap phone or email address just for this and you only for your shared child. By doing this you will break your trauma bonds with him and any positive feelings about him will go quicker.

In reply to your question, how to co-parent when you have feeling for your ex......you need to frame any/ all thinking about him in terms of 'what is best for the children' and then, what is best for me.

It sounds like him remaining an ex is best for your children and you - so that's sorted.

It is best for your children to have a positive relationship with him. You need to think about how much contact with him will enable this and then try and facilitate this. Then, think about how to limit/ boundary liaising with him to be just about the children.
You need to let him know that you want communication between the two of you to be limited to being about contact and/or the children's needs. You then need to stick to this.
It's a case of letting changes in your behaviour drive changes in your feelings. If you disentangle your relationship in terms of how you act and what you say, your feelings will also become disentangled.