Nearly two years on

[MerryXmas78]

Divorce finalised two years next month. Two children under six so ex and I are still in a lot of contact although all done via email. Ex has moved on and is now engaged to the OW and is living with her and her three children. I am tbh really stuck. My self esteem is low after the divorce. Ex was abusive - constant demands for sex, orchestrating how in bed at night, throwing and shouting when in a bad mood and very manipulative especially when having the affair. The OW was married too.
I don’t want to get back with my ex and I am not jealous, I am lost. Starting to really question my self worth and wonder if children would be better off with ex as I am so ‘damaged’ by everything. I love my children and day to day I keep going for them but it should be getting easier at this stage I feel.

I think 2 years is not a long time to process such traumatic events. Some people (especially men 😵‍💫) move on with a speed of light and just live happily ever after with a new woman. But a lot of us women, need a lot longer for the dark clouds to start lifting. Why not trying to shift your mind to ‘gratefulness’ for no longer being with an abusive arsehole?
🫶

I’m recently divorced and feel low due to loss of self esteem and feel damaged and broken.

However I am working on rebuilding myself and improving my sense of self.

It will be a slow process to rebuild your life, but just remember that your children love you and won’t see you as broken.

You know your ex is not a good person, so how could your children be better off with him?

Concentrate on yourself and reach out for professional help if you can. I am certain as soon as you start to feel better about yourself you will know deep in your heart your children deserve to be with you.

It must be very hard for you with two under six. You are deep in the trenches and it’s hard to see the blue sky that may be above.

Best of luck.

Please know that your dcs need you. They would not be better off with their dad. He's focussed on his new wife and her dcs will need space.

You need time to recover from what sounds like an awful marriage. Two years is nothing. Take more time. One foot in front of the other.

It’s taken me many many years to start feeling ‘recovered’ so please be kind to yourself .
I looked after everything , worked , had children fulltime so def to an outsider it would have seemed I was doing well. Inside a different matter .
so I suppose my point is would you be able to allow yourself a few years where it’s okay to feel under par and believe that everything you do will contribute to the ‘future you’
It took the pressure off me to ‘allow’ myself not to feel okay even tho I was ostensibly doing fine .

It is not unusual to feel worse after the separation as you can finally start to acknowledge and process how destructive the dynamic was, only once you are finally safe.

Did you also experience gaslighting, blame being shifted onto you, and your feelings being minimised? If you were undermined, devalued and otherwise psychologically abused this will affect your self-esteem as how you view yourself will have been distorted. It takes time to recover from the impact, and support from an abuse expert and learning about how abuse works/harms you is an important part of recovery from abuse.

You've done so well to get to where you are - I hope you can acknowlege this, as it is not easy to leave an abusive dynamic, and you and your children are much better off for all your efforts to move towards freedom.

Thank you everyone. I did experience huge amounts of gaslighting especially when I had my children and during the affairs.
Ex used to whisper things in my ear at family events and then proceed to show my family how unreasonable I was when in actual fact I just sat silently.
It is hugely traumatic but I can also see that my children and I are now safe in our home albeit with a feeling ‘worthless’ mum.

No they're not better off with him. He's a crackpot and so is the daft woman who's taken him on. He'll start those manipulative tricks with her eventually.

Happy new year to you and your children.

It sounds like you ex still is able to manipulate and control you. What a bastard he is. Does he manipulate your children against you? Men like him never change - they will always need to control to massage their egos.

Look how well you have survived for 2 years. You've shown you didn't need him and you're coping alone. See this as a positive. Make next year the year to focus on you. Don't give up. You're doing amazing.

Could you afford therapy OP? To be able to talk to someone openly about all the psychological abuse you have been through, would really help.

It might be helpful for you to understand that abusers will often focus on their targets strengths and try to convince you to believe the opposite of what is true. Mothers who are being abused are often amazing mums and your abuser will not want you to think you are good at the things you are actually really great at, as if you feel your natural authority as a mother you will be harder to control.

It is as if he has planted a computer chip in your brain that keeps transmitting the lies he wants you to think are true. So to remove the computer chip try to notice the reality rather then his fantasy. Notice all the things you do for your children, how you are protecting them by leaving such an unsafe situation.