divorced now for 15 yrs after 29 yr marriage to career military man. He left me for OW[ affair had been going on for 8 mo before he told me} He was stationed in another state at time of affair, so I had no clue at the time. He is still with OW, they live together, but have no plans for marriage. She is 64 and my ex and I are both 63.
My ex and I have 4 grown children and 3 young grandchildren. The OW has no children. She was married once many yrs ago, divorced and then had another relationship for 10 yrs that did not result in marriage. She was unattached when she met my then husband. My oldest son has had behavior problems since childhood and caused much turmoil in our household.Our marriage was stressed due to that and the fact that my husband then was out of town a lot with his military job and I was pretty much raising 4 children by myself and working fulltime, and dealing with an out of control child. I was stressed to the max.. My ex husband stated at time of divorce that our son was one of the reasons he was leaving and the other was that our sex life was suffering and he didn't want to live like that for the rest of his life. Of course back then I was devastated and did everything wrong. I really wanted to save marriage, but was not able to. Fast forward to the present: EX husband hadpretty much left me to deal with oldest son who is now 41, until 4 yrs ago when son was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and had to be involuntary comitted to a crisis stabilization unitfor several days and has been in out pt therapy every since.. Its been a long 4 yrs, but son is stabilized and will be getting his own apt soon, but will always need assistance of some kind. I had to acutally beg my ex for help 4 yrs ago and things have improved immensely between us. We saw acounselor who agreed that he needed to help as I could not shoulder this alone. My problem is now in relating to my ex--its confusing for me as he now acts like we are good friends, etc,.Having to have freq conversations with my ex has stirred up feelings that I don't want to feel anymore. How to I get passed it? I have never spoken to OW in all these years. She does not like my son, and he is not allowed at their house. Of course, I know thtat is my ex's problem not mine to deal with, but it still just irritates me. I guess I want to know the correct way to respond to ex. Do I act pure business like, or fake friendliness. It took me literally many yrs to get over divorce and I am scared I might start regressing. ANy advice from other divorced people out there?
