To me this indicates that you were in fact the Other Woman. Is this true?
No, I was not.
XW just retained some sort of feeling of lifetime ownership over him because they had kids together, and had quite a bit of trouble with the idea that someone other than her could be the main woman in his life. She's not an emotionally healthy person, so it isn't too much of a surprise that she struggled.
I always felt like she viewed herself as his rightful lifetime partner and I was just in a mistress role, but that was her problem, and not mine. I also always felt like she didn't want to be with him, she just didn't want him to be happy without her, if that makes sense.
Gently: are you perhaps projecting some fears onto me? I noted that you were worried about what the father of your kids would say about you, and that makes me feel that you're feeling a little insecure. I'm not judging you for that, just trying to show you some compassion and letting you know that it's not at all called for. You're a kind and worthy person and anyone worth knowing will know that
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How long have they been divorced for?
5 years. Separated for two before that. She had a boyfriend the whole while. H had some short relationships but I was the first serious one. So there was an adjustment that needed to be made, where her feelings could no longer be his top priority and she was incredibly angry about that.
She felt that she and the kids were a package deal, and to be a good dad he had to still be in an emotional-husband role with her. Before his relationship with me, he let her cling on and had no boundaries with her for a long time, since she was the mom-replacement to him. He had a hard time saying "no" and she did not like it when she started to hear that word. She'd make his life he11 if he said "no" to her, and he used to give in just to get her off of his back.
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Why is she still coming after him for money? Shouldn't that have been settled?
Because he made a large financial commitment to me by buying a house with me, and if there was money to make a commitment to me, she wanted a piece of the pie. Right after we bought the house, she tried being really kind and validating to him - it was bizarre coming from a hostile person. When he rejected her offers that he could come over any time, then she got a lawyer to try to go back on their financial agreements with regard to the kids.
She's an emotionally abusive person and wanted us to suffer, and, well, kudos to her. H lost his mind and threw me away. She won. She got him to self-destruct by putting him under constant pressure.
Hate is a strong word, but I do hate her.
Now that I'm gone, she'll likely be really kind to him, in an effort to show him that I was the problem all along, or she'll be a huge jerk and throw it in his face that I left him because he's so clearly terrible (which was not the case at all.)
It's a waste to think about her, but I'm human.
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What are your goals right now? Do you want reconciliation?
That's a difficult question. He's living in our home, and hasn't been in touch about selling it. I wonder if all the talk about how it needed to be sold was about getting rid of the "pressure", which I took away when I left.
I moved out, and he doesn't even know where I went. We're not in communication.
I love him and I love our house. I wanted our life together. I want the comfort and intimacy and singing goofy songs and laughing during sex.
But the more I do research, the more I know that whatever this is isn't going to resolve in the short term.
So my instinct is to say that I want reconciliation, but the realistic part of me doesn't want him running away again. If this resolved in the short term, I think he'd run away again.
I am trying to be brave, find myself again, and worry about challenges in my own life. That includes recognizing that he's in significant pain right now, even if he's the last to know it. I don't feel anger toward him. (I do feel humiliated sometimes, but that's mine to deal with.)
I am open to a future without him, because I have to be. I'm trying to move on without moving on.
