Job gave you some great advice. I also want to give you a great big hug. I don't know your whole story, but it looks like in the beginning your ex was pretty crazy and hostile. Our situations are different, but I think the same advice applies either way.
I am 9 years since bomb drop. In a nutshell, my ex left me for OW when our daughter was 6 months old. The affair began in pregnancy. My ex went on to marry her, and my daughter is now 10. I have not remarried, and I have been raising our daughter which I have most of the time.
I was awfully resistant to OWW for quite some time. I was angry. I was sad. I was betrayed. I finally decided to drop the negative feelings. Yes, I can speak of my sitch without crying now. I am friendly with ex and OWW. Have to be for my daughter. I cannot have them out of my lives or even really distanced. It's been rough, but the only way I can do it is let go.
You were baiting him the other day with all those negative things you were saying about yourself hoping he would say the opposite. I used to do that a long time ago. I finally realized my selfworth is not attached to what he thinks of me, if he loved me, if he hated me, if he regret what he had done.
My ex has no regrets. My ex did get a shallow life exactly the way he wanted it. he is happy. But my happiness is no longer reliant on his misery or his happiness. My life has nothing to do with him emotionally. It has been a challenge to separate the two when I have to see and speak to both of them often.
As far as the money goes. You either decide to take or you don't. Attach nothing else to it. No emotions, no words, no nothing.
You have got to let go. Let go of your feelings towards his GF. She is of no significance of you. Bringing her up makes you look insecure, and that you are not!
I hear what you are all saying. I want a life wighout him but unfortunately, the kids don' t. It is upsetting to see them idealizing this guy and get mad at me if i say no for anything. I am stuck. I am mad and i am fighting for my respect amoung them all. I feel used and manipulated in all direction. How many times have i felt like walking away from it all??? Many, many times. Without ex-h support, we will meet ends meet.. if the extras is what the kids care about, they will know where to get it. I want my independance. I do not what life served to me on a silver platter. Why? Because our pride, our self-confidence, our self-worth is earned by each of us through our goals, our devotion, our achievement and our struggles and our choices..
My point on those texts were not baiting for an opinion of me but a WHY would you do this?
Pitty for us? Grandiosity for you? Trying to do the right thing? ( this is not the way to do it ). Releive guilt?
To me: BULL S*** is what it is. I am smarter than this. I know who i am and i am not for sale. I do not NEED this kind of people in my life. In my opinion, i did not degrade me, HE DEGRADED ME THROUGH HIS ACTION.
Ok i will explain my position.. I have a goal. I see a finish line and it is very close.. By me cutting this last string he has with me ( child support wich i no longer need as the kids are very responsable and mature ). College and University is all covered, i am setting myself free of him.
8 years is long enough. I am sadden by my broken marriage but i would not tolerate this kind of treatment from anyone. Not even my life partner. This is not love to me.
My goals: well, like i said above, the children are set for their future. I will relocate with D14 next spring in order to be closer to my other 2 Daughters who will be attending University. My son has plan to join us the following year has he would be done his College. I want and see myself getting a very good position with Sobeys. There was mention of me getting my own store if i was interested( from an inside source.) Very flattering but i don' t want it. I would go for specialist however. But not for another 3 years as i would still have a daughter at home. This is my future plan. For now, management would do and the position i have turned down( delayed ) seemed to be waiting for me! I will make it! I have the determination to do whatever it takes. And i always have a plan b.
exquisite - That sounds like a fabulous plan. Life often throws us unexpected twists but I am confident that you will power through.
I don't know about you, but to me words have power. One thing that I've noticed a lot of divorced people do and I am trying to do myself is to change how I reference the woman with whom I shared so much of my life. Instead of referring to her as "ex-wife", I try to use "my son's mother" - adding some degrees of separation but still recognizing that there is a relationship there. One that I'm not part of. Maybe that mind shift might help you too?
Your Plan B comment leads me to funny story time - sorry for thread-jack but I love telling stories. Many years ago we as a family were putting up a new clothesline pole. It took me a few days to hand dig the hole deep enough (about 4 1/2') - the pole was about 20' tall - and then I set everything up. She who I try not to name was given the role of holding a board on the back side of the hole for the pole to slide down against and the kids who were pre-teen were tasked with sliding a saw-horse along as I lifted the pole stage by stage. All went well for a while until it didn't at which point I carefully set things down and said "OK - plan b" - which I already had set. They all looked at me blankly and said "there's a plan b?" - yes there was. The pole was shifted to vertical, dropped down into the hole with a thud and a splash (high water table here) and I looked at it with the pleasure of a plan coming together then looked around and saw that my entire family had scattered back at least 20 feet as soon as the pole started to move by itself.
So yes - I too always have a Plan B and often more than one.
Hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving. S23 has to work for much of it so we are having a ham on Monday night after he gets off work. No clue what or if "his mother" has any plans with him. I doubt it. D25 who lives in the US often has a "friendsgiving" at the same time. Her H loves the fact that he married a Canadian because he gets extra feasts.
((exquisite))
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Exquisite - I hope you had a fabulous Thanksgiving and a nice hike. You are a fair bit north of me so I imagine that the fall colours are even more spectacular there compared to where I am in south-western Ontario or what an old friend of mine (who now lives in Yellowknife) calls the "brown south" as opposed to the "Great White North".
Have you ever read Victor Frankl's "Man's search for meaning"? I listened to the audio book version a while ago from my local public library and it is quite gripping. There's a bit of a discussion of it on the DivorceBusting Facebook page that might lead you in an unexpected direction and provide you with a new set of stimuli.
Be kind to yourself and know that you are doing the best you can to be "the sane parent" to your kids. Nobody said that this would be easy and we certainly weren't provided with an instruction manual.
A bientot.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
I hear what you are all saying. I want a life wighout him but unfortunately, the kids don' t. It is upsetting to see them idealizing this guy and get mad at me if i say no for anything. I am stuck. I am mad and i am fighting for my respect amoung them all. I feel used and manipulated in all direction. How many times have i felt like walking away from it all??? Many, many times. Without ex-h support, we will meet ends meet.. if the extras is what the kids care about, they will know where to get it. I want my independance. I do not what life served to me on a silver platter. Why? Because our pride, our self-confidence, our self-worth is earned by each of us through our goals, our devotion, our achievement and our struggles and our choices..
My point on those texts were not baiting for an opinion of me but a WHY would you do this?
Pitty for us? Grandiosity for you? Trying to do the right thing? ( this is not the way to do it ). Releive guilt?
To me: BULL S*** is what it is. I am smarter than this. I know who i am and i am not for sale. I do not NEED this kind of people in my life. In my opinion, i did not degrade me, HE DEGRADED ME THROUGH HIS ACTION.
Does he "why" really matter? If you don't want the money, don't take it. My ex H was out the door and with the OW when my D was 6 months old. All I could think was "oh my god, I have a lifetime dealing with these two" MY life would have been much better without him in it, but of course, my D10 needs a father.
If you ex wants to give them all this money, that's his choice, and unfortunately you have no control over that. You a mother can say no to anything you see fit on your side of the street. They will see him for who you are which is a loving mother who wants them to be the best humans they can be. It may not be right now, perhaps in the future.
My D10 puts my ex on a pedestal. He is a subpar father. But that is her daddy and while she can complain to me how "mean" he is, that is her father and she loves him to the moon and back. I know it's upsetting to see the kids idealize him, but what are you going to do? You do not need to fight for anyone's respect. Use actions that you respect, and the rest will follow. But you will not get respect by belittling yourself to your ex or bringing up his girlfriend. So throw all of that away. Write it down, punch a pillow, but don't say that stuff to him.
You can do this. I know you can. If I can, well, anyone could, trust me on this one.
Thank you very much! If any of you followed my story all these years, you would know that when a cut of attachment is made, there is h@ll to pay. This being my last one, i am on self-protection overdrive. With this said, i will be quiet for awhile. .
Last edited by job; 10/11/1702:26 AM. Reason: edited a word
I can so understand you and where you are coming from. Mine has been completely awful to me and I think if he came back around years from now (particularly waiving cash as though that could make up for anything) I would be as quick to show him the door. My biggest fear is that he will show up and pretend to be reformed and I will be a big sucker and fall for it because giving up on people is not in my DNA. I hope that this is either legitimate and he proves that over time or he quickly crashes and burns so you guys can get on with life.
I hope that this turns out the way you want it to.
I have gotten sick last week. Complication from a cold. It is currently in my lungs. Shortness of breath and resparitory inflamation. Out of commission for the past 4 days. One of the kids must have told ex-h cause i got a call from him.
Him: hi! You sound out of breath.. Me: i am.. i went to emerg. I am on antibiotic, immune boosters and 2 breathing pumps. Him: i heard the insurance card you have from my policy does not work. You are still fully covered in my insurance. I never took you off. Go.on line, print the proper form, fill it out and i will sign it so that you get your money back.
Now, i don' t know how you did it but the support hasn' t been deducted from my pay. No matter how mad you make me, i will never stop paying for you guys. It is my obligation.
Me: no, the kids are our responsabilities, not me. I should not depend on you. It feels wrong and inapropriate. As for the children, they have a good financial cushion to help them in difficult time but when is it enough?? What they need now, in my opinion, is learned to live within their budget, manage their responsabilities and learn to live independently cause one day, mom and dad will die.
Him: well, i won' t stop. I never will. As for you, i know i would not be able to do what i do without you. I also know i could not do what you do. Putting in 70 hrs plus a week beetwen work and home duties.. i could not do that.. but you do.. I will never stop paying for you. If you say no, i will open an account and i will buy the house down south since they all want to study around there.
Me: ok.. you have the children' s scool account. That money is for their future.it is frozen from them until they reach 18. D21 and S19 do not have the acc.number as they do.not want to touch it. Saving for their future. You have the children' s daily account.those are for regular living expenses. If you want to help with bills or give them extra spending money, those are the acc.to use.
As for me, the joint account we had in the past is still joint. You are still on the account and it is the one i use for my mortgage. You could use this one so if something ever happen to me, it goes back to you. My personnal individual acct.is still the same. There is NO MORE obligation Nelson.you choose when, where and how much.
Him: i will never stop!! And Diane, thank you for answering my call..
Me: ( once again tearing up ).. you are welcome and thank you for your generosity..
Him: ( softly ) bye! Me: ( lump in my throath ) bye.
Bits forgotten... he mentioned what will happen once he sells his house. He has talked about being worried about us once we move away. He researched all those little towns i am looking into. I can tell he is trying to put doubts in me. Not to keep me here but to have a part in our relocating.
Funny hidden message.. D17 receives a text from her father saying: You can close the hood of your truck.i was gonna do the oil change but i' m not doing it. She answers: that is probably not for me.. He replies: yes i meant car..
Lol.. i told her to ignore..
he was lying and he just wanted to relay the message that he is working on getting gf out of the house.he left to spend the week- end at a friend' s house.( where he called me from) and next week, will be in Thunder Bay for work. I have been dead on in detecting him until now, i m sure of this prediction. She will be out. My house and his will sell and wevwill ALL be in the same region.. the whole FAMILY!!
