Thank you Gordie and DnJ, for your kind words and your support.
I am seeing some things going on with the boards here and other boards I follow. I think I am too direct in my approach and can hurt feelings when I legitimately try to help folks. I've decided to make some comments here for whomever might see them and benefit them. I'm going to start here with the personal observations and insight into my situation and then hopefully follow up with some legal thoughts in a second post.
Since I asked my H to leave, I have endeavored to follow DB. I had read the books in the dance leading up to the big bomb drop (the revelation of the first PA and the first legitimate demand that we divorce). I have endeavored to give him space since that time, let him be the one to contact me (haven't always succeeded), I haven't talked to his friends or family or posted passive aggressive comments on FB. I have not used my children as messengers and have tried to politely rebuff his efforts to do the same. Mine is a cold, cold fish. He can monster and spew with the best of him, but he hurts me through his coldness and his distance (in the waning days of the marriage I had told him how much this hurts me).
We have probably had no more than 3 text/email battles and maybe 3 terse phone calls early on. I have rarely told him what I thought about him or what he is doing, and even when I have it has been mainly factual. I don't talk about his women at all. The few difficult conversations we have had were early on (save one at tax time). His monster has appeared when I have told him the kids were hurting (or hurting themselves) or failing, etc. Any time I said anything that could possibly induce guilt in him. Many times I wasn't even aware that he was reading guilt into the situation until I thought about it later. He has said some of the most vile things I have heard expressed. I have largely continued to DB through it.
I have seen some folks who still carry very bitter grudges even years and years after separation and divorce. Everyone is different, everyone has to respond in the way they are able. For myself, inducing guilt, or being mean or cruel is not something I want to do for me. It is not the kind of person I want to be. I do not say the nasty things I think about him aloud. I say them in my head or I write an email to myself and then delete later when I feel better. I think there is something wrong with him. While I do believe there is free will at play and he has some control, there is something there that feels out of control and unbalanced. No matter what it is, he doesn't feel like he is in his right mind to me.
Some of them are very narcissistic and cruel and you really want to respond with rage and how they are treating you. But if they are really narcissists or other cluster B's (the types of disorder to which narcissists and borderlines belong), then you just bring them supply. Supply is like love or attention. It is something they feel they must have or they will die. Therefore, when life with the affair partner gets dull, they come start stuff with you to get it. Guess what, if you keep responding to it and showing your feelings (good or bad) they will keep coming back to get it. If you are really tired of them messing with you and injecting themselves into your life, then just stop responding. If they poke you or mess with you (and mine does frequently) just ignore it. They will ramp it up (mine has anyway) but just keep ignoring it. I have three areas where I will respond with the toughest legal measures possible, which I will discuss more later (they are messing with my kids in any way, messing with the support I receive, or messing with my health insurance). Anything else I try to let go. It is not worth continuing my part of the dance to keep responding.
If they are still bothering you 3, 5, or 10 years down the line, it is because you are letting them. You are playing your part of the dance. If you did not respond and give them supply, they would move on to someone who will.
I also see instances where they do try to reach out to the kids in some manner that at least as reported here, seems reasonable. I think there is so much pain that the LBS will often assume the very worst and just look at it as the next round of the fight. I try to take each salvo on its own merit and instead of reacting from defcon two where I was the last time it ended, I try to reset myself to five and to de-escalate the situation. If he is clearly still entrenched from the last battle, then I adjust accordingly.
I think sometimes we are so mired in our own script that they will never change, nothing will ever improve, and we fail to see that we are responding in the exact same way every time and ensuring the same outcome. I have seen threads where people report the conversation and it looks to me like the WA/WW is trying to take it to a different place but the LBS is so entrenched that they just aren't seeing it. All they see is their rage and their hurt. It will never change until at least one of you makes the change.
I may not have all of this figured out, I am still stuck, but I get a check every month and have every month this has been going on, I have health insurance, my children are doing well, I haven't spent much on legal fees (yet), and my MLCer more or less leaves me alone. For me the issue is limbo, but that is another topic.
Think about what I've said, or don't. Argue with me, ignore me, whatever. But understand I come from a place of compassion and I want to try to help others to the best of my ability.
