[Dawn70]

Dawn - I really wish I had more pride when dealing with my ex at BD. He was distancing for a while, and I was chasing and appeasing him and not complaining about disprespectful things like coming home at 2am or disappearing to help with son when I had kidney stones. I was following all these relationship books that were not geared for people in my situation. He had twisted things around though, so I thought that my needs in a marriage were too much and unfair. He was gaslighting. And I love hearing stories about how things aren’t quite the paradise our exes thought they would have.

Well, I'm pretty freaking hard-headed so this was one time when it truly worked to my advantage. It is not always a good thing, but in this case it helped a LOT. I'm definitely one of those people that if you tell me I can't do something, I'm going to do it, just to prove you wrong. So, it was like "you're done with me, ok, screw you, I'm done with YOU." And I never looked back. To this day, honestly, I couldn't care less if my XH burst into flames walking down the street. I would feel bad for the girls because they love their dad (as well they should), but I wouldn't give 2 sh!ts for him or his skanky new wife. I don't talk about him often, but when I do, I usually find myself referring to him in the past tense as though he's dead and it strikes me that, in many ways, he is dead....at least to me.

I think you handle yourself beautifully.