Your post (and Bklyn's endorsement) was really useful for helping me to try to get past my current stage.
I feel like I've moved on - in the sense that i no longer have the cloud of XH's absence hanging over everything I do. He is not 'on my mind' constantly, as was the case for a loooooong time.
What I still can't shake however, is the yearning for things to get back to how they should be. I watched Spielberg's Empire of the Sun a few nights ago with S16, and the boy's line "I can bring everyone back... everyone", as he tries to resuscitate his dead friend, struck home. I feel like, subconsciously, I'm still hanging on to the belief that we might all get back together as a family - in the way that I believed we once were: loving dad and husband, secure and happy kids, al of us pulling together and with complete faith and trust in each other....
I STILL seem to believe that i can get that back!
How weird is that? (Maybe not so much - if Spielberg is making films about it!)
I think I am still hoping that one day XH will turn up on the doorstep and announce that he's seen the error of his ways. Somewhere, deep down, I still hold out hope for that. I don't actually think I want him back, I just want him to want to come back....
Realistically, I know this can't happen. But I'm just wondering how long this yearning takes to go away. I'm more than 3 years in, and I feel like i still have it.
Time and patience , I suppose, just like everything else.
In other news, S15 turned 16 last week. That event was clouded a little by the anxiety of what XH might do. In the end, he imposed himself on S16 against S16's wishes.
We found a present on the doorstep from XH on the evening before the birthday. We 'd been home, so don't know if XH just dropped it and failed to try to see S16 or if he knocked while we were in the back yard.
Next day, he called S16 several times, but S16 did not want to speak to XH - who has not been in contact with him for more than a month.
While XMIL & FIL were visiting S16 that evening, FIL's phone rings and sure enough it's XH insisting to speak to S16. S16 accepted his grandfather's phone and spoke briefly. It was a set up - XH and FIL had planned to make S16 speak to him this way.
Maybe just a minor incident, but to S16, another manipulation on the part of his father - and a chipping away at the trust he has in his grand-parents (they sided with XH in this).
Oh, and by the way, XH's present to S16? A video game ... and a moleskine notebook. The latter evinced a WTF moment from S16. Wonder what was going through XH's head when he purchased that for a 16-y-o boy?
It's been over three years for me too and I know sometimes I too hold on to that fantasy ... even though I can't imagine ever wanting to be with my ex.
The best way I have found to get over it is too write or talk about.
For me the fantasy gets shorter and shorter and I get back to the reality of my great life and my amazing kids.
You have so much to be thankful for and so do your kids. Don't let your son forget all that he has
---- M 39 H 35 D5,D4 M 4 T 9 ILYBNILWY 5/18/11 Left 7/11/11 Divorced 12/1/13
D18 rang me at work in tears. XH had appeared at our door to announce that he was moving to another State - 9 hours away by car.
He has no family and no friends there, and the living is much more expensive than here. But apparently he is having trouble making money and needs to move to a bigger city with "more opportunity".
He also said it was because it was "too awkward" living so close to the kids but not being able to see them. He left after about 3 mins. She has her end of year exams starting tomorrow.
As I arrived home with S16 after school, I heard the sound of what I thought was our previous car zooming up the road.
Sure enough, XH walked in right behind us. I left him to talk to S16 and went to sit with D18 and her boyfriend in the back room. After about 5 mins, during which time he apparently asked about the health of my 90-year-old parents for the first time in 3 years, S16 came out to say that I was being summoned.
XH started up right away: "Do you think it's right to reward inappropriate behaviour?"
Say whaaat?
He repeated, trying to set me up to support his previous claim to S16 that he'd stopped paying child support because S16 had been rude to him.
Then he started to tell me what I "needed" to do in relation to the children.
He went on about how it was all my fault that they wanted nothing to do with him. Ho hum.
It was sort of pathetic, sort of funny, and a lot infuriating.
I chose to be infuriated when he joked that the kids had to "eat cardboard and wear rice in their shoes" - a play on my report that we couldn't afford meat and had no money to replace their school shoes due to his refusal to pay child support.
I guess I just saw red. There he was with a brand new Rolex on his arm, another new Ralph Lauren shirt on his back and a teenagers' haircut (we call it a 'shorty long-top').
How dare you stand there and laugh at us - with your face all puffy and bloated - and you're 2 stone overweight with all the drinking and eating you''re doing.
He left.
Hallelulja, we'll be free of him. No more having to worry about him turning up on the doorstep. No more having to avoid our local supermarket and main street. No more worries about him and OW turning up at school events.
My, was he pissed off. Wonder what OW is going to do with her substantial business in this State. She'll have to start up all over again. The things we do for schmoopie....
I guess XH is all amped up over his impending exit from our town because I received a call out of the blue yesterday asking that we meet to discuss S16 and 'his school'.
I asked what about and XH was loath to provide details, but when I pushed he announced that he had decided not to pay S16's school fees any more.
Now, S16 has attended this school since he was 3-and-a-half years old.
All of his friends are there. He is about to go into his final two years before trying to qualify for a university place.
He is on track to become a school leader, and was just voted MVP in the basketball team and promoted to first trumpet in the school band. It's all S16 has ever known.
And now, XH decides he doesn't want to pay half the school fees any more.
No consideration of the fact, either, that we sent our D19 to a similar single-sex school throughout her education.
I don't know if there's anything I can/should say to XH next week when we meet up to try to convince him to change his mind.
S16 has made suicidal-type comments in the past few years at different times ... I can only imagine how completely devastated he will be to hear that he might have to change to a very different type of school for his last two years.
XH keeps spending money like a man possessed, but seems to need to keep punishing us in whatever ways he can in order to make himself feel better.
What goes through the minds of these guys just escapes me... has he not thought about the possibility of never seeing his grandchildren, let alone his children again??
Any advice on what I should say when we meet to 'discuss' the issue?
Seems a little limp just to validate his resentment and anger over his 'situation'.....
NLW-I read this thread pretty thoroughly...I think our ex's are the same person...So similar. WOW! when will it end.
BombOctober 2012- OW 11/28/12 -H still denies Separated 11/29/12 Own place 12/12/12 Confessed OW/EA/PA 2/2/13 Oct 2013 - I knew I was done Jan 2014 - Anticipating the rest of my life
I know how much it suucks but I think you and your son need to prepare for S to go to a different school. One thing I have learned is there is no convincing a MLCer to do the right thing.
I wish I could say something to make it better but you are better off spending you your time trying to figure out how you can pay for it then convince him to pay for it.
Your H is an a$$ - he is not gonna come around to seeing how wonderful your S education has been for him.
---- M 39 H 35 D5,D4 M 4 T 9 ILYBNILWY 5/18/11 Left 7/11/11 Divorced 12/1/13
XH continues to lash out at us, punishing and humiliating us at every turn.
Everything I say to him, every action or communication, is turned into a move in a ruthless game of chess that he must win.
When he rang to announce he was going to stop paying S16's school fees, I basically said to him what I outlined in my above post - that it would be extremely hard for S16 to lose this last vestige of his old life, and that I was worried because he had voiced suicidal-type notions, previously, in relation to various deprivations and lifestyle changes that were happening due to XH's leaving of us.
Well, today, S16 was pulled from class and sent to see the school 'counsellor' (basically, a teacher with some psych training in his education degree). Please note that I have post-grad qualifications in psych and have worked in the field for 35 years (indeed to add insult to injury, OW is an ex-student of mine who once told me she wanted to be 'just like me'. I didn't realise she meant having my spouse as well!!)
Anyway, it was obvious that XH had told them a story about S16 - but not that he was going to cease paying school fees, nor that he refuses to pay child support!
I haven't told S16 that XH is going to stop paying his school fees from now on.
The boy is sitting his final exams in a week's time and he's trying very hard to score an 'A' for a couple of subjects so he can take an accelerated class that the school offers next year.
So, S16 is in the dark as to why he's being pulled out for special questioning by the teacher-counsellor. He, of course, said that everything was 'fine' - he had no idea what was going on and he was just asked "Is everything going OK?" in a very round-about way.
What a piece of absolute work this XH turns out to be. He will sacrifice any of us to his own desire to be right and to have control over our lives. I think our only option may be to cut our losses and refuse, absolutely, to have anything more to do with him ever again.
He is toxic and dangerous.
Sorry that I sound so vicious and negative... normally our lives are going along well, it's just that XH keeps coming back at us over and over again, even 3-and-a half years down the track.
I don't understand why he is insisting on meeting me on Wednesday to 'discuss' the fact that he is going to stop paying S16's school fees.
Obviously I would be wasting my breath trying to convince him of the importance of the school to S16's emotional well-being.
I wonder why i should even bother going - although if I don't, he will maintain to anyone who will listen that I refused to speak to him about it and therefore it is my fault.
I met X and he announced that, as we were both struggling financially, he would stop paying S16's school fees. He said he'd told the school that S16 would not be back next year.
He said he'd leave it up to me to make arrangements for a new school for S16.
We met at a coffee shop and he ordered a coffee for himself and did not offer one to me.
He would not tell me where he was moving to in the new State to which he is re-locating in the next few days.
I asked him in what sense he was struggling financially, but he said it was none of my business.
I asked him if he'd thought about the impact this would have on S16's emotional well-being, saying I thought it would be an act that there would be no coming back from, in terms of their relationship.
He replied frantically: "There is no coming back from the divorce. There is no coming back from S16 calling me an @#&**^!"
By this stage he was gesticulating rather wildly and people were looking at us. He then stormed off.
We saw his car parked at the local hotel/restaurant on our way home from school again - for the third time this week (as is pretty typical).
His insistence on meeting to announce all this coincides, to the day, with OW's departure for her annual 3-week shopping holiday in Paris with her mother.
My life is so mad, I can no longer even think about it as actually happening. It seems like a dream or a story that's unfolding for someone else.
I am very sorry that things didn't turn out the way that you hoped they would. You can't reason w/an irrational individual and right now, that is what your h is. He doesn't care about his son and what school he goes to. All he cares about is the money and he doesn't want to spend one penny more than he has to on anyone else but him and the ow.
At this time, the only thing you can do is focus on you and your child. Talk to your son and let him know that you are always there for him and if he wants to talk freely he may do so w/you. Your life and your son's life have been turned upside down and you need to find a way to stabilize your footing so that you can be there for him.
One thing that your h said is correct, you can't come back from divorce if one parties is set on burning down the place and destroying any bridges that connected the two people.
Again, I'm very sorry.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
