I caught up on your thread. And I think that you are holding things together brilliantly and in a really healthy way for yourself. I would not be able to remain in that situation either, paying down some one else's mortgage. And you moved on fast and efficiently.
But here's something I wonder about. You acknowledge that he is projecting and villifying you. You also acknowledge that he was not the best at handling his children.
What was his role in his children's life? How much time did he spend with them?
I know you say his wife was Controlling and unreasonable. But perhaps that's his projections of her just as they now are of you?
I am sure that my ex looks at me and describes me much as your ex describes his ex wife (phew that's a mouthful). But she might have a reason for her anger. Imagine if he treated her (with young children at the time) similar to how he is now treating you. She would be angry and resentful and thinking about how to secure her financial position as major emotional and physical provider for her children. He broke up with you once and you say it was to appease her. I wonder what his ex"s perspective would be.
Anyway, I'm bringing this up because I am just wondering if there are red flags with this guy. It sounds like it, based on how he suddenly did a switch, vilified and broken things off with you but felt entitled to your continued mortgage payments.
Thanks for commenting! It's lovely to hear from you.
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And I think that you are holding things together brilliantly and in a really healthy way for yourself. I would not be able to remain in that situation either, paying down some one else's mortgage. And you moved on fast and efficiently.
Thank you. I've never really done anything like this before, where I reached a limit and acted upon it swiftly. I think H never expected me to leave, given how steadfast I've been. He never doubted my love for him or my willingness to work it out, even after I began the 180 after he told me he didn't love me. My packing up and leaving without ever asking for his help is a total 180 for me.
He hasn't written, but if he does I will respond warmly but very briefly.
And just to clarify, it's my mortgage and my house, too. I had to walk away from it. I've never done anything like this before, and it was a very painful conclusion to reach that I had to go. Honestly, in the few days after I knew his plan was to end things and sell the house, I faced my fear that there may be a foreclosure in my future because I bought a home with someone suddenly acting irrationally. So, if that's what happens, that's what happens. I just know that I had to get away from his anger that was so focused on me. He believed getting away from me and the house would make him happy, so I'll let him do that and see what happens.
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You acknowledge that he is projecting and villifying you. You also acknowledge that he was not the best at handling his children.
Yes, and yes. He is a doting father, just perhaps a little too doting. He (normally) has an easygoing personality and doesn't want them to be mad at him, so he would let so many things go. I recognize that as not being a good parent, because I believe part of the responsibility is pushing back on your kids to help shape them to be prepared for the harsh adult world. He just wanted to love and encourage them, which I admire. But having expectations for kids is a good thing, and he could never bring himself to have them until the weeks before he exploded.
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I know you say his wife was Controlling and unreasonable. But perhaps that's his projections of her just as they now are of you?
I understand why you might think that, but it was actually me who told him that something wasn't right with her. On one of our early dates, I remember he was at my place and he was telling me it was so great that they could be amicable co-parents. At the same time, his phone was buzzing with texts from her. I asked what was going on, since it was a lot of texting and he said "Oh, she's calling me names because she's unhappy with me right now." My jaw dropped and I asked him why he'd say that they were amicable, because name calling certainly doesn't fit that description.
I also saw her come to his house and stand on the porch and yell at him.
It was just constant conflict that I've seen with my own eyes. It was her way of holding onto a connection to him, through negative attention.
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I am sure that my ex looks at me and describes me much as your ex describes his ex wife (phew that's a mouthful).
Possibly, but I think anyone worth knowing would take his statements with a grain of salt, right? My assessment of his ex was not based on what he said. If anything, he underrepresented her crazy. I looked at her behavior with my own eyes and formed my opinion based on what I saw.
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But she might have a reason for her anger. Imagine if he treated her (with young children at the time) similar to how he is now treating you. She would be angry and resentful and thinking about how to secure her financial position as major emotional and physical provider for her children. He broke up with you once and you say it was to appease her. I wonder what his ex"s perspective would be.
Right now I imagine she's pretty gleeful. She very clearly didn't want him to be happy without her, so to know that his relationship has crumbled would bring her joy. She's always wanted me to be temporary, and never tried to get to know me. If her daughter was alone with me on a weekend, she'd show up and get her out of the house so that we couldn't bond. She's just a petty person like that.
I wasn't there during their marriage to say for sure, but I do know that H was much different then. She was (and is) aggressive, and he passively checked out. So she does have a valid reason for her anger, because she thinks that he owed her the relationship of her dreams without her ever having to lift a finger.
H has trauma in his history, and his ex was his attempt to marry his mother. So he was subservient to her. He still won't let himself get angry with her, despite all her shenanigans.
I'm the first emotionally healthy person he's dated, and I think that's why some of his anger is surfacing. I made him secure enough for him to be angry and know he'd still be loved. He hadn't ever had that before. That's not such a great deal for me, though.
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there are red flags with this guy. It sounds like it, based on how he suddenly did a switch, vilified and broken things off with you but felt entitled to your continued mortgage payments.
Prior to late January, I'd say the only red flag was his avoidance of processing his trauma from his childhood. And I know the description of him now sounds awful, because it is awful. It's like an alien came and abducted the guy I've known for the past 5 years, and replaced him with this angry and irrational person.
I don't know for sure, but I think his ex's latest legal shenanigans where she came after him for money, the stress of his kids yelling at him because he finally developed some minimal expectations for them, and turning 50 led him to snap.
Everything I read about MLCs describe what has happened perfectly.
I appreciate your feedback. I hope it doesn't seem like I was dismissing it without thinking about it. I did consider it and will continue to let it float around in my brain.
Right now, I'm going to go sit down with the new pretty notebook that I bought and start writing down the things that I didn't like about him. I figure it's only fair, considering he's got his three pages about me. I just need to get it in writing to help me process all of this and not focus so much on the good things that I miss.
Things weren't easy with him, but I thought our love for one another (which was significant to get through all the troubles we got through together) would carry us through.
Yes, his ex isn't one of mine in a romantic or sexual sense. She just wants to be in control of him and be the most important woman in his life. She got booted out of both of those things when he met me and she's been giving him hell since.
To me this indicates that you were in fact the Other Woman. Is this true?
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.
Hi Cadence, Just stopping by to say hello. I'm kind of down today but can't put my finger on why. I'm doing a lot of GAL this weekend, which should be making me feel better, but today all I want are H's arms around me and him beside me doing all this fun stuff that we used to do together. I have no idea where he is, what he's doing or who with, and if that's not the opposite of me being detached, well WHOA. OK, so today I'm not doing so well on the detachment front. At least he can't see or hear it, just you faithful friends. I went to hear Anne Lamott speak last night about her new book, and that was fun. She always inspires me. Today I planted more flowers and a dogwood tree so that made me smile so much. Tonight one of my friends is coming to spend the night from out of town. If she gets here early enough, I'm going to take her downtown to the river entertainment district, but we'll see. Then tomorrow I'm so excited about- there is an air show here at the air force base this weekend, and my friend and I are meeting my sister and BIL and go together. I may pass out from patriotism. I cry everytime there's a flyover at a ball game, and good grief, when the US Thunderbirds do their thing I'll probably faint. We are sitting in the beer garden so that should be interesting. So I should be feeling up, but we can't always control those stupid hormones, just try to push past them. Anyway, try to have a good Saturday! PS- those things you said again about ex-w still ring so true, just like in my own sitch- you word it so well. Someday we should compare notes in email, just so we don't bore this board to death with our similar stories!!!
M-60 H-51 M-14 years BD 12/26/16 S 1/1/17
"First the pain, then the rising." Glennon Doyle Melton
I am feeling down today for no reason, too. I think I don't do well with weekends. It might be the same for you, too, since you're wondering what your H is up to. I wonder about mine. Is he going on dates? Does he wonder where I am staying? Is he looking at the empty spaces and are good memories breaking through? Who knows.
I got out with some friends last night and socialized a bit. Some guys chatted me up but I am just not interested and I've never been good at pretending.
I took my dog for a long walk in the park today, since she's been cooped up in my little shoebox apartment. Tonight I will be going to a play by myself and hopefully getting a good night's sleep.
I have received some wonderful advice to check myself any time I feel lonely, because it's probably that I'm feeling rejected or abandoned and I know what happened wasn't about rejection or abandonment. But today it's not helping because I just feel like I miss him. I'll try to remind myself of the "him" I was dealing with in the last few months, because, in truth, my sweet loving guy hasn't been around since mid-January. He was replaced by the angry alien then.
It sounds like you have some wonderful plans. Try to enjoy them. Stay in the present moment! That's what I'm working on doing.
I think we've really hit it off, and I will try to figure out how to send you a private message with my email address, so we won't bore everyone.
I want to start by saying, how great I think you are doing. I always like the term "open to reconciliation but not waiting". Because we have to live our own lives and love ourselves first. I know its hard but you are doing all the right stuff. I am rooting for you regardless of the outcome.
I might be projecting a little bit, but I see how much frustration you seem to have regarding the ex wife in your fiance's life and I think I can offer you a fresh perspective. I know that all of our situations are different. But often times there are a lot of similarities as well.
My husband and I were together for over 15 years. We have 1 son who has some special needs. We were trying to have another. The year he started detaching was the year I was pregnant with another child, was diagnosed with melanoma (every thing ok) and had a really difficult miscarriage. During this time I was hormonal and awful. Actually since the birth of our son we had a lot of marital difficulties and resentments. I was angry that he slept in really late while I was taking care of our child, I was angry with his spending when I wanted to save for a home. He heard my complaints as criticisms and control and unappreciation. I was resentful and took him for granted and he stone walled and disengaged from our family. (i also recently found out there might be an alcohol issue that dates back to his father dying a year after our son died)
Point I am making is that any long term relationship is difficult. Especially with young children and there are all sorts of different stresses in life that only add to the difficulty (i only gave ours as an example). I think these issues are pretty universal. Marriage is hard. We take each other for granted, we see each other at our absolute worst, it becomes mundane. Sex is never as exciting after 10 years. But its also a committment. The sharing of 2 lives through good times and bad. The growing old with someone that you raised children with and grew up with.
My husband detached and left when things became too difficult. I was not the best person or wife. I was under a lot of stress and I could not offer him what I once did when i was young, without a child and without life's stresses. He was pretty selfish as well.
When he left I was really, really, really hurt. He would not give me child support and I was and am living with my parents. I work part time but because my son was young at the time I could not go back to work full time. He left and was going out to fancy restaurants and on vacations. He was really really nasty and cruel. In the beginning, I wanted to reconcile so badly and he was acting like he would up until 8 months post when he left. I waited 5 months to take him to court for child support because i was afraid it would make him not reconcile. He claims that me taking him to court was humiliating and sites it as why he did not reconcile.
He began dating someone about 8-9 months after he left and we were considered separated.
I guarantee you that his girlfriend does not know any of this. My ex comes across as a super nice guy. An intelligent professional with a high level of education. The classic, good ol' American Boy. He comes across as someone that is trust worthy, dependable, and a hard worker. Right now he is really agreeable when it comes to our son. But he had very little to do with him and I was struggling to raise a child with special needs by myself. His girlfriend will never know this. She will never know about how devastated my son was when he left or what its like to hear your 6 year old tell you they want to kill themselves. She will never know about the way he treated me and his son. The detachment and un involvement. She will never know the spew that he placed on me. He tells people that he did not leave. That I pushed him out. She will never know Until he does it to her.
He can have fun and an escape with a younger woman that has less responsibilities. And he can relive our youth of dating and going out and starting anew with someone. But he has abandoned his committment and child to do so. I have given up my youth and full income earning ability to raise our child (i have a doctorate and a decent profession). When I see how he has spent money on lingerie for a new girlfriend or taken her out to expensive restaurants I am really mad and have to hold back from screaming at him (which would come across as abusive and controlling), because I would be in a shelter if it was not for my parents support. But his girlfriend would never know this. Instead she will either see me as you do, or perhaps as just an acceptable mutual divorce. She does not know that he unilaterally left his wife and young child.
Now as an ex wife, I am FURIOUS at him. It is not a matter of insecurity or dislike for any girlfriend of his. Because I know what he is like and what he is capable of. Maybe not in the beginning, but down the line. My rage comes from the unfairness of it. And to be honest, if I could I would take great pleasure in knowing that he has to suffer in some way because I feel that he owes a huge debt to me and son. (these are obviously my own issues to work with)
His ex wife's yelling at him might be reactions to years of stone walling and the feelings of injustice and invalidation and trauma. Your ex might be responding the way he does because of a sense of guilt? I dont really know.
Again, i know our situations are different... Your fiance's wife might have been cheating on him. In which case she has no right to be angry. I agree with you that there should be no emotional bond between the ex's. I keep things very logistical with my ex. I know really wonderful woman that are dating nice men who are divorcing because their wives cheated. And the ex is still trying to control. I tend to side with the wife because of my experience but i understand that wives are capable of great cruelty and manipulation as well.
I just wanted to offer you my perspective. Because sometimes there are no real answers just perspectives. You might not know the real issues behind his wife's rage. Divorce (especially when children are involved) is really really traumatic and brings our the worst in people.
When I start dating again, i feel safer dating someone who has been through a divorce and who has children. But I am afraid of meeting someone like my ex who will act as if his wife pushed him out with her abusive and controlling behaviors. It can be really hard to screen.
It does however sound like your fiance did this to you once before. And now he is doing it to you again. To me it would make sense that he did this to his wife and she has been reacting or vengeful.
I think you deserve a relationship with someone dependable and committed.
