I’m sorry you were hurt, Kittenblue…good luck with the new guy. Can I suggest your ex likes having your shoulder to cry on, and you listening to his woe is me woe is me mantra is not helping him grow up I agree with Kiki…the kiddos are smart, and I’m sure they don’t like to see Mommy continually hurt by Bad Daddy. You may be trying to be civil for the kids, but he has to as well, and it doesn’t look like he’s doing his part.
Be strong, don’t talk to him, and work on New Guy…I hope he’s the one!
Wow kittenblue…I’ve been there and done that. Married the wonderful man who turned into an asshole three years into the marriage, divorced him because of his affairs and then played the nice guy until he could get his head out of his ass long enough to realize he had a son.
I think something a lot of people don’t realize how much you have to swallow your pride and be nice to someone who keeps screwing you and your children over and over in hopes that one day they’ll act responsibly. It worked for me. Two years of him mostly ignoring our son, with me initiating visitation, paying off his truck so that he “didn’t have to work that night-time job” that kept him from spending time with his son.
And even now that my ex has been proving fairly responsible…I still have had to decrease his child support to $1 a month so that he “doesn’t have to work that night-time job” that keeps him from spending time with his son.
So we suck it up…and take those phone calls where he bitches about his new wife, which frankly makes me feel very uncomfortable. But I did tell him that I was no longer interested in hearing about his private life…he tried it for a while, but has gotten better since I told him to stop it. I understand the glee that comes from watching your ex suffer…its nice to see someone get his/her just desserts, but I think in the end its damaging to the new relationship you have with your ex after divorce.
Your kids aren’t stupid, they know he’s a schmuck. Trust them to make their own decisions about their relationship with him. I don’t see how you possibly factor into that.
My father took the affair, abandon, regret route and listening to him become the victim became quite tiring. It’s also why his three children and ex-wife have cut him out of their lives.
Talking and listening to your ex is basically showing him AND the new guy that you still care. Ask yourself why.
One thing my mother never did was take the martyr route, which is a role I suspect you quite enjoy.
Say goodbye, permanently, and stop the drama.
Shouldn’t that be amended to "without much complaint? 
Very similar to my story - only one kid though.
Thanks, ouisey & D_odds for some amount of understanding about how hard it is to keep up a civil relationship. I do give him grief about dumping all this on me, and I do limit the amount of time I let him talk, and there is not one portion of my being that looks forward to these calls…I’m not playing any martyr role here. Far from it. The amount of grief I catch from everyone in my life for allowing him to call negates any positive feeling I may have ever, remotely had…just look at the response here, from total strangers. It is an embarassment, and a burden, and yet I still have trouble kicking him to the curb when he’s this close to total meltdown. Do I still care? Only as one human being does for another. Do I want him to get on with his life and get out of mine? Yes. Do I want his suicide on my conscience? No. Do I worry when he doesn’t call for a few days? Not one tiny bit. Am I going to tell him that, by asking me to list any positive character traits he may have, he has crossed the invisible, mental line for me, bringing back memories of his drunken, 3 a.m “why do you love me tirades”, and that he shouldn’t call me again until he has something positive to relate? Yes.
kittenblue, Hang in there. No one can make this call but you, and I’m afraid it is all too easy for us to look at this type of thing and give straightforward, all-or-nothing advice about what you SHOULD do.
I will say that it sounds like it’s time to move the boundaries a bit…you’ve already established them, just broaden them to give yourself some comfort room. Cut his time limit and the number of times he is allowed to call you. Better yet, if you feel ready to do it and you think he’s stable enough, it is not wrong or heartless to tell someone that you’ve done all you can, and it is time for h/h to take some steps to help themselves. (Ha, and there is MY staightforward advice, lol.)
I don’t have a relationship at all with my ex, except where it involves my kids, but if he called and needed to talk to me or cry on my shoulder, I guess I’d listen and try to help out. If nothing else, because I don’t want my kids to ever look back and remember me turning a cold shoulder on their dad. Better, I think, if (once they really get his number), they are able to look at him and say, y’know, Mom was clueless about what an asshole he was. If you try to TELL them, it’ll backfire all too easily.
You sound ready to take the next step. Don’t feel guilty for doing so. You’ve got to take care of yourself first, and this is taking way too much of your time and energy.
Best wishes
~karol
bodypoet said it best - look after yourself and your kids first. If you can do that to the best of your abilities and still have some polite discourse with your ex, then do so. If you can’t, if the communication with him is hard on you and/or your kids, then dump the communication with him outside of what is necessary for the kids. I really can’t see any good reason to keep on communicating with a man who doesn’t seem to have anything to offer you.
kittenblue, I just wanted to chime in with my sympathies. You are, you know, a strong, tough, compassionate person. Your actions in this thread prove it. Please do remain civil to him until your daughter turns 18 (I’m assuming she’s the younger one?), just to reassure them that one of their parents knows how to act like a civilized human being. I’d be willing to bet your daughter knows he’s scum, though. I’m no expert, but I wouldn’t be surprised she’s got a pile of resentment from that emergency room incident.
As for him, there’s an insult I’ve always wanted to try, but haven’t and probably won’t because I haven’t been appopriately provoked enough (not to mention a few moral restrictions). Please feel free to use it on him, if only in your imagination: “So your life sucks and your lover doesn’t. Deal with it.”
Hang in there, all 16 claws and a couple of teeth.
CJ
I’m with John Carter in the send this rant to him category. Get it out there, send it off, let him know. It may be the kick in the ass he needs to focus on himself and ditch this bitch, and maybe start feeling some real remorse for what he’s done to you. Or, maybe he’ll just curl up in the fetal position with a bottle of whiskey and drink himself into oblivion. Either way, you win out.
Seriously, send him your rant. Don’t take his shit. I know it’s hard when you’ve loved someone to let them go completely, but he’s done nothing but hurt you and your family since. He doesn’t deserve lies, and he doesn’t deserve your pity.
Hey, kittenblue, sorry to hear about all your pain. Please, do whatever you can to distance yourself from this very negative man and his attempts to drown you in his self-made pile of crap for a life. You’re polite, you’re caring, you’re aware of certain reasons for having to stay on civil terms. But all of these qualities can be abused, and all I’m saying is… be careful, be cautious, be alert for little signals that say your good nature is being abused again. That’s the last thing you need.
And good luck with the new guy. I hope he’s a nice one - there are a few of us left.
Thank you, ianzin, for the good thoughts. The new guy is a real sweetheart, although I think he just wants to be friends for now…but that’s a whole other rant! The amazing thing is that since I posted this thread, I have not heard from the ex-husband at all…not at work, at home…nothing. While this period of radio-silence is not unprecedented, it is a bit unusual considering how frequent his calls have become lately. He knows nothing about this forum, so I can only imagine that after the last call, he took the hint that he had pushed me over the edge. It has been a truly blissful week, despite the fact that I somehow thought it was the end of June, rather than the end of May…my ex-anniversary isn’t for a month yet. Party at my place!
I don’t have anything to say other than
{{{kittenblue}}}}
Thanks, Guin, but why Why WHY did I open my big mouth??? He just called. With that stupid woe-is-me voice. So I prattled on about the movie I saw last night that had a reference to someplace we used to live (Colorado Springs/Ft. Carson/NORAD) and about work, and told him I’d just put my dinner in the microwave…you know, stuff NORMAL people talk about, and then the dinger went off and I said “gotta go, dinner’s ready” and got off the phone.
Then daughter calls and asks for emergency cheeseburger delivery. I hang up, and HE CALLS AGAIN. “are you done eating” I tell him I have to run up to Dave&Busters and I’ll talk to him later…"no, you won’t…you don’t want to talk to me either…sob & Wail…and he hangs up on me, in tears.
Fucking Asshole. Fucking, fucking asshole, you are not going to guilt me into talking to you anymore. And now I have to go deliver McDonald’s to Dave&Buster’s. And maybe I’ll stay and have a martini and come home really late.
You know, if nothing changes, nothing changes. So stick to your guns, and don’t talk to him anymore.
Sounds like it’s time to cut bait. This is not a healthy relationship between you and your ex. You’re allowing him to sob on your shoulder, and he obviously wants to continue.
I wouldn’t suggest sending him your rant – excellent though it is – but to modify it into something shorter:
“I’m the last person who can be objective about you. What has happened between us makes me totally incapable of seeing you as clear as you’d like me. I’d suggest seeing a therapist and working through this. Bye.”
This is better than he deserves. I have a young daughter who I love more than life itself, and I don’t this your ex could begin justifying his behavior before having to stop and pick up his teeth, so I’m just a teensy-bit biased here.
No, I’m thinking about your mental health here. If you want to cut him loose without sending him over the edge, then you’ll need to do it on the basis of “I can’t help you with this anymore. Get help and get better, and then maybe we’ll talk.”
Nothing like getting free advice from total strangers worldwide, eh?
I’m back…no martini, but lots of video games…and no call from him, thank God. I guess he meant it when he said he wouldn’t be talking to me later.
Thank goodness I don’t have to pay anyone for all the advice…!
I’m so sorry, kittenblue.
I don’t think that people understand sometimes how it is when you have children with a person. He may have (and DID, evidentally) behave in a way that makes it seem clear that you should just tell him to buzz off…that you not only CAN’T help him, but you don’t even necessarily WANT to help him anymore. But when he is the father of your children, how can you do that? How can you just tell him that he deserves all the pain he is feeling, that he brought it all on himself and etc? You can’t, that is all. And it doesn’t make you a martyr that you can’t.
He is your children’s father. And no matter how much they see him for what and who he is, and I am sure they do, on SOME level they probably still love him.
It is a very difficult thing you are having to deal with. You have my sympathy. And my best wishes for a positive outcome in your current relationship.
Hang in there, sweetie. It sounds to me as though you are doing the best you can with a very difficult situation.