I haven’t seen my first husband since my grandson was born 6 years ago, and then it took me several minutes to recognize him. I just had the thought, “Oh, baby’s mama’s Dad looks a lot like my ex” when I saw him in the hospital room. Kind of funny.
My second husband is around more since the kids are young teenagers. Seeing him for the brief time he is here to get the kids is okay; we are cordial and sometimes he requests a bit of whatever I’m cooking if it smells really good. But when I have to sit in, say, a meeting or dinner with him, I leave with a sick stomach and headache, and find myself upset for several days afterwards. I’ll be happy when I don’t have to deal with him at all.
I haven’t actually interacted with my ex in years. I do see him from time to time out in public because we live in the same part of town. I don’t ever talk to him or make any attempt to interact with him. The divorce was my idea, I found out he was cheating on me among other things.
I did once see him getting bawled out in the middle of Wal-mart by who I assume is his wife now. I said something under my breath about karma being a bitch and kept walking.
She remarried a couple years after we split up, ever since anytime we’ve met up over the years we hop straight into bed and bang each other cross-eyed. Doesn’t mean I like her, though.
I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen the man since February of 1980. We had no children. He married the slut he’d slept with, had a daughter by her, then apparently sometime later that couple split up and he moved away. I did hear his voice on the phone, when he was in town to visit his daughter, about ten years ago. He asked if I wanted to go out for coffee, and I said no.
We could have remained good friends. Or friends. Or cordial human beings. But no, she had to keep pulling BS post break up that drove it to just this side of actual hate. I kept trying to take the high road while she kept taking the Chunnel.
About a year ago I told her I’d be happy to never see her alive again. Kinda wondered then if it I meant it. Looking more and more like I did.
At best I might be able to force myself to go see her dying in the hospital or attend the funeral. But that would only be because of my strong desire to do the right thing. It wouldn’t be because of any strong personal desire to do so.
Congrats you crabby assed lying drama Queen.
Needless to say any future encounters are not going to be joyful.
My first husband and I are both attend an annual conference every May. I don’t actively avoid him, neither do I seek him out unless there’s some son related thing to hand off. When we do interact he makes a big show of giving me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek…if he’s with someone who will be impressed at how evolved he is.
In fact, this year I was speaking with a good friend during a break and the ex did come over and without waiting for a pause in the conversation gave me an awkward unreciprocated hug from the side. The man I’d been speaking to asked after he left “How do you even know that guy?” When I said “He was my first husband” he said how great it was we’re on good terms. He and his wife recently divorced (and had to split their jointly owned business) and are not yet ready to be in the same room without blood boiling.
My second husband’s parents married young and were married for about 20 years. By the time I met them they’d been divorced close to fifteen years and each remarried. The first time I met his mom was at his father and stepmother’s house. They were all very cordial to each other, with laughter and reminiscences. A long time later I said something about how great their relationship as a divorced couple (probably while seething about some hurtful jackass thing my ex had said or done when picking up our son). Something about the way I said it indicated that I thought it had always been that way. That they just shook hands and said “Thanks, it’s been nice. Time to move on.” Apparently that was something they had to work at, and some of the work was hard.
I hope my ex will make an effort to come east for our son’s HS graduation next year, and if he does I will sit with him and we’ll likely all go out for a meal together.
I think how the marriage ended would affect how seeing the person would feel. If I’d been blindsided by him asking for a divorce to run off with his 26 year old yoga instructor I’d probably want to throw a drink in his face every time I saw him. But ours was just “This isn’t working.”
Since we have teenagers we see each other all the time: pretty much twice a week or more. We’re both completely mature about it. In fact, in order to discuss certain things about the kids, we’ve met for drinks a couple of times. Life’s too short for hatred, remorse and blame.
He’s gone now, but we knew each other for so long, were such good friends and had a kid together that it was mostly very friendly. We had quite a bit of contact, because of the kid, but I think we would have remained friends regardless. Hell, we shared a divorce lawyer.
I ran into my ex just once, when I was revisiting my old city to see friends. We hadn’t intended to see each other and since our marriage had ended nastily we hadn’t wanted to. We noted that the two of us were still alive, and never saw each other again.
We co-parent a couple of teens so it’s really impossible to never speak or hear from her again. But we manage to remain civil most of the time and I don’t make any effort to even have a phone conversation unless it has to do with something specifically about the kids. Routine information like monthly schedule with the kids is exchanged via email.
If, on the rare occassion we do have to meet, I look forward to it like I look forward to a proctology exam. I can’t wait for the day when the kids are adults and there will no longer be any reason to have any kind of interaction with her ever again. That day can’t come soon enough.
Saw her a couple of times after the divorce. I was happy to see her (the divorce was her idea – she left me for another guy), but couldn’t talk about anything. She did contact me via Facebook a few years ago and I was able to resolve some of the issues I had never been able to figure out (why she left, why she cut me off so abruptly, what I had done to drive her away, etc.), so that’s was good.
I’ve been divorced for a long time and the marriage was only 4 years.
I think I saw him shortly after the divorce. I was out walking with a friend and a man coming towards us kept staring at me. After he passed my friend asked if he was my ex-husband and I said I thought he could be but I wasn’t sure.
I saw him again about 10 years ago when I was voting. I Know it was him because I heard him give his name. I don’t know if he recognized me or not and I pretended not to know him.
I don’t have anything to say to him, I don’t care to know anything about him.
The only reason I know anything is because I worked at DMV and hand sorted all the changes made to Drivers Licenses. I saw the name change for his new wife and the change of address. I only found out about his kids because they went to school with my nieces.
I have no idea why he moved to the same town I live in. He always downed me for coming from this town, always said what a horrible place it was, refused to live here when we were married, talked about how the people weren’t his kind of people and how horrible the schools are. The ink wasn’t dry on the divorce papers when he remarried and moved less than a half mile from the house I grew up in, the house where my mother still lives.
Anyway, if I were to run in to him today I probably wouldn’t recognize him and if I did I’d ignore him.
I was singing “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” in a department store. Don’t ask.
Married for 12 years, now separated for 13 or so. We used to go out for dinner in November his birthday, December for mine and January for our daughters. We’ll call each other to give each other news about family and friends or to get a phone number or have a chat He’s a alcoholic and he messed up pretty badly with our daughter a few years ago so I don’t feel so friendly to him anymore though, but if anything happened to either of us the other would be there 100%.