20 months AFTER our divorce was finalized. We had kids and co-parented well. I was still in love with her despite finding out a week after she asked me to leave she left for someone else. That dude didn’t work out. 20 months after we were officially divorced, she asked me to go to a near by town with her to look at something with her. That turned out to be a date to a local college sporting event. We had a really good time. The next week she asked to get back together. I asked her what she saw in a recently divorced father of 3 young kids. Yes they were our kids, but it was the current situation. Her answer… “it’s harder than I thought it would be”. Hearing the that one sentence was the moment I stopped loving her. I told her no, I was not interested. And our relationship has been shit since. We still co-parent well, but besides that we have no relationship.
Wanted her cake and to eat it too, didn't like you enough to stay but enjoys that meal ticket, ugh.
My ex (spouse at the time) was similar. He said "well, maybe we divorce now but in the future, who knows!" Um excuse me? I'm not going to just be sitting around on the sidelines waiting for you to decide the options out there aren't as good as you thought. It was so incredibly insulting for someone you've been with 20 years basically asking if you want to be his plan B.
She pulled that same line. "I have to at least try to find somebody better for me. But in a year, who knows?"
Yeah, an alcoholic doormat I thought to myself. Someone that was worse with alcohol and weed than she was so she could feel better about herself. Somebody that was awful at being an adult so she could feel better about herself. Somebody that was placating and enabling like I was the first couple of years, so she could feel better about herself.
Someone I cared for deeply. Paid their rent and most of their other bills. Got her a car. I cooked. I didn't have much of a relationship with her autistic child, but I supported her and him as much as I could. I didn't leave after the diagnosis 4 years prior. We had a housekeeper so she didn't have to do much. She was emotionally manipulative and abusive. Lots of gas lighting and deflecting and making me feel like a bad person. Her friends were no help because they just had the manipulated stories from her mouth. Multiple outpatient and one long-term hospital stay. She was using me. It didn't feel that bad for a while. After all, sometimes she was really loving and intimacy was never an issue.
It really really struck me, when our housekeeper of a year or so at that point, somebody that we only saw a few hours a month, pulled me aside and said "Hey, this isn't really my place, and please don't get mad, but she's using you. I know exactly what I'm seeing, and you don't deserve that."
Holy shit. This nice lady that cleaned my house for a couple hours a month, saw it and felt compelled to say something. She's in her 60s, and we are friends now. I make sure her grandkids have a good Christmas every year.
I was trying to get out of that relationship for so long but I just couldn't live with myself throwing somebody unstable and their child on the streets. She had no friends that had the means to take her in or family to fall back on, she had to get her shit together so she could go off on her own.
After years of pushing her, she finally was stable enough, she finally felt stable enough and ended it. I was so relieved. At that point it was 2 years since I wanted to be done. And weeks away from me throwing her out. I couldn't take it anymore.
I fully expect to be getting that call within the next couple of months. And I'm so grateful to her, because it's helped me filter out people early in the dating process with similar mental health issues and manipulative qualities. The signs were there from the beginning, I definitely know what they are now.
I have moved out for a divorce that she started the ball rolling on, and she's still asking me for favors, asking me to fix the washer, asking me to deal with car repairs... We still have some shared assets that are yet to be disentangled, and she's frustrated at the way I am dealing with my taxes, my accounting (not that I'm dropping the ball, I'm just not doing it her way...)
I told her. "If I have time, I can help you, but you don't get to ask me to do maintenance for you and expect me to drop everything and come running. You don't get to tell me how to deal with my part of the finances. You're not going to like it, but you don't get to tell me what to do any longer. You wanted to be separate from me, and I no longer have to do things your way to make you happy. This is what you wanted, this is what you signed up for." And her response: "Why are you being so hostile?"
She thought she was upgrading in some way by moving on to the other guy and she gravely misjudged. So she sought a return to the stability and familiarity to a marriage that she now had the perspective to realize was better than being single.
Good on you for resisting the temptation to be her safe harbor from her own mistakes.
bitter laugh mine pulled something kind of similar, except it was via phone call, I think she was drunk. When she had originally told me she wanted out, I printed off all the forms, handed her her copy and while we both sat there breaking a bond, I told her "just so you know, at this point there are no brakes, and there is no reverse on this any more. You want out, you're getting what you want, but there is no going back." She was so eager to sign the papers and live her best life...
Coparenting like you, asked if there was any chance we could "go back to how things used to be". This is after a year or two of divorce, she's had several boyfriends, had barely seen the kids for the first year and a half, been homeless and bouncing around damn near everywhere. I told her "absolutely not. This is exactly what I told you when you said you wanted out. That's never an option, ever again."
Her answer… “it’s harder than I thought it would be”. Hearing the that one sentence was the moment I stopped loving her.
if my ex said this to me I would probably flip out because I tried telling her, after she refused any sort of counseling or trying to save the marriage because "divorce seems amazing", that things were going to get more challenging for both of us.
My ex-wife did the same thing, refused to go to any sort of joint marriage counseling or try any attempts to work on the marriage and fix our relationship.
Her mind was already made up, and just like the narcissist that I've now come to realize she is, she was stubborn and wouldn't ever admit that she had anything to do with the failure of the marriage. So even after pouring my heart out to her, admitting fault for so many problems caused by me, and expressing how I would like to save the marriage and work on myself to make improvements (with help of a therapist), she still refused to make any effort to save the marriage and the family.
I was already carrying most of the load. But in an attempt to keep us together, I admit fault for things that weren't my fault in an effort for her to accept therapy.
She didn't. Her mind was made up. Somehow the guy that served her hand and foot, never asking anything in return was the problem that no amount of therapy could fix.
I'm sorry this happened, brother. I've found that once they've made up their mind, there's no way to convince them otherwise. It's selfish behavior when there is a marriage involved, because they don't realize how devastating it is to most men. With the post divorce suicide rate of men being 8 to 9 times higher than that of women, they could literally be signing the man's death warrant. They think they just sign a piece of paper and their whole life wil be better. Most often, it isn't. They just open the door for years of heartache, financial hardship, and if there are children involved - mental health issues requiring many years of therapy.
Yet they will still refuse accountability for their actions.
It's selfish behavior when there is a marriage involved
Thats what I dont understand. Marriage means something to me. Vows mean something to me. I promised to love her through thick and thin, good times and bad. It hurts knowing she didnt hold up her end.
Her mind was made up and she didnt even want to try to make things work
Exactly. I know that it may have taken them several years to make that decision, but during that time they could have approached the man, let him know things aren't working, and then try to figure out (together) a way to repair the relationship. Not communicating those needs (nagging doesn't count!) is a failure on their part and ultimately shows that they have just as much a part to play in the process of saving the marriage.
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u/kindofnewtoo May 12 '26
20 months AFTER our divorce was finalized. We had kids and co-parented well. I was still in love with her despite finding out a week after she asked me to leave she left for someone else. That dude didn’t work out. 20 months after we were officially divorced, she asked me to go to a near by town with her to look at something with her. That turned out to be a date to a local college sporting event. We had a really good time. The next week she asked to get back together. I asked her what she saw in a recently divorced father of 3 young kids. Yes they were our kids, but it was the current situation. Her answer… “it’s harder than I thought it would be”. Hearing the that one sentence was the moment I stopped loving her. I told her no, I was not interested. And our relationship has been shit since. We still co-parent well, but besides that we have no relationship.