[MadLuv]

You’re so right, treasur
. I blocked them on both email and text. This was the final straw to know that there is no way to make things civil.  D34 is explosive and she tends to be very mean and dramatic when she is. She does not make it a safe place to share your own feelings. I can usually let that go, but sometimes the hits are so deep they start to become a open wound that wont heal.  I dont know where we go from here. Her controlling needs of everything is a lot. 

I have heard horror stories on OWife and of course she was a problem employee sent to XH to help, but this is the first time I have been involved with her crazy. I cant for the life of me think that reaching out to my D34 was anything other then to turn the knife in me one more turn.  She is just nastier than I could have imagined. So, it’s even more mind blowing he is with her.  Just still unbelievable!

[Treasur]

Well done on the blocking. Sometimes we just need to move away from nasty stuff, don’t we?

I’m sorry about your daughter…I think many of us know what it is like to live with a thinner skin after trauma. I don’t always like that but I accept it and adjust around it now and then.

[xyzcf]

This situation just seems never ending. Damned if you do damned if you don't, but you can go from feeling like you are going to survive it all And you feel good about yourself to literally hours later feeling like you wont survive this round of set backs.

As much as we would like to think that their existence doesn't upset us anymore, I will confess that several years later, even though we have somewhat of  regular and peaceful contact with one another, there are things he does that causes me to come unglued. I have learned to reset myself quite quickly and life goes on...until the next time.....Most of all, I accept that this is who he is, this is the way my life is and try to let go of how it once was and how the heck did it come to this?

Try not to beat yourself up...they can take way too much space up in our heads.

I continue to get bills and emails and they seems to be increasing.last night I also got text about my XH condo internet being out of service. I  texted my XH on it and while I texted I also told him I had been accumulating items of him I found and asked if he wanted them sent or thrown away.

You have absolutely no obligation to let him know that you are still getting these things or to ask him what he wants you to do with them.

You can choose to 1) throw anything that comes to your house away. 2) Mark them with "return to sender" 3) forward them to his known address. 4) Contact the email sender and tell them that this address is not connected to the account...give them the new email address for your husband.

But really, as long as there is nothing that will impact your credit or has your name on it, just trash them.

I hate this turn has happened, because my daughter and I were finally in a good place and I have no idea why this OWife felt it necessary to do that . I also dont like when my daughter lashes out  and then blocks me from responding.  I feel
i don't have a voice.

You relationship with your daughter has been difficult and I am really sorry because that would be so hard to deal with. But I will make this observation...your daughter's actions of lashing out at you and blocking you are not OW's fault. Your daughter owns her actions towards you..she alone is responsible for lashing out and blocking you.

Why she continues to do this, could be due to many many reasons....but regardless of what OW is or is not (and I think if you could let go of any attempt to understand why either OW or ex h do the things they do...as Ursa is so fond of saying...trying to understand is like trying to taste the color green) your daughter is an adult and she continues to hurt you...as we often have said, hurt people hurt people.

I hope you are feeling better, these trials continue...because there is major trauma to ourselves and our families that might never completely disappear.

[MadLuv]

Treasur- that we do
XY- my info is on the bills. He never has taken them off.  The ones that are off  is because 4 years passed and  they required him to confirm me and he didn't because he never changed from my email either. Just an avoidant in all ways.
But…. After yesterday I am just going to shred and hope for the best. I will contact the credit cards to remove myself. Only 2 remain. I took him off mine first month. The utility bills are the main issue. Im just going to let it go. You know you have such a good scenerio and still you have issues, so  it just is what it is. The lack of empathy and disrespect will always haunt me.

[xyzcf]

It is such a hassle to get our name off something like the utilities! Should not be so difficult, especially since we are legally divorced.

Very frustrating and exhausting.

You know you have such a good scenerio and still you have issues, so  it just is what it is. The lack of empathy and disrespect will always haunt me.

I wanted to reassure you that what you are feeling is normal.....the lack of empathy and disrespect, although I am not sure they are aware that they are so disrespectful...their minds are really messed up and we get caught up in what we think should just be a normal discussion and just take care of it and instead becomes some kind of drama .....as we often said...MLC, the gift that just keeps on giving.

You are doing all you can madluv....be kind ad gentle with yourself.

[marvin4242]

MadLuv I really struggled with whether to post this or not, but decide I would. And I really am trying to thread lightly, but I am hoping you can take this as it's intended.

I want to echo what Treasur and xyzcf have already said so well, but add my voice hoping it may cut through. Watching from afar is seems you are somewhat deluding yourself, in that yes there are factual elements where you get information or bills from you XH, but is that really the reason you feel you need to relay, or collect his belongings? If you looked carefully inside is there any pain, hope, loss, sadness that is keeping you indirectly attached to him? His relationship with his children are theirs, it may be very hard to watch but at this point it's between them. And your daughter is more than old enough to decide things, to choose things, and maybe is responsible for her own well being?

Only reason I ask is because hopefully you can find yourself to a place where the actions of disordered people (your XH, the OW) no longer impact you and YOUR well being. So you need to do what you need to do for yourself (including being kind and gentle, but also taking an honest inventory of your own) to protect yourself and let go. Being kind and gentle and being honest and self protective are not mutually exclusive.

[MadLuv]

Marvin - I had to take a good hard look at myself and my own motivations. I had to not reached out to XH in 2 years, so what made me want to?? i was at a baseball game of my grandsons and my D34 XH ‘s wife and family and of course my daughter and her husband and I were there. We all got a long. There breakup ( she cheated on him) was a disaster!!! They hated her . They hated us. It caused so much issues with XH and I because they all worked together. Even the affair partner.

So, time passes and things were good and I thought. This is how it should’ve been. Also , D34 told me GS10 came into her room crying that he missed  his pops. So, you put all that together and the bill issue and it gave me an opportunity to FIX. Try to build a bridge. It was a mistake. A huge mistake. I let my empathy and fixer mode distort the fact that he has shown nothing fixable.

What I have realized is that I have to tell D34 that she can’t tell me about her pain from her dad or GS10, because it then becomes an added pain and I can work through mine, but I get angry at theirs. Also, I feel responsible because if he still loved me or I was enough they would still have him!

So in short. I let my empathy get in the way. He is no better. Its not my job to fix and I need to not hear about how he affects any of them anymore, because I didnt cause this.

Hope this translates correctly as Im typing on my phone and I always find that it doesn’t many times. I think as bad as yesterday was it was a blessing. I needed that one last kick in the rear to stop trying to think he is in there. Nothing  is showing he is and OW reaching out to D34 and telling her to tell me to stop reaching out accusing Xh of not wanting a relationship with them was insane.
There is no doubt XH is telling his current wife he is trying and his kids are not receptive. Not true. They need more than a yearly xmas gift and a text.

Just so much clarity came through. Your right Marvin in many ways.

[Treasur]

No advice, ML, I just wanted to say how brave it was of you to be so honest about the triggers that led you to reach out and then find yourself in a weird s$itshow…. I can almost guarantee that your brave eye will chime with someone else quietly reading along and give them their own courage to make a shift in something, so thank you.

It’s pretty uncomfortable for most of us to look so closely to our own side of the street, but usually in my experience it creates a healthy shift in perspective that has been brewing quietly.

Your post also made me think about those little moments of ‘tristesse’ we can feel when the world is not as we wish it were. It’s a kind of momentary yearning, isn’t it? For a past time or place, for a kinder world, for a sort of innocence maybe. A oretty normal human kind of feeling. I have certainly felt it and always associated it with a different spin of grief and loss.

[Trustandlove]

You got there faster than I did, ML.  I tried to keep my former H in the loop for many years; I did have much younger children so that makes a difference, but still. 

I remember when I decided "enough", and decided that I would no longer contact him for anything, even if one of the children landed in the hospital.  I did end up having to have some arms-length contact because there was still paperwork to do, but that was when I came to the conclusion that, process or no process, the person I had believed he was just didn't exist, and, like you say, he shows nothing fixable. 

Now I had experienced many more times when he seemed to be somewhat himself, sometimes for many months or even over a year at a time, which is partly why I did what I did; the divorce was also not final, so that also played a  role, but still. 

That in itself hurt for a while; but it was necessary.  My kids still feel the effects; as I've written here before two have given up as well at this point; one is on the fence.  So I'm still angry about how it affects them, and yes, how incredibly unfair it all is on me.

But then I dust myself off and get on with it, as you have shown you do as well.

And I agree, very brave to look it all in the face and call it what it is.  This is crap any way you look at it.

x

[marvin4242]

ML thank you truly for sharing, it is so helpful to all of us. It is hard for us (and me) to try to look inward to find peace and solutions but as you said perfectly sometimes we get a chance to do it when we get hurt, yet again. Trust me I have done similar things for different reasons over the years.

Empathy is an incredibly important thing, but sometimes it is misplaced. I would say redirect the empathy to yourself, you deserve it a lot more.