My kids witnessed her yelling at me and putting her hands on me several times. Each time, I took it without fighting back, and each time, I hated that my children had to see it. Near the end, she got angry because I did not take the trash out the moment I came home.
She grabbed me by the neck and squeezed while my son stood there, horrified. I told her that our son would remember that moment for the rest of his life. Only then did she let go.
I should have left long before that. I know it now. I would like to believe that if we had not had children, I would have walked away, but I did not want them to grow up in a broken home.
I held on to the hope that someday my wife would become the woman I had fallen in love with again. I know now that those days were dead and gone. They had been gone for years.
After everything came to light, my wife sat down with the woman whose husband she had been seeing and told her, point-blank, that it was true and that she was not sorry. Then my wife got up and walked away. I heard this from the friend herself.
After that, my wife left, took the kids, and moved in with him in an apartment behind the one we had shared. Even then, I held on to a little hope that she would realize the grass was not greener with him. He had already cheated on his own wife several times, aside from what he did with my wife, and she knew it.
I waited that entire first year, hoping she would come back. She kept the apartment keys, and I assumed she was holding on to them because some part of her knew she would come home. By the end of that year, the cruelty started again.
He began showing up at the bus stop while I was putting the kids on the school bus, standing there like he had earned the right to be part of their morning routine. He would tell me, “I came to see my daughter off to school. Not your daughter.
Mine.”
I asked him, “If that is how you feel, why were you content for five years to let me raise her? Why did you let her have my last name? Why did you let me be there at her birth and raise her as mine?
Where were you? Why is my name on her birth certificate instead of yours?”
That nearly earned me a swing at the face, and later that night, it earned me a late, messy visit from both of them because he had shown up looking for a fight. My ex then decided to make everything public.
She went on Facebook and bragged about her new boyfriend. Our friends were shocked and reached out to me and to his wife. I made sure to save every screenshot I could.
She did not seem to care about the hole she was digging for herself with our upcoming divorce. Then again, maybe she thought she had nothing to lose. I already had the paternity test.
At the end of it, I became self-destructive. I kept wondering what I could have done differently or better. She blamed me for not being around for her, but if I had not been working two jobs, how would we have survived?
I did not clean the second I got home because I was exhausted, and she would scream at me over the trash while the kids had colored on the walls, torn down blinds, and put holes in the wall under her watch. Somehow, my not taking out the trash after a sixteen-hour day was the problem. The worst part was that I wanted my family back so badly that I started believing it was my fault.
It took time to see the truth. What changed everything was my brother. He was determined to get me to play in his band, and even though I kept declining, he insisted I at least meet the other members before deciding.
That meeting changed things for me. I still turned down joining the band at first, but I became friends with them. Eventually, I casually dated a woman introduced to me by the rhythm guitarist.
She was forty-five, and I fell for her quickly. Being in a loving relationship with someone who did not turn every day into a screaming match felt like stepping out of a burning house and breathing clean air for the first time. During all this, my ex still had the keys to our old apartment.
She would let herself in from time to time and drop off things for the kids. The first time she let herself in and my new girlfriend was there, it did not go well. My ex called me that night asking who the woman was and why she had been in “our” apartment.
I enjoyed telling my ex that my girlfriend was none of her business. She had moved on, left me, and was living with someone else. She did not get to treat my home like it was still hers.
Over the next few months, my ex became erratic about my new girlfriend. She even began watching her online and trying to insert herself into her life. My ex sent my girlfriend a Facebook friend request and demanded that she accept it.
When my girlfriend refused, my ex called me screaming that I needed to tell her to accept because she had a right to know what kind of person I was bringing around our kids. My girlfriend took the phone from me and told my ex, calmly and firmly, that she did not need to add her as a friend. Anything involving the kids could be handled through Messenger or phone calls.
My ex did not and would not have access to our private life, our friends, or our family, because she was not part of my girlfriend’s personal life. That did not sit well with my ex. My girlfriend showed me the sudden burst of friend requests she started getting from people who were connected to my ex.
Then my ex began letting herself into my place every weekend when I was not home, clearly looking around. One day, I was on the phone with my girlfriend while I was at work and heard my ex walk in. My girlfriend asked if she needed something.
My ex claimed she wanted to see how much milk I had in the fridge for when the kids came over. My girlfriend told her we had it handled, and my ex left. When I got home, I demanded the apartment key back because she did not live there anymore.
She then took my son’s keys and made copies for herself. When my lease was up, my girlfriend asked me to move in with her so we could put distance between us and my ex. My ex did everything she could to interfere, including calling the police and claiming I was leaving with her belongings.
When asked what belonged to her, she could not name a single thing in my place that was actually hers. Now we get the kids every other weekend. At first, my children told me they were not allowed to talk about what they did with me because their mother did not want to hear it.
That did not last long. Soon she was pressing them for every bit of information she could get. I am sure jealousy had a lot to do with it.
We live near the beach now. My girlfriend is very comfortable financially, and when the kids come over, we take short walks to the boardwalk, let them ride rides, play on the sand, or visit the aquarium. If they return home with prizes, my ex throws them away.
The strangest thing was how my ex started changing her appearance. The last few times she dropped off the kids, I noticed she was dressing and styling herself more and more like my girlfriend. She dyed her hair and cut it to match.
Whatever we did with the kids, my ex would run out the following week and try to do the same thing with them. If we took them to the beach, she took them to the beach. If we went to the zoo, she took them to the zoo.
If she found out what we had for dinner, she had to make the same thing and demand that the kids tell her whose version they liked more. Last week, my son asked to live with us because he said his mother was acting unstable. You can believe I am using all of this in court.
Just when I thought things could not get any stranger, my ex began texting me revealing photos late one night. My girlfriend was sitting next to me when the messages came in. I immediately got defensive and told her I had not asked for them and that my ex and I were not speaking that way.
I offered my phone so she could look for herself. My girlfriend looked at the pictures and asked for my ex’s number so she could send back a joke of her own and show her how it was really done. Instead, I called my ex and asked what in the world she thought she was doing.
I told her my girlfriend was sitting right beside me, had seen the messages, and was upset. My ex tried to say she meant to send them to someone else. My girlfriend pointed out that my name was on one end of the alphabet and her boyfriend’s name was on the other, then asked, “Who is the new guy, since those were meant for someone else?” My ex hung up.
I do not know what game my ex is playing. It is all exhausting and strange. Let me clear up a few things because people keep commenting as if I am still living in the same place.
First, my girlfriend did not send any revealing pictures back. That was only her verbal response to what my ex had done. She joked that she should show my ex how it was done because the pictures were just my ex posing in front of a mirror with her phone in her hand, making faces.
My girlfriend was making fun of her lack of imagination. Second, I do not live in the old apartment I shared with my wife anymore. I moved in with my girlfriend because even after I took the keys back, my ex used my son’s keys to keep getting in.
She does not have access to my new place, and my kids do not have keys for that reason. Third, I am currently fighting for custody of my kids. It is not easy with my daughter not being biologically mine, but I am fighting based on the birth certificate, where I am listed as her father.
That gives me parental rights, and I will not abandon the child I raised. Fourth, my ex was prescribed medication, but I have serious doubts about whether she is taking it as directed. Fifth, I check my kids for bruises and make sure they are not being harmed.
She made the mistake of getting physical with her boyfriend, and he put a hole in the wall and made it clear he would not tolerate being struck. That is the environment my children are around, and I am not ignoring it. This past weekend was my daughter’s official sixth birthday.
It was not my weekend to have the kids, so I was shocked when my ex asked whether I wanted them for my daughter’s birthday. Of course I took them. I was even given two extra days.
I assumed they had plans and were handing the kids off so they could go do whatever they wanted, but one thing stayed with me. This was the first birthday he could celebrate as her biological father, and instead of doing something special with her, she was sent to me and my girlfriend. Does anyone else find that deeply wrong?
Another update came on a Saturday night when I received an angry text from my ex saying she hoped I was happy because I had won. I know I should not have engaged, but I asked what her problem was. Her answer made no sense.
Then she told me to go ahead and gloat, over and over, because something had happened to her, and she accused me of being part of it. I asked what I was supposedly part of. Instead of answering, she went off about how men were terrible and could not be trusted.
From that, I gathered two things. She had been drinking again, and the man she left me for had cheated on her. I did not say anything.
When she is in that state, any response becomes a fight, and I chose not to get into it. I just read the texts and thought that maybe she was finally getting a taste of what she had chosen. She left me for my friend, who was married and had already cheated on his wife three times, with my ex being number three.
When I brought that up as she was leaving me, she told me she knew what she was getting into. I guess she thought she would be the one who ended his wandering ways. When she ran out of insults for me, she turned her attention to my girlfriend.
She called her ugly and said I could have had anyone but chose someone unattractive to replace her. My girlfriend is beautiful, inside and out. My ex is extremely jealous of her, and as I have said before, she has watched her, copied her appearance, and tried to force her way into her life.
The attack continued with my ex telling me that I did not love my new girlfriend and that it was impossible for me to fall in love with the first woman I dated after losing her. My ex and I had been apart for a year when I met my girlfriend. It took time for me to feel comfortable trusting someone again, and that trust was earned.
I did not hand it out easily. Then my ex claimed I only loved my girlfriend because I had lost my apartment and was flattering her for a place to live. In her words, it was only love because I was homeless.
The truth is that I had my own apartment across from my ex because she chose to stay in the same complex to flaunt the fact that she had left me for my friend. When my lease ended, I chose to move in with my girlfriend and relocate my job closer to her. My ex wanted a fight.
I did not give her one. When I thought the attacks could not get any more childish, she told me she was sorry she had not been enough for me. I wanted so badly to call her and shout that I was the one who had not been enough for her.
She left me. Did she forget which one of us walked out and replaced the other with someone else? She left me for a married man who had repeatedly betrayed his wife.
That was her prize. Then she attacked my girlfriend again, saying we both knew that she, my ex, was the one I really wanted and that my girlfriend could not compete with her. At that point, I had enough.
I told her to contact me when she was calm and sober, then turned off my phone. Hours later, when my girlfriend came home, she asked what was wrong. I warned her that she was going to get mad, handed her my phone, and told her to read it for herself.
She read it, laughed hard, handed the phone back, and said, “Looks like he cheated.”
I said it seemed that way and tried to reassure her because I thought the ugly comments might bother her. They did not even touch her. She told me my ex’s narcissistic side comes out full force when she has been drinking and guessed that my ex was upset because she could not run back to me for revenge against him.
I have not heard anything else from my ex since. My guess is that, like usual, she looked back at the texts the next day, saw what she had done, and felt foolish. I am also betting she went back to him because she cannot stand being alone.
Twenty years of mistreatment has left a lasting effect that I am still trying to work through. No matter what I did, I was wrong. Even when I was right, I was wrong for disagreeing with her and supposedly making her feel stupid.
I see now that it was a guilt trip, and a lot of the damage is subconscious. Sometimes I do not even realize I am walking on eggshells. If my phone goes off, I instinctively say who it is and show my girlfriend the screen.
That is what I used to do to avoid fights and accusations. I do not have to do it anymore, but it is a hard habit to break. When I do it, my girlfriend usually does not even look.
She just says, “You’re doing it again.”
The difficult part is that when she does not look, some damaged part of me feels like she has not verified that I am telling the truth, and then I worry it might open me up to an attack later. I know it will not, but knowing and feeling are two different things. There is so much internal wreckage I am still unraveling.
Eventually I will get there, but that is the hardest part, is it not? Recovering from all of it. Not just the betrayal, but unlearning the control that was used on you.
Just when you think you have yourself back, you enter a new relationship and the floodgates open. You find yourself doing what you did in the last relationship just to avoid making waves in the new one instead of simply being yourself. It really is a long road to recovery.
As of my last update, my ex had been cheated on by the man she left me for. As predicted, they got back together three days later. I expected that.
She has no one else to fall back on, so now she is stuck with him for the most part. Since that incident, I have heard almost nothing from her outside of signing a few divorce documents and communicating about the kids. I am thankful for that, though I know it will not last forever.
Sooner or later, she will drink too much and send another rant telling me I am the worst person alive. On Halloween, my band was asked to perform at an event one of my friends puts together every year. I have done it for years, and it has become a tradition.
My ex used to attend with me. She did not come last year because that was when I found out she had been involved with my best friend and that my six-year-old daughter was actually his. This year, she was not invited, but she showed up anyway with the boyfriend she left me for, the same man who cheated on her, and she brought my kids.
I was furious. Kids are not welcome at those parties. They are adults-only events, and she knew it.
I strongly believe she showed up with him and the kids in an attempt to get me thrown out. Security kept telling her she could not come in, and she stood there arguing that the kids wanted to see their father play. Security told me I needed to get them out of there, while she screamed at me that I was putting a party over my kids.
My friend, who was throwing the party, came down and told her she could stay long enough to watch me do two songs, but then she would have to leave. If she refused, he would call the police. I told him not to cater to her.
He said he was only doing it for my kids. It was not a good night. I was on stage, so I did not know everything happening around the party.
I found out between sets. Apparently, my ex tried to clash with my girlfriend, and it did not go well for her. My girlfriend put her in her place and called her out for using the kids to play games.
Several people witnessed it. When I walked off stage, people came up to tell me what happened and pointed toward where they had been. By the time I got there, whatever fight had happened was over, and my ex was glaring at my girlfriend from across the room.
Then my daughter humiliated my ex by loudly telling everyone that she had two daddies: me and her mommy’s boyfriend, who was actually her “real daddy.” That embarrassed my ex even more. She muttered something about being made to look bad and ended up leaving. My son refused to go with her.
He fought to stay with me. My ex had her boyfriend find my girlfriend and ask whether we could keep him. My girlfriend agreed and worked it out with my friend so my son could stay glued to her side for the rest of the party.
We took him home the next night. My nerves were wrecked the whole night. I must have apologized to my friend, my girlfriend, and my son a thousand times for putting them in the middle of it.
I messed up every song because I kept searching the crowd to see where everyone was and what was happening. I worried a physical confrontation might break out. I did not even know until after I came off stage that she had left and abandoned the fight over my son.
When I took my son home the next night, she made a point not to be there. Her boyfriend told me she knew I was coming to drop him off and wanted to avoid a confrontation about what had happened. He apologized to me and tried to talk to me about her and how she had been acting.
I told him I was not getting into it with him, and I left. Later that night, my son called me. They were fighting badly, and it was about me.
Her boyfriend had gotten tired of the behavior she had been showing and accused her of not being over me. According to my son, he asked whether what bothered her most was that I had moved on and she could not crawl back to me, or whether she feared that if she had not left me for him when she did, I would have eventually left her for my girlfriend. That was what started it.
I could hear them yelling in the background. I asked my son if he needed me to come get him. He said no.
I stayed on the phone with him until things calmed down. That is where things stand. I am still going through the divorce, still moving forward, and I no longer look back at what I lost.
I just need to get my kids out of there. Yes, I am still fighting to do exactly that. Another update came when my six-year-old daughter would not stop talking about the Elf on the Shelf at my soon-to-be ex-wife’s house.
My girlfriend bought one for ours and set it up, thinking my daughter would be excited to see that the elf had sent a friend to watch her while she was with us. My daughter’s reaction was alarming. The moment my daughter saw the elf, she became furious.
She screamed at it, saying it needed to leave or she would tell Santa that it was bad and told lies. She went into a massive tantrum, screaming for it to go away or else she was going to tell on it. My girlfriend tried to calm her, explaining that the elf was not going to lie.
If she was good, he would tell Santa she was good. If she was not, he would tell Santa that too. All she had to do was behave.
My daughter bared her teeth, gave my girlfriend a look that could cut glass, and growled, “He’s going to tell on me.”
My head filled with questions. Why was she afraid of this elf but not the one at her mother’s house? How many lies was she telling at home that my ex was ignoring?
What else was my ex ignoring? I have had issues with my daughter lying. She likes to claim her brother hit her when he is not even near her, and we have been working on stopping it.
I brought it up to my soon-to-be ex-wife, and her response was that she was aware of it and handling it. But when I dropped the kids off, I planned to confront her about what happened with the elf because something felt off. I do not think I am looking too deeply into it.
I want my daughter in therapy because it is becoming clear that more is happening than I know. Something is wrong over there. I am sure of it.
I already know that at her mother’s house, my daughter is treated like a princess because her biological father is there and she can do no wrong. I also know he gives my son a hard time because my son is mine. My girlfriend and I talked to the kids about their behavior.
We asked my son if my daughter lies at home and tries to get everyone in trouble. He said not as much, which left us wondering why she does it so much with us. When we asked my daughter why she lies about her brother, she got defensive and insisted that he does hit her.
She said he had just done it. When we asked when, she said it had happened a minute ago. He was not even in the house.
He was outside taking the trash out and had not been near her all day. He avoids her because of the lying. When we pointed out that she was lying, she got angry, raised her fist toward my girlfriend, and threatened her.
I took away her television time and video games, then asked why she misbehaved instead of trying to be good. She looked at me and growled, “Because I don’t want to.”
It looks like I need to step up the discipline in my house because I am not going to allow this behavior to continue. The incident with the Elf on the Shelf opened the door to bigger problems.
I investigated why she reacted so strongly, and I fell into a deep rabbit hole of issues I did not even know existed. To recap, my girlfriend and I bought the elf because my daughter kept talking about how much she loved the one at my cheating soon-to-be ex-wife’s house. When she saw ours, she became furious and screamed that it had to go because it was going to tell Santa on her.
That raised the question of why the elf at her mother’s house was wonderful, but ours was a threat. I asked and got no real answers. Then we went to dinner with my girlfriend’s former stepmother.
My girlfriend’s father had cheated, and my girlfriend sided with her stepmother and stayed close to her even after the divorce. That does wonders for my trust issues because it shows me where my girlfriend’s moral compass points. During dinner, her former stepmother briefly mentioned something painful my girlfriend had endured from a stepfather on her mother’s side.
My son visibly reacted, though he said nothing at the time. On the way to take the kids home, my son finally opened the floodgates about what had been happening at their mother’s house. I have to say, I did not see it coming.
It seems that the ex-wife of my soon-to-be ex-wife’s boyfriend has been handling the affair between her husband and my wife with vengeance and extreme hostility. She wants them to suffer, and she is doing everything she can to make their lives miserable, including using her kids to target my son because he is the son of the woman who took away her husband. Those kids, in turn, think it is funny to teach their half sister, my daughter, who is really his daughter, to pick on my son too.
When I asked my daughter about it, she said it was a game. I told her it was not fair to her brother and that being mean was not a game. She started crying that I did not want her to have any fun, then launched into another tantrum.
I told her it was going to stop. She rolled her eyes and said, “But I don’t want to. It’s fun.”
I informed her that consequences would be coming if it continued and that I would not tolerate her mistreating her brother.
No television, no toys, no video games, nothing. That earned me another meltdown, but I am not backing down. When I dropped the kids off, I asked my ex what was going on and confronted her with what I had been told.
She said the other woman had been doing everything possible to make their lives miserable. She said that woman knew the schedules for their side jobs and had been interfering with them, which was hurting them financially. She told me Christmas was going to be ugly on their end because of it.
I told her about his kids being coached to mistreat our son and about our daughter being encouraged to join in. She hit me with, “There’s only so much I can do. I can’t watch them all the time.”
I told her that if she was aware of it, then she needed to do something about it because the problems in that house were spilling into mine.
I know she is not doing enough. None of the kids seem to be facing real consequences, and my daughter has learned to think she can act out at my house too. Then I have to reteach her, every other weekend, that actions have consequences.
Since I do not have her enough to drive the lesson home daily, every other week feels like starting over. That explains why she fears our elf but not the one at home. At her mother’s house, nothing is being done.
Now I have a new problem. The other woman’s anger is making life harder for all of us. Yes, I am bringing this up in court.
My kids are being hurt by the fallout from this affair, and I will absolutely use that in the custody case. I am fighting for custody of both kids. I was already doing that, but now I have more to work with because I know more about what is happening in that household.
In a way, it does explain the elf. My daughter does not fear the elf there because there are no repercussions for her actions there. She is allowed to misbehave, and no one does enough about what any of those kids are doing.
She was afraid of my elf because she knows she gets in trouble at my place. I always suspected my ex was not handling my children’s behavior on her end. Now I have my daughter’s reaction, my son’s statements, and my ex’s own words about there being only so much she can do.
She can do plenty. Since she does not want to handle it, it is up to me. I am using this in court.
Then came the day the marriage officially ended. We sat on a Zoom court call and ended everything. I went through it in a haze because I had imagined that day a million times over the last year, and then suddenly it was real.
It took five minutes. Five minutes to end twenty years. Neither of us contested it.
She was not asking for anything, not that she had much ground to stand on after the paternity test showed what it showed. The questions were quick and mostly not directed at me. I was asked whether there was any chance to save the marriage.
I said no. I was asked whether I wanted to proceed with the divorce that day. I said yes.
It amused me, in a dark way, that they asked her if there had been any domestic issues or mistreatment, and she said no. I was not asked that at all. I found that interesting.
I had been on the receiving end plenty, but it was not even an issue. In the end, maybe it did not matter because the result was the same. It is over.
All that remains is family court for custody of the kids, and with what is happening now, it is leaning more and more in my favor. She waited exactly five minutes after court ended before posting about it on Facebook. I know because my phone started blowing up with screenshots from friends.
She wrote about how divorce is hard and how we needed to set a good example for our kids. She even tagged me, which was a mistake. My friends responded to her, pointing out that a better example for the kids might be not running to social media for attention and likes the moment the divorce was final.
I suppose I cannot say too much about that, since I am here telling strangers, but I waited several hours, and none of you personally know me. Still, it is over, and I am not entirely sure how I should feel. I feel blank.
It has been a while since I said anything, and I thank everyone who reached out. I have just been in a mood with everything going on and not up for updating. My divorce was finalized last month, so that obstacle is mostly behind me.
Christmas was good for the most part, with one exception. My ex lost her job, and the affair partner she moved in with was not making enough to make ends meet, so she came to me for help with the kids. I wanted to tell her to go handle the consequences of her own choices, especially because she waited until three days before Christmas to tell me.
My girlfriend and I had to scramble to find suitable gifts with the stores already picked clean. Before anyone tells me I should not have done a thing and should have let my kids see the situation for what it was, believe me, I wanted to. I almost did.
But I could not do that to my kids on Christmas. I told her it was one-time help and that I would not do it again. When she came to get the presents, she asked to come in and see where the kids slept.
When I said that was not a good idea, she told me it was not a request and that she needed to, that it was her right. When she tried stepping around me, my girlfriend got in front of her and told her she was not stepping foot inside her house. If my ex had concerns, she could make the proper calls, but she would never be allowed into my girlfriend’s home.
My ex backed down, and I spent the rest of the night calming my girlfriend down. The best way I can explain it is this: my girlfriend has my ex completely locked out. My ex tries, fails miserably, and then complains to whoever will listen that it is unfair she is cut out when the kids are with me.
But our life is none of her business. My girlfriend has made that loud and clear. My ex has no place in our lives.
Maybe I am an idiot for this, but I let my girlfriend take the reins in this situation. She is immune to my ex and much better at calling out her behavior than I am. My ex will challenge me and try to manipulate me into bending.
My girlfriend is an immovable rock. Since then, my ex has not tried playing games. I got my kids into therapy.
Things have escalated with them. We put a camera in the living room, and it has caught a lot of my daughter’s lies. It has caught her hitting my son, then screaming that he hit her when he did not.
We confronted her with the recordings, and she is starting to learn that lies do not work in our house. My son is frustrated by how long court is taking. He is having trouble because he still cannot live with me full-time yet.
He is very bonded to my girlfriend, so I have no worries there. They do not clash, and that is a relief. But at his mother’s house, he is acting out.
He yells, hits walls, and argues. I know he wants out of there, and I am doing what I can to make it happen. I believe it will.
All that aside, I have a new problem. My girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend has suddenly started watching her and trying to get back into her life, which was, strangely enough, brought to my attention by a different ex-boyfriend of hers: my bandmate, the one who introduced me to her. This man had a breakdown the other night after being told by the other ex that she was happy, had moved on, and that he needed to let go and find someone new.
His response was to crash his car into a guardrail in a dangerous outburst. There is so much chaos in my life that I do not know whether to laugh, cry, or sell tickets. That is what is new with me.
D-day was more than two years ago. The divorce was finalized four months ago. She is still with the affair partner, and I moved on a year ago.
For the most part, my life is so much better without her. Yet here we are, two years later, and I am still finding things out. There was another friend of mine she had been involved with before the affair partner.
I wish I could say that did not sting, but it did. It only stretched the timeline of how long I had been played for a fool. So I missed the signs twice.
I know my daughter is not biologically mine, and now I find myself wondering whether my son is. He does not look like me. None of his features are mine, and not all of his features are hers either.
As much as I wonder, I also wonder whether I really want to know. I do not think I can take that blow a second time. Maybe ignorance really is bliss.
I try to put as much of her behind me as possible. It is difficult when kids are involved because I am stuck co-parenting until they are eighteen. I tried to avoid gray rock at first, thinking maybe we could be amicable.
I wanted to show the kids that we could come together for them. It is interesting how the guilty ones are always on the attack, always shifting blame even after everything is said and done. It is even more interesting how she thought she could still control me and call all the shots.
When I did not give in, she lashed out. She tried her tactics on my girlfriend too, and long story short, she learned to stay clear of her. My girlfriend is a force to be reckoned with, and dealing with manipulative people is not her first rodeo.
In the end, I know I came out on top. I have a new life, a new job, a new home, and a new love. I am doing far better than my ex, who is dealing with the consequences of her actions.
Not only did she destroy our life together, she helped ruin the affair partner’s life too, and his ex-wife is going above and beyond to make their lives miserable. I am sad to say it affects my kids because their lives have been turned upside down by that whole situation. The affair partner’s wife is the living proof that betrayal can create a storm.
She hit them hard financially, and my ex has come to me complaining about money more than once. She lost her job six months ago and still has not found work, choosing instead to live off the affair partner, who is being squeezed dry by his ex. I do not feel bad about that at all.
I just hate what it is putting my kids through. I do what I can for my kids, but only for my kids. I will not hand my ex money.
I will take over what the children need, but I am not giving her the chance to waste my money on bad choices. That is who she is, and part of the reason she was fired. Yes, I am still fighting for custody of my kids, even the one who is not biologically mine.
I need to get them away from her. My son has developed a deep resentment toward his mother. That is her fault.
She is the one who told him why we were divorcing. He knows his sister is the affair partner’s child, and he makes sure everyone knows it. He told my girlfriend before I could.
I had been trying not to dump all my issues on her as a newly divorcing father. I already had plenty of baggage and did not want to overwhelm her, but my son is angry. On the bright side, his bond with my girlfriend is iron tight.
She is his best friend. My daughter, however, is very much like her mother in behavior. She lies, manipulates, and uses the same tactics when things do not go her way.
She learned from the best. The cameras in the house have been useful for catching her in those lies. She likes to accuse people of being mean to her and loves accusing my son of hitting her.
The cameras have shown her running up, hitting him, and then screaming that he hit her. After we confronted her and showed her the video, she had a meltdown over being caught. Since then, she has stopped accusing him of hitting her.
Now we are catching her sneaking into things she is not supposed to touch and trying to play one side against the other by claiming someone said she could have something when they did not. The cameras are up partly under the label of home security, but that is not all I use them for. If my daughter falls and gets a bruise, my ex starts accusing us of hurting her.
She has already tried accusing my girlfriend of harming the kids. The reality, in one case, was that my daughter decided to dive off the couch while pretending the floor was lava and tried to make it to a chair. So there I was, sending my ex the video showing exactly what happened and showing us handling the injury as it occurred.
That only lasted a few weeks before my ex finally understood that no one was hurting the kids and that we had proof for every bump and scratch. I know it is unfortunate that I had to take it to the level of putting up cameras, but I did. It brings me peace of mind knowing my ex cannot play that game against me.
It also brings me peace of mind when I am at work and my girlfriend is home. I can check in and see what she is up to, whether she is reading a book, watching a movie, or playing video games online with my son or her little brother, who is the same age as my son. Having the cameras helps me with my trust issues.
