Are you still in good terms with your ex spouse if your divorced them due to cheating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interestingly women are the ones saying to keep a cordial relationship and to forgive. This is in line on how women are more likely to remain in a marriage even with a serial cheater.

I nle understand why married men don't fear cheating because apparently all it takes is therapy to satisfy the wife..

I would not have stayed in my marriage. Once the (significant and ongoing) cheating was brought to light it was time to end it. My ex will likely remain a cheater. I had to take a hard look at myself and why I ignored the behavior for so long. Spoiler: I was afraid of giving up financial comfort. I regret not getting honest much sooner. A comfortable life is a poor second prize if you're in a $hitty relationship. Even if it appears to be great to everyone else.

[Anonymous]

What is “good terms”?

When my kids were under 18, I bent over backwards to be kind and inclusive to exDH even though he cheated on me with many women, including hookers, and lied extensively to me about it, making up a big back story *in couples therapy* that he thought would be more palatable than the real story. I included Ex in all school and extra-curricular activities, coordinated holidays (often taking the short end of the stick), and had Ex in my home regularly to facilitate visitation with the kids. (He chose not to take any physical custody.)

From the outside, he was around so often that people who didn’t know assumed we were married, and that we had a good marriage, because we never disagreed in public.

From the inside, the kids still saw his cheater side toward me and them - cancelled or neglected obligations, lies, and some verbal abuse of me. Astute parents of my kids friends sometimes caught the coercive control element he exerted - me always dancing to placate him so that he would engage with the kids.

Now the youngest is over 18. I will never not be polite to my Ex. He is their father. But, he gets the same level of polite that a stranger gets. I do not ever reach out to him unless it is an emergency regarding the kids or around holiday calendar planning. He provides no financial support to the kids. He periodically reaches out to me to engage on a personal level in some way (usually because he needs something or he wants attention or sympathy), and I just have no interest in that - he has proven himself to be unsafe, unreliable, untrustworthy and self-absorbed. Nonetheless, I just politely and superficially direct him elsewhere.

So, what is good terms? I am. Rey happy with the minimal level of polite contact we have and from the outside it probably looks like “good terms,” but, honestly, he is a terrible person and it’s OK, even wise, that I minimize my contact with him.

To be on the kind of “good terms” that means friendship and supportive contact would require him to have some understanding of the magnitude and impact of his misbehavior and to have made amends for it and undergone some character development. That didn’t happen, so IIWII.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We aren’t friends but I don’t go out of my way to avoid him. I don’t talk to him about anything outside of kid logistics, don’t text pictures of the kids, etc.

I don’t know how to explain it but I feel very meh. It’s a very different feeling than being upset over the cheating. It’s more that I’m just very bored with him. I find it all very boring. Someone once explained it like when you’re a kid and you have that one uncle that bloviates, and you just find the whole thing very boring and have more fun things to do.

That being said, it does help that I had a glow-up after we split and I’ve moved on and am dating several men who are more attractive and/or richer than xH. His AP was a downgrade and even she bailed when faced with the reality of dating a man with kids.

Looks like he lingered in your mind for awhile

Np. That man was her husband. Of course he lingered in her mind for a while. They were married. You act like human emotion is a weakness. Every vulnerability doesnt have to be a materialized weakness - it all depends on how you manage vulnerability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interestingly women are the ones saying to keep a cordial relationship and to forgive. This is in line on how women are more likely to remain in a marriage even with a serial cheater.

I nle understand why married men don't fear cheating because apparently all it takes is therapy to satisfy the wife..

I would not have stayed in my marriage. Once the (significant and ongoing) cheating was brought to light it was time to end it. My ex will likely remain a cheater. I had to take a hard look at myself and why I ignored the behavior for so long. Spoiler: I was afraid of giving up financial comfort. I regret not getting honest much sooner. A comfortable life is a poor second prize if you're in a $hitty relationship. Even if it appears to be great to everyone else.

Good for you, seriously. A lot of people don’t do the work of self-accountability.

[Anonymous]

I’m similar to OP. Ex cheated, so when we divorced I opted to keep all communication to just logistics about the kids. No fighting, but also no friendliness or small talk. We don’t sit together at events for kids, but we both attend and it’s not an issue.

My ex was also not sorry for his cheating and never apologized or even seemed remorseful. In couples therapy before divorcing (he was still denying the affair at that point) he would bring up totally bizarre things that he said were bothering him with our marriage, and I’d address them and change and then he’d just add more to the list. My favorite was that he said I didn’t watch enough TV with the kids, because I didn’t know all the characters in their favorite cartoon. One time, a therapist gave us a 1 page article to read and discuss during the week, and my husband insisted he “couldn’t” read it. Like literally was incapable of reading.

Two therapists quit on us, saying that they couldn’t continue working with us because they found his behavior to be unproductive and abusive towards me. As soon as I found irrefutable evidence of the affair, I initiated divorce proceedings.

He always wants to initiate small talk and act friendly, but I have zero interest in any relationship with him beyond shared custody. I’m still close with his family and they regularly spend half their time at my house when they come out to visit.

[Anonymous]

My then AP use to call her husband narcissistic. I think she did that just to justify what she was doing with me. We are done, she still with him like nothing happened. Got a lot of O’s in the process.

[Anonymous]

Move on. Let go.

[Anonymous]

My brother cheated on his wife many times.

She divorced him after 25 years of his horrible behavior towards her.

They have one child he ruined.

My SIL still to this day treats my brother with grace and he’s always angry and bitter she finally got the nerve to divorce him.

She still has a wonderful relationship with all her nieces and nephews, all of his family etc.

I recently asked her how she can not be angry and she said “I won’t be like him”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m similar to OP. Ex cheated, so when we divorced I opted to keep all communication to just logistics about the kids. No fighting, but also no friendliness or small talk. We don’t sit together at events for kids, but we both attend and it’s not an issue.

Not trying to be accusatory, and I completely understand your feelings, but how are you and OP so sure this doesn’t affect your kids? My parents split when I was a a child, refusing to interact, and I remember my events where they’d both show being so stressful for me - even up through my wedding to now events for the grandkids. DH’s parents split due to cheating and I always appreciated MIL’s ability to be civil and make small talk with FIL. It makes interacting with them so much easier compared to my parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Move on. Let go.

Easy to say…. Hard to do.

[Anonymous]

Nope, but after a year it’s still fresh and he continues to gaslight me. I keep hoping for the moment it feels better, but it just feels more painful all the time. He got all the best years, all my sacrifices for his job and relocations, all the good. I for a wonderful daughter and all
The pain, a career I let stagnate because he needed to be away from home to work and f his AP.

So no. It will never happen. I could vomit every time I see him, although I try to play nice. I wasted my life on a piece of garbage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope, but after a year it’s still fresh and he continues to gaslight me. I keep hoping for the moment it feels better, but it just feels more painful all the time. He got all the best years, all my sacrifices for his job and relocations, all the good. I for a wonderful daughter and all
The pain, a career I let stagnate because he needed to be away from home to work and f his AP.

So no. It will never happen. I could vomit every time I see him, although I try to play nice. I wasted my life on a piece of garbage.

How old are you? And what were the years he wasted?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m similar to OP. Ex cheated, so when we divorced I opted to keep all communication to just logistics about the kids. No fighting, but also no friendliness or small talk. We don’t sit together at events for kids, but we both attend and it’s not an issue.

Not trying to be accusatory, and I completely understand your feelings, but how are you and OP so sure this doesn’t affect your kids? My parents split when I was a a child, refusing to interact, and I remember my events where they’d both show being so stressful for me - even up through my wedding to now events for the grandkids. DH’s parents split due to cheating and I always appreciated MIL’s ability to be civil and make small talk with FIL. It makes interacting with them so much easier compared to my parents.

PP I say this with all due respect…. GROW UP. The fact that your parents choose to be big enough to not fight is your gift. Life is real, not a fairy tell. No one’s mom needs to befriend their abuser, even if that abuser if the gather of her child. Your mom set a wonderful example of how to not be selfish and to respect herself at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Very good terms. Sit together at school functions, sports, etc. Communicate regularly. Families still send Christmas cards, etc.

[Anonymous]

I was until I got remarried and then I pretty much cut off contact. Luckily, I didn’t have kids with her. We still “hung out” from time to time unless I started dating someone and then I’s cut it off.