"I love the kids more than I hate him" is what I repeat over and over to myself.

We sit together at school functions, do christmas morning and kids bdays together, make nice enough small talk when forced in person, but otherwise only text about kids logistics.

He threw away 15 years and a perfectly good marriage/family while obliterating his daughters' mom (me) in the process. I'll never not think lowly of him for that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She wants you to forgive and forget, so she doesn’t have to feel guilty. Sounds like you keep it brief and polite, which is all you need to do.

+1. Cheaters are narcissist. They want to gaslight you even when you are no longer with them. I don't know why we don't classify narcissism as a serious mental illness.

As PP said keep it simple and polite.

We do. It’s just that a lot of people describe behavior as “narcissism” that doesn’t actually meet the clinical definition.

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

I don't talk to my ex wife. I love my kids more than I dislike her. We only texts briefly for kids logistics, but she always want to extend the texts into kids unrelated sense. I just ignore her. At our daughter middle school graduation, I didn't seat next to her.

Honestly I commend those of you are still friendly with your ex spouse and act as if nothing happened.

It’s been six years and I have moved on, which makes it a little easier for me to have those sorts of superficial conversations beyond kids. But I don’t linger, share very little about my own life. She has just always been a talker.

Anonymous wrote: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.

So you were still sleeping with her?

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Early 40s. Wasted late 20s until
Now.

I was a trailing spouse because I believed it was a partnership.


But I guess you’ll blame me- is that your point?

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.

Very similar here. He took unilateral choices that basically rendered the past 10 years of my devotion and hard work not only useless but trapped me in a city I didn’t want to be in, with young children, away from family and support systems, because I was supporting his career. He started sleeping with his colleague and his breaking up the family coincided with the career success I helped him earn. He has no understanding of how it’s not just the pain of betrayal but also the downstream impacts of divorce that I’ll be living with for another 15 years and how he stole the best years of my life. (I’m making the best of it and can be happy just about anywhere, but these are my analytical observations.)

Define good terms. I'm fine having pleasant conversations with him about the kids or his mom. I'm fine having an occasional meal with him and the kids for their birthdays or his mom's birthday. I wouldn't seek him out voluntarily otherwise. However, by the point he cheated we had just drifted apart so much regardless that I wasn't particularly upset.

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.

Maybe spare a thought for your mother’s feelings too instead of being me, me, me, me all the time?