quick story from my ongoing divorce saga:

in march, my wife read a book about emotional blackmail. like in front of myself, the kids, and her peers at work so that she could let everyone passive aggressively how someone in her life was doing that. i still can't really figure out how i did it, and i know what i did to fuck up in my marriage, but its all in the past now and legally doesn't matter in any way, shape, or form. I was just a grumpy, non-violent, non cheating drunk. I'm sober 18 months now, did alcohol testing all summer on her request. in may i moved out with a 50/50 interm custody order. i stayed with my mom and had the kids over while the ex stayed in my house all summer with no job and had half the week alone. the ex took 3 vacations, went to the bar 3 nights a week according to the bank statements, and never let me into the house once i moved out. Mediation was supposed to be thursday and she is realizing that she is going to totally loose her ass, and have to sell the house and give me half (around 60k) with in 90 days. So her and her lawyer came up with this offer to give me 40k, and give her 18 months to pay it so she can get employment and get a mortgage. It was a bad offer, so i said no. She didn't take the day off from the job she just got, for the mediation that we've known about for 3 months. She also didn't pay for it so it had to be postponed. now i'm getting text messages from her where she is literally trying to emotionally blackmail me. telling me all of the things that she put up with in the marriage as if its currency, throwing the kids "childhood home" in my face which she never respected or took care of and so the kids don't either and its in terrible shape. She actually said "why won't you give me more equity after all i've done for you". these are all examples of emotional black mail straight out of the emotional blackmail book, because i ended up reading it to when i was in my "self blame" stage of the divorce from her fucking with my head for so long.

I didn't reply to the messages.

So be very careful what your ex's try and project on you through guilt, shame, gaslighting, etc. Always stand your ground and don't let these females manipulate you with emotions. if you catch them reading self help books, read the same books and get them done faster, and get ahead of what they're learning to hit you with.