Unhinged

Posted this on a different subreddit last night. Someone responded telling me about this subreddit so reposting here.

I’d (51M) like to tell you that it’s my ex (44F) that is unhinged but it’s me. I’ve had such a hard time moving on but I started to reach escape velocity last week just to get pulled back in.

It started Friday. My ex called me to help discipline our daughter (age 9) because she was having issues with her at a restaurant. I talked to the daughter and calmed things down while getting attitude from the ex (because she blames me for all negative behavior from the kids). I was the bigger person and just ignored the attitude.

Saturday morning I get called and woken up (I was sleeping in) because the ex and daughter were going at it again. It was basically pure chaos. Yelling, screaming, crying (daughter not ex). Ex was basically ranting but I just listened. When she slowed down I asked how I could help. Did she just want to vent? Talk to the daughter? Drop her with me for the day? Ex was taking the kids to a Christmas event 2 hours from home. I got hit with a ton of attitude because “she already told me what she needed” (she hadn’t). I admit that I yelled but I didn’t attack or insult her in any way. I end up talking to the daughter and it seems like it was worked out. After the call was over I sent ex a calm and well thought out text explaining that I didn’t like being yelled at when I’m called to help and setting some boundaries. She apologized and I accepted the apology.

Fast forward a few hours and I get called again. They had stopped at a gas station/convenience store to use the restroom and daughter wanted a snack. Ex said no and daughter threw a fit… including calling ex an asshole and punching ex in the chest. To make it worse, this was in front of people and ex doesn’t respond well to public embarrassment. I fully backed ex on the phone. Daughter wasn’t listening and it was clear she was going to ruin the day for everyone (ex’s friend and friend’s kid was with them). I offered to drive to pick daughter up and ex accepted. Once I picked up daughter… rather than yelling and being harsh on her, I tried talking to her. I thought I had gotten through to her.

Sunday ex picks up daughter and later in the day she mentions something about the Christmas Eve plan (we spend holidays together for the kids) and I disagreed but, frankly, expressed my disagreement without thinking about word choice and ex took it poorly. Said I was throwing out “jabs”. I acknowledged what I said could be taken that way and apologized (as it was my bad). She was spin up at that point though and going off on me (the reality is she was upset and hurt by the daughter but lashed out at me). I tried to get ex to stop but she proceeded to insult me and assassinate my character. I should have terminated the conversation but I didn’t… I was ‘actvated’ at that point. I didn’t attack. I tried to defend myself though. I ended Sunday feeling horrible.

That gets us to today, Monday. Ex was texting me while I was in a meeting and upset that I didn’t respond right away. I gently pushed back pointing out that waiting 12 minutes (literally) from asking me if I could watch the kids for part of a day to deciding she was just going to hire a sitter wasn’t reasonable. She then told me daughter had got up after going to bed and walked into the living room while ex was on FaceTime with her boyfriend. She says nothing inappropriate was happening or being discussed but she wanted to let me know as the kids don’t know she has a boyfriend. That led us back to a recent frequent topic about her introducing the kids to the boyfriend. I’m very against it. First, I don’t feel the kids are psychologically ready (daughter has stated not being ok with either of us dating and son(age 6) doesn’t seem like he’d be ok with it but that is a bit of a guess). Second, I’m really not ok with some guy being involved in my kid’s lives. I realize that happens in divorce and friends have challenged me on this feeling. Regardless, I’m really not ok with it. I explained to ex that I didn’t want it and that it was really going to hurt me. She insists she’s not trying to hurt me or replace me. I believe that’s not her intention but that doesn’t mean it won’t be the outcome. I begged her not to introduce them but she said things like “it’d make her life more convenient” and “sge spent the entire marriage putting my feelings first and she wasn’t doing anymore”. Kind of crappy.

It was at this point I basically lost it. I threatened negative repercussions if she went forward with this. She took this as me physically threatening her and I emphasized that I’d never hurt her (and I wouldn’t). I then started in blaming her for the end of the marriage (I believe that is fact) and telling her she destroyed me and our family. She kept asking me to stop but I wouldn’t. She even begged me to stop and I asked her how it felt to have her begging and pleading ignored…. Just the way she’s ignored mine since the divorce. I ended the night by telling her to enjoy sleeping with her ‘love’ and told her not to think about me during the sex since I clearly didn’t and don’t matter. I then followed up with comments about the last time we had sex (two weeks before this guy became her boyfriend) and made rude comments about the potential quality of sex with him, etc.

Frankly, though I feel emotionally abused and totally destroyed by the divorce… I was a total asshole. I can’t justify it. I can explain it… I’m just so terribly hurt by what she did in divorcing me and so much that has happened since.

Update: just one mass response. Thank you all for your replies and thoughts. To address a couple of points… 1. The daughter and ex are both in therapy but not together. Perhaps that should change. 2. Yes, I should make her deal with parenting on her own. Frankly, during the marriage I made the mistake of not helping with the kids enough. I have a reason but it doesn’t matter. What matters is I didn’t do my part. I’ve worked on myself post divorce (it was final August 4th 2022) and I’m a much better man overall now. I want to show her I’ve changed so she’ll see the ‘new’ me. Even as I write that I see the futility. 3. I’ve taken the divorce harder than her. She is having financial problems and kid discipline problems but emotionally I’m the broken one. It’s a deeper dive but it was a lightning fast divorce. Went from throwing me a huge weekend long surprise party for my 50th in January of 2022 to telling me she was thinking of divorce in March (which I handled wrong because of ego) to actually asking for the divorce in April. As stated above, by August it was over. She claims she gave me chances before asking and that may be true but I wasn’t aware of them. The week before she indicated she was thinking about divorce I was planning a romantic vacation for just the two of us. Clearly, we were not seeing things the same. I don’t mean this in a mean way or to imply that I was guilt free but she basically lost her mind (best guess is due to her father’s death in January of 2021).