TL;DR

A victim puke. I checked son's smartphone, found texts of ex-wife and her bf, decided to check FB.

Body

Divorced 30something male here. I'm having my weekend with my three sons. I left two of them at their friend's and came back home. Their cell phone started ringing, it was their mom. Whatever. This gave me an idea, that I'll check my son's text messages just in case. Last I've bought him a shockproof, dustproof and waterproof phone just with calls and text, but this year that phone kind of stopped charging and his mom gave him a smartphone.

This was an Android. Those of you who aren't rich enough to buy the only reasonable phone know, that when you change SIM cards in Android phones, the text messages received with the one card are left in phone's memory.

So, I found some SMS exchange of his mom and hers boyfriend. It involved words and phrases that 10-year old definitely should not look at, especially that it was his mother writing it. Seems ex became very frugal (I'm pretty suspicious about that, but that's another story) and she and my son share a cell phone. I did some photos, send them to her as a proof and gently asked that she spares my son from seeing such discussions in the future or I'll report that to the police.

Those texts, from an adult point of view, vere pretty vanilla. Definitely not a fap material. I was disappointed.

... and then, being the arsehole I am, I checked e-mail for anything eBay or payment related, just because I'm very suspicious where do the child support money go, because I see no new clothes on my kids and their lunch boxes aren't too impressive too, when they visit me. Nothing, seems she uses another e-mail for that. So, then I checked if Facebook was authorised on that phone. It was so I started checking her chats.

What I found out: her current boyfriend is in some dire straits. Yes, he's in debt. Just like the previous one. She uses him to take care of my sons (for example, he took care of them some time, he assembled some furniture she bought, etc). What's most surprising is, that she is giving him advice on how to lead his business. He's a musician (well, kind of) and she is actually telling him what to do. The problem is, she never had any reasonable professional success and if she had some, it was not in the field of music. She was a SAHM for the most of marriage with me (not including some 6-month episode) and just started working 9-5 this year. They have regular quarrels over FB, and he is a bit jealous of me. Of course she feels that this work place is not for her and somewhere else will be better. It is never her fault.

They regularly talk about building a house together and moving out. That's the best part. He's in debt, he's the same age as me and he had not any professional success, except being known for being known. She's not able to buy reasonable clothing for my kids. Even if I pay child support around 1.5x of national average, they wear used clothes (I bough them this and last month new shoes for the autumn, waterproof jackets, some gloves). I'm very glad I have left her the flat because my kids would be a literal mess now if I did not.

... and she is actually coaching him on how to gain professional success. And wants a man who has finished the literal shit in his life to help her with moving out and building a house. It's like a blind man leading the one-legged one.

Ah. Her previous boyfriend - the one she invited to my youngest son's birthday after knowing him for 3 weeks - got finally his trial this year. He now has to spend about 3 yrs in jail. He was busted for creating a pyramid scheme and stealing about 1 million USD.

I'd love to tell you that I made all this shit up and I am kidding you all but I am not.

Lessons learned

  • I am my kids only hope,
  • I need to live healthy, spend money on reasonable shit, earn a lot of money and buy myself a bigger flat for my sons to eventually join me in the future,
  • The longer I live by my own, the bigger the difference between me and that woman will be,
  • I had a chance to observe 2 grown up people with messed-up lives, being an escape for each other from the everyday's life. So I guess, that "sex and love addiction" is very real and it is a very different thing from the unquenchable thirst for pussy of the alpha male,
  • my every single decision against the ex-wife affects my kids too; I need to act carefully and plan accordingly,
  • I came a long way, but in that FB chat, I saw past me; I was pretty much the same guy she's now with,
  • if you're walking the path I did, do everything MRP tells you; since I moved out last year I never had any thought of coming back and nothing happened that would make me regret my decision.