Anyone else not wish their EX happiness?

Background: common law 23 years, had house, kids together he had multiple affairs then a surprise marriage to a woman he met only knowing her 14 days that I found out about on my birthday by a miss directed phone call. In 1.5 years he was back and I helped him divorce the woman he left me for. He forced her and I to work together. Reconciled for 2.5 years then he bailed again. I got the house, and settlement, he got the business. I work for him in our old business as financially I can't make the same elsewhere, and all our young adult kids live at home with me as it's too expensive for them to be solo. He continues to hire women he's sleeping with and I'm forced to suck it up each time. He tried to hire 3 including the one he's with now, but it failed to complete. I asked him to not hire his playmates, as it triggers me.

Here I am, eight years later and I still don't feel healed. He has pursued a string of women, written love letters, crashed and burned through a succession of women since he left again in 2023. I turned down being "FWB" with him. He has pursued women 33 years younger, no one his own age. He's spent thousands on women that he didn't end up with in the long run. Fancy dinners, flowers, and things he took them places he never took his family. He put in effort for them that he never did in the past. He always picks women that are in need of assistance. A welfare mom with 4 kids under the age of 6, that was 33 years younger than him. The newest one is now his roommate. She's been to prison for drug distribution charges and will be on probation for another three years.

My situation is unique as I have to have constant contact. No real separation in the sense that I speak to him daily, interact with him, albeit he's often rude and abrupt to me. I must work with him, and I have to see all the expenses for his business. It still blindsides me to see $600 dinners, hotels, and something ugly surfaces in me when I see it. Even worse while uploading work photos for insurance in the middle was a naked picture of her coochie and two of her in a bathrobe. That set me back a fat minute as I gave him his phone back and didn't say anything for more than a week. He has hundreds of photos of disposable women but virtually none of his kids or family.

I live in a small town, and he lives an hour away. They moved in a house together when he couldn't afford an apartment and she was renting a room there. Recently I sat down in the only "nice" restaurant in my small town. This is the same restaurant we used to go to and they all know us. I was sitting at the bar. He came in and sat down 5 seats down from me and didn't notice me immediately. He looked up and said hello, then hastily left, looking like a deer in the headlights. I assumed to the bathroom, but I later realized she was in the bathroom. I later asked him to not take her to this restaurant, and leave me some peace in not having to explain yet another woman to the servers that all know us both by name. He has land a couple of miles from me and a lot three doors down that someday he could build on if he pays off is massive IRS debt personally and business wise. At 62 it will be nothing short of a miracle for that to happen, but stranger things have happened.

I've not mastered the "let them go" part. I've not dated. I'm in a state of I don't care until some new woman triggers something deep in me, and then I hope they both get leprosy, or something vile that he deserves. Part of you screams that it's not fair, that he doesn't deserve happiness at all, while you still struggle in a bubble of pain that comes and goes for years with no warning.

The rational part of me says he traded down each time, and in time that too will fall apart. People underestimate how much infidelity triggers trauma to resurface over and over. I can't get back the years I lost, the trust. I can't afford therapy, but I find some respite in knowing I have a paid off house, kids that love me, and more stability than he does. He is struggling to stay afloat, twists the narrative to be the victim and willingly acknowledges he did me wrong, but never publicly. He still tells people that "he got screwed over" in the divorce and is extremely salty that his happily ever after didn't pan out like he thought, and I got the house.

He said recently "I'll always be there for you, just like you've always been there for me". He paid for a hotel for all of us after a wildfire warning sent us all scrambling to find a place to stay till it was safe.

I have three years till I could retire, but I can't. I wasted decades being a SAHM so not enough Social Security in my name. All the income went in his name. Now I need the income I get from him to help build up my social security. I sacrificed so much for him and now it's glaring me in the face. I need to walk alone, but my fractured story isn't over just yet.

I will face it knowing that I'm a better person. Life isn't fair, but we can find a way to make it meaningful, we have to try harder is all. I will hope in enough time that I won't care what his outcome in life is, and I will move away to where I can no longer hear his voice. A place where he has no hold on me financially or through memories.

In the words of Dory, "just keep swimming".

1 comment posted: Sunday, September 28th, 2025

Burned from the same flame twice

Here I am again. Apparently I learned nothing, but suddenly I'm very aware of what the word "Mistake" really means, and there won't be a third time.

It means having a soft heart and letting the same person back into my life that hurt me the first time. Now I've wasted half my life on someone that never was worth it. My common sense told me to stay away, and I didn't listen to that nagging voice that told me I was going to get burned.

He was never faithful when we were together. We are both 60 and spent almost half our lifespan together not married. He had two affairs 6 weeks apart in 2018 and then married the second one. They knew each other 14 days when they got married.

We had an ugly common law divorce in 2019 where I got an excellent settlement and a paid off house. He was pissed and for a bit over 2 years we didn't speak, other than when he sued me and lost. That cost me $10,000 on top of the $25,000 for the attorney I hired for our divorce.

Eventually his rainbow turned to rain, and history repeated itself and he was no longer in love with her and wanted a divorce. She conned him. Over time he began to set the stage for being more than civil. He moved away from her on the east coast back to our hometown. He tried to seduce me but I wasn't having any part of it. Over the next 8 months in 2020 he kept repeatedly asking me to reconsider and give him a chance, that he made a mistake. He knew all the right things to say.

Eventually I agreed to date him in 2021, but I had boundaries. I wouldn't agree to him moving in. We lived separate. He offered 100% transparency and offered passwords and access to absolutely everything including his phone. For a bit I checked, and all was well for a time. We vacationed in Vegas, Hawaii, and Cancun.

I helped him through his divorce with the woman he left me for. It took 2.5 years to get his divorce, which was longer than their marriage lasted. I did everything, including making sure every single time she tried to slide something under the radar I sunk her boat. I was ruthless, and she got nothing. I found all her dirt and exposed it. She ended up bankrupt, but she and he kept a business together they started while married. I should have made him clean up his own mess, but I "saved" him once again.

I am working for him and my income is tied to him, and I loaned his business $35,000 and put almost $20,000 on my credit cards for his business. He's kept his word about paying it back in chunks. He has also agreed to pay me what I paid the attorney when he sued me, as well as make all the repairs on the house that needed to be done. He's almost paid off the credit card, and I have no concerns that he won't pay me. That much I'm confident of.

In June he went out of town for a huge job and was gone for over a month. When I would talk to him on the phone he never said "I love you" when I said it, and he came to town twice and didn't tell me or see me. Eventually I pressured him for an answer as to what was going on. He kept saying he wanted to talk when he got back that things were going down the same path as before with us. Once I cornered him he told me he wanted to be single, that I still had my job, and he wanted to part as friends with no drama. Unlike last time, he assured me that he would always be there and he loved me but didn't think he was the right person for me. He said he couldn't be the man I need.

He acted like it was nothing other than "we tried, it didn't work". He kept saying things like he had no plans to date, or do any of that. It it fell in his lap he might but he wasn't going to seek a romantic relationship, he was done. What a line of bullshit. He joined two dating sites within days.

The day after he told me on the phone he called two women that he had slept with almost 3 years prior to "clear the air". I felt like he punched me and it was not to "clear the air", but to see if either of them were available, and it was disrespectful of me. No real closure other than lets be friends. Neither of those women wanted anything to do with him, and he was "bummed". One of them was a 3 month fling where she used him, but it was "special" to him, and some of the best times of his life according to him. She was the one that couldn't be bothered to come see him when he had surgery, but I took care of him and I wasn't even involved with him then. I showed up when no one else did, yet he thought the sun rose and set with what I call "Bellevue Barbie". She was everything he imagined a trophy woman would be, but she didn't want him like he wanted her. Poetic justice at work.

He's been mostly friendly, helpful, and said he will be there if I need anything, but I can tell that will change. A couple of weeks ago I ended up in the same restaurant and he had me join him. I didn't know he would be there as he moved an hour away. Afterward he asked me to come spend the night, and I refused. He called and offered again the next night, and I refused. He didn't understand why I said no, since "we're both adults and that's what adults do". He was thinking of himself, after previously telling me we had no spark. Recently he tried again and I shut it down all the way, and since then he's been less friendly, more tart, and argumentative.

I feel stupid for thinking anything would change. I feel angry at times that I let him abandon me again. I hate the way it makes me feel, but I also know I'm the one in control of my life. I will move on. I won't dwell and it's not been anything like the last time. I don't cry, or spend hours dwelling.

I'm figuring out my life once again and I don't know if I will stay friends with him once he gets the money paid back, and the repairs done. I think I'll work until I retire and then I'll quit working for him without a single glance back. Until I can afford to do that I will have to learn to dance solo in the rain or sun and not worry about tomorrow.

I've given him the last moments I'll ever give, and I learned a HUGE life lesson. Once someone shows you their true colors, never give them the ability to hurt you again. Better to have let them go and heal. My own stupidity stole another 3 years of life.

10 comments posted: Thursday, September 7th, 2023