Ok, so I don't want to obsess about the ex or anything, but I do try to somewhat keep tabs on him. Why? Well, it's still been less than 2 years since the divorce, and he has had a tendency a few times since the divorce to show up at church and surprise me. He also pulled a few lies on me that I found out about by keeping tabs on him this way, but that was when we still had a few things we had to finish dealing with each other on after the divorce, and there is none of that stuff left, so really, it's just so that if he shows up somewhere, I kind of know what's going on with him and he can't surprise me with anything. Being prepared that way helps me be able to keep my emotions in check if he shows up.

So the most recent I've found is that he and OW are finally through. Which I knew was pretty close to happening. In a way, I feel sorry for him. I mean, to throw away a 10+ year marriage for a two year or so fling with a woman who cheated on him, and in fact had a baby by another man while she was with him (and got him to sign an affadavit of parantage.... but that's another story.) Pretty sad all in all. And me, I'm better off - he was doing personals on-line, porn on-line, cheating on me, and emotionally abusive for years. He actually did me a favor.

But when I read his personal ads, part of me really wishes there was a way to put up some sort of rebuttal - a way to put up a warning to anyone who might actually take what he writes seriously and answer his ads! Some of the things he writes are:

- I am loyal, compassionate, sensitive, and have a big heart.

- I value honesty and respect above all else and will not tolerate anything less. I also give the same in return.

- I know who I am (for the most part), and I've found that I am a very special and unique individual who has a whole lot to offer the right person.

- I am a Christian, and consider my spiritual life very important to me.

- My ideal soulmate would be many things, but most importantly - they would be open and honest about things. Also, when problems cropped up (as they ALWAYS do, since no one is perfect), they would want to work on it together so that both people could grow into a deeper and more loving relationship.

- I would like to one day have kids of my own - as I know I would be an AWESOME dad - but maybe if I meet the right person and they didn't want or couldn't have kids, it probably wouldn't be an issue!

-----

This is the man that was doing personals behind my back for years, cheating, lying about EVERYTHING. All those years, even though I didn't know what was wrong, I knew SOMETHING was wrong, and I was continually asking him to talk to me, because I knew there was a problem. He kept insisting nothing was wrong, and that if I thought something was wrong, there must be something wrong with me. Whenever I complained that I wasn't happy, and tried to talk about it, he got upset, and basically did anything he could to upset me until I would drop the subject and just stuff it back down and leave him alone again about it, because he didn't want to deal with it.

And the last time I looked, I don't know of any type of Christian church that advocates running around on your wife, and then leaving her, trying to have a child with another woman while you are still married to her, living with some other woman while you are still married to her, and ultimately divorcing her so you can go be with someone else. I know our church sure doesn't.

And as far as the thing with kids - he claimed that was one of the problems. When we first got married, and throughout our marriage, I said I didn't want kids. In truth, I actually changed my mind about that somewhere around 1/3 to 1/2 - way through our marriage. The problem is, by then it was obvious there were major problems, and he was refusing to talk with me at all about them. Without being able to get anywhere on what wa going wrong with the marriage, there was no way I was going to bring up having kids! After finding out about the affair, we did try to reconcile for a while. Having kids came up during the counseling, and since I am getting older, and since it was obvious we would have had a LONG way to go before we got to a point where the marriage was stable enough to even think about having kids, one of the things that came up was the question of what if by the time we were ready to have kids, I wasn't able to? He was unhappy with that answer, and all but said that would be a reason for divorce for him.

Part of me really wants to say... sure, everyone deserves a chance to start over, fix their mistakes, realize what they've done, and such. I do believe that. But... He started seeing OW during our marriage, and that's esentially what broke up our marriage. He moved from our house to a trailer he is renting with her. He broke up with her within the last month or so. Oh, and the kid she had, the one he signed up to be daddy for? He signed the affadavit knowing full well there was a very good chance he was not the father. He spent 3 months being daddy, and loving the kid, and all that kind of stuff. Then they did a DNA test, and found out he was not the bio-dad. And that's when he decided he didn't want to be the daddy anymore.

Does that sound like a loving, honest, trustworthy, sensitive, Christian kind of guy with a big heart who has learned from his mistakes and is ready to embark on a new life?

I can let it go. I have to. But boy, do I really wish there was a way to go out and put warning labels on personal ads like his!!!!!!!!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

There is a site, referenced here recently, called something like don'tdatehimgirl. It lists men, where they live & includes some information by people trying to present a different side than the person themselves might.

Here is the link:

http://www.dontdatehimgirl.com/home/

Spent a couple of minutes there, reading...
Sad sad place...

I wonder how high percentage (95-99%?) of these women would take the guy back if he wanted to 'reconcile' or to 'settle down' with her... Well, my feelings can be wrong of course... but I have no impression these women want to help other women, but not letting it go they want their xmen to be alone, or back, or it's just revenge, they are still mad and hurt and they want to hurt them too...
Instead of just moving on...
(Well, unless some of those Xs has AIDS and hiding it but still having active sex. life with any woman they can... that would be something different...)

(Just 'loud' thinking... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />)

oxsgirl,

It's amazing how a good presentation can increase the marketability of anything - even people.

I've always thought that a dating resume with a list of x's for references would be a good idea. I think your polite response in this case would be "not recommended for rehire."

There is another site where the man must be recommended by a former girlfriend to get on. The name is something like great boyfiends. I visited once but it had something of an elitist/better than thou feel. Having grown up in a town chock full of that type it didn't appeal to me. Could have been my attitude at the time so another visit probably wouldn't kill me.

So what?

OK, your ex is a liar, cheat and probably more bad things than you can list here.

Frankly, your list of what he writes in his personal ads frightens me. Not his lies, but the fact that you take valuable time out of your life to read the stuff and then post it here. Really, you must let go of this guy.

You are still allowing him to control you.

He's your ex. Unless you have minor or young adult kids together, he should be out of your life. My advice is to stop keeping track of him, stop looking up his profiles, stop worrying about what he might do to another woman. This is out out of your hands, out of your sphere of control and not something you can control. If you want to help your sisters, then find some kind of support group where you can tell your story and offer the benefits of your experience.

One things I learned a while back was to let go of my lying, cheating ex wife. I worked hard NOT to think of her and I remember waking up one morning and thinking "Gosh, yesterday, I didn't think of her once, not once!" What a great feeling that was !!

Even when my (our) children complain to me about her latest selfish exploits, I simply offer my sympathy and go on. You ex and mine will get what they deserve. We don't need to wallow in their lives anymore.

I am sorry if I sound harsh. That is not my intention. Maybe you have good reasons (like small children) to be concerned with his exploits.

Justin -

No, I fully admit.... seeing him post that kind of stuff, when I know what kind of person he still is, does still get to me. I'm still working on letting it go. Still venting to a certain extent. It's getting better.

But a big part of keeping track of it is... even with no kids, he has a habit of showing up in my life periodically. Showing up at church. And because I am still working on getting through this stuff, it does affect me when he does that. Especially since in the past, he had made a point of bringing OW with him. Then, OW was pregnant... well, bottom line is, keeping track has allowed me to feel as if I've taken back some of that control. At least then, if he does show up, I have some idea of what's REALLY going on, and he can't pull an act on me and lie to me again there in church. I'm just able to keep a much better rein on my emotions and such if I know what has been going on with him before he ever shows up.

Fortunately, he's been doing that a lot less frequently too, and I'm starting to believe that maybe he's finally done playing that little game too. But he never really gives up completely on things, so I can't know for sure, so... mainly, it's just a matter of getting the rest of my emotions dealt with. There was a lot of emotional abuse involved over the years too, so it's taking a while. I'm mostly there. In fact, I had gone for several months before this without really trying to find out anything about him, until about a week or so ago when I had another one of my nightmares where I dreamed he showed up at the house, managed to get back in, and then refused to leave and I couldn't make him leave no matter what I did.

I'll say this too - he was never violent with me, he never hit me. But he was very cruel to my cat at times, and there were times he did throw things or hit a wall. Strangely enough, I never did get scared at the times he did that - I was raised to defend myself, and was never exposed to any domestic violence, and guess I was just kind of naive. Some things I have found out in keeping track of him since the separation and divorce, however, make me think that there may have been problems in that areas with OW and possibly her child. I'm guessing there never was that problem with me for two reasons: one, because he had heard me repeat too many times something I had always heard my mother say, which is that yes, you might hit me now, but you have to go to sleep sometime; and two, because he was very afraid of my whole family, of which all of the men and some of the women own quite a few guns and know how to use them well, and he's very afraid of guns. Plus he was very afraid of my mother, who didn't mess with guns at all, but just didn't like him at all, and he knew it, and, well, frankly, she just scared him a lot.

After the divorce though, he did start making threats, nothing overt, no direct physical threats, but implied threats all the same, and for quite a few months, I seldom went directly home. I usually drove around the neighborhood once just to check and make sure he wasn't parked down the street anywhere first before I would go to the house. Even now, when I pull down my street, I do a scan of the street looking for any of the vehicles I know he drives. So as much as I hate to admit it, fear is still involved in some of this as well. I want to know where he is and what he is up to. The more I know about him, the better chance I have of seeing something coming if he decides to pull something again. It's been quiet for a long time, and I doubt he will. That's why I wouldn't go on don'tdatehimgirl.com or actually post a rebuttal to an ad even if there were a way or anything like that. I don't want to do anything that might stir him up again. I like it quiet. So I just come here and vent a little, and get it out of my system a little more, and the vents become a lot fewer and farther between as I go along.