My WW just came over to pick up some boxes from our house. It was very uncomfortable for me and something that I have been dreading all day. It's been a month since I've last seen her. She seemed to want to chat and stay awhile to see what I've been up to.

My inclination was to get her out as soon as possible. The whole time I was cold and indiffernet towards her. I didn't want to ask anything about her current boyfriend or what her future plans were. I just didn't really want to know. I kept all the topics general, news of the day type stuff.

I could tell she wanted to stay longer, find out what I've been doing or talk to me about her current boyfriend, but I wanted no part of it. She really wants to maintain a friendship, which we've always had in our marriage. I guess I feel sad because I acted the way I did. Here was the wife that at one time was my life and now it's gone to this...

She did have to tell me a little about her boyfriend's "crazy wife". She might be in contact with me soon about the A. It doesn't really interest me to talk to about the A. I'm trying to move on with my life.

How do you handle maintaing relations with you WS? I can't imagine how it must be with kids. Do you feel cold and indifferent towards each other or just try and avoid contact all together? It's odd because my WW is keen on developing a friendship with me. She wants to go out to eat later on this week. My WW always initiates the contact and wants to know what I'm up to. I just don't get it.

Well, I'm not quite divorced yet, but almost. My WH and I used to be best friends. But a best friend doesn't stab you in the back and twist the knife.

I find that I have nothing to say to him. He calls once in a while, and I'm polite but short. I don't really care what his problems are anymore.

Most of the time I feel nothing. It's when I have time to sit and stew do I feel bad.

So I process that for a while and then get busy, so I don't have time to sit and stew.

A better question might be, how does your ex feel around you? She doesn't want to see me at all. A recent exchange of our child was her basically pushing her out of the door and running back into her parents home.

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T

I have learned to deal with my Ex on a "business" level. The only thing I discuss with him is our daughter and her needs. Nothing else. His emotions and personal life no longer pertain to me nor mine to him. It's hard to get into that mindset but once you do it's such a relief.

Good Luck
Alluring

It was once hard to be around my ex, but not anymore. We don't see one another very often. A few times per year we'll get together for lunch and it's usually pleasant. The weird thing about it is that we communicate just as well as we did when we were married. One would never know by watching her that she wasn't still married to me. I do limit my contact with her, because I really don't care to have much contact with her anymore.

Tell your ex that you don't want to hear anything about her boyfriends. You have a right to set that boundry. She's just trying to get a response out of you; she'd love to know you're jealous. Early on, my ex used to talk about her OM. Then one day when she said "'Mark' came home yesterday and said..." I stopped her and said, "Dear, I don't care what Mark said. I don't care to know anything he says, thinks, knows, or does." She acted surprised and asked why. I told her, "because is is an unprincipled, immoral person and a pathetic excuse for a man. He abandoned his own child and never looked back and he lures married women into affairs for sport. He cares nothing for you, nor anyone else, but only for himself. He's using you, just as he's using others. If you want to associate with a man of that calibre, that's your business, but to me he's nothing but trash and I don't want to hear about him. So never mention his name to me or anything about him." All she said was "wow." She's never spoken of him again.

Mostly I feel annoyed when I am forced to be around my X.

There was an issue of abuse and rape as well as the affair. It took me over a year of counseling. When I was married, I did everything to try to make it work bu that was one sided and when I awoke to the amount of abuse X was heaping on me, that was it.

My X used to think that he could just walk into my home to see the kids and it was no proble. I said to him to think from a different view..

If this situation was his daughter, would you want her X husband to come into her home,anywhere in her life, if he did to her same things you did to me?

He did invite me to bbq at his home in may which I blasted him for..he felt enough time had gone by. I said never enough time would go by, he raped me and has never apologtized. He should be in jail for things he did not having bbq's and thinking everything was hunky-dory


I was forced t6o spend about 10 minutes with him other nite by accident. I just ignored him..didnt make eye contact. when I allowed him to come to sons grad party, I just ignored him, pretended he wasnt here and watched him like a hawk if he should want to go into my house (he has history of snooping and stealing)

Honestly, we have been divorced now for 2+ years and living apart for 3 years--and we tried for years before that! IOW, it's been a while for me and it's not a "fresh" experience. Now, after all this time, he is finally starting to get the idea that I have boundaries, that I mean them, that I will enforce them, and that I am actually not part of his life anymore. For the longest time during the A's (plural) and after the D, he tried to do the friendly chit chat about his job, his GF's etc., and I sort of did what CheckUrHeart did. I told him that I had loved him faithfully and truly for 15 years and the whole time he had abused me and been unfaithful-that given the choice between his family and his flings, he chose to throw us away-and that he had to live with the consequences of that choice...and one of the consequences for me was that I was not his "friend."

Now, I have not been b*tchy to my exH, despite the fact that I sincerely believe that I have every reason and right to be! Nonetheless, that is not the person or woman that *I* am--I am a friendly, peaceful, easy-going person and so I did decide to be that way with my exH too. When he changes plans at the last moment, I am flexible. When he calls about something with the kids or even a little about how he can't pick up the kids because the boss is being a jerk...I listen, but I don't engage him or continue conversation. I'm as polite to him as I would be to a person I see on a daily basis at the office but who works in another department. I try to measure my responses to him as I would to any other person with whom I have contact but I don't particularly like or dislike them--an acquaintance...if I would treat an acquaintance that way, I give him that sort of treatment.

So around my exH now...I feel mostly (shrug)...not much.




FNCJ

Ditto! It took me nearly 4 years to feel nothing but "business of parenting" around my ex and his affair-turned-wife. The anger is gone. I'm happy and I really don't care what they do anymore. I do care how we all parent our children together.


Mrs. W8ing

Usually I am able to deal with x in a business type manner. Sometimes, I am able to be relatively friendly. But tonight, even though we have been divorced 7 years, I want a double-dog-dare divorce. Just sick and tired of being verbally/emotionally abused by him and knowing he does some of the same stuff to our children but has the audacity, sometimes, to tell me that the children would be better off living with him.

Yeah, and pigs can fly.

That will happen after stupid idiot x gets into serious therapy and gets well.

Which ain't never gonna happen. (Oh dear, sounds like I need a good therapy session. Or some chocolate.)

In a word...nothing. I have recently thought about things that used to make me so sick and it was like poking at my appendectomy scar after six months...I could tell it wasn't 100%, but it wasn't nearly as inflamed as it was right after surgery.

Luckily, STBXW and I had no kids and she left for an overseas assignment and will not be returning to my area...simply waiting on the paperwork.

For all intents and purposes, it's ALMOST like she never existed.

Oddly enough, I still have a bag with some pictures and other "memorabilia" from our M and I don't know what to do with it. My inclination at this point is to destroy it all, but I'll give it some time and see how I feel in a year or so. It was my life for 9 years and I just can't make it go away...

I like what FaithfulNewCJ said.

I'm largely that way. Been separated from WXW for almost 2 years. It's taken me most of that time to get her to acknowledge my boundaries with regard to her, and to understand that I have my own vision of the post-marital interaction and that it doesn't necessarily fit with hers. I see us as "associates" in a business enterprise, specifically the raising of the kids. She'd rather we were friends who meet for lunch or coffee sometimes or just shoot the breeze.

I too keep chitchat to a minimum. I don't ask her about her day, her work, or her plans, except where it's necessary for planning purposes. When she told me she was buying a house with her BF, I didn't offer congratulations or much of anything, beyond asking for the moving date. I hear through my kids that they might be getting married; I'm still trying to figure out whether or not she'll expect my congratulations or, in any event, whether or not I should even offer them.

I'm with Sunrise. I mostly feel annoyed. However, it's been years since I've been friends with my STBX. Neither of us want to remain friends. I'm just hoping for civility.

I feel fine, she's the idiot, not me.

and that's the way i feel around all idiots.

wiftty