You are right goody2shoes. I don't have courage right now to delete his number. So essentially I am keeping chocolate in my pantry, and I know exactly where it is, but am pretending it is the same as NOT having chocolate at all in my house.

I thought about it too. None I dated prior to xBF was this bad - at least they tried to be fair and none was abusive to my son. As I get older, I had believed subconsciously that my worth declines and I needed to settle.

When will you be deleting all his contact information?

I was thinking about that this morning. Guess there is no perfect time for it, isn't it. The reason I am hesitant to delete his number is because I promised I would return his shoes and he was supposed to let me know how and when we will do so. But I realized that, if we arrange something so that we can exchange (he might have something he needs to return to me as well) our stuff, that can lead to something else, and there may never be this perfect timing to completely delete his contact info from my phone.

Today I went to meet with my realtor since I'm in a process of buying a condo and I had to be at the property for home inspection. My agent is xBF's friend. Over time we became friends, and I began my search last year so I have been using him as my realtor. He invited both of us for a party last weekend, which I did not go for the obvious reason. I apologized for not showing up and told him that xBF and I broke up. He said he heard it from xBF, and said that xBF was very upset/depressed about the breakup. I probably did not need to, but explained to him the background (I had shared some of my complaints with him before but never provided much details). He said it sounds like xBF is his X (he was married happily with 3 kids but his wife passed away, then he remarried - which did not last too long apparently because his new wife was BXXXX, per xBH). After his second marriage ended, he began dating his current GF. When I met him 5 years ago, he was already with her so she is the only person I know in person. She is a wonderful lady.

He said his kids hated her (his 2nd wife), and thanked him when they got divorced. Now his kids (they are adults) are very close to his GF. He said my xBF needs to date someone without kids or someone with much older, grown kids who do not live with their mother.

I just do not get WHY xBF cannot be warm and nice toward my son, if the breakup was THAT devastating to him. I was not asking him to fly. Or was I???

Anyway, I will need to get the strength to delete his number soon.

As I get older I realize that time is precious and I do not want to waste a single minute of it with people who have a negative impact on my life.

Life is short. You are wasting it on an abusive freeloader.

You don't need courage, you just need to move one finger. Even if you don't want to protect yourself, please do it to protect your son.

"I cannot delete his phone number because [bla]".

Ditch the phone number, ditch the shoes. Be the mother your son needs.

Delete his number and all his contact information now and start healing and caring for your son. If you don't do it today you will keep making excuses to not do it. Do it today!! Is he on social media? You need to block all avenues of contact and make a promise to yourself that you deserve better.

Thank you goody and Brain Hurts for your encouragement. I have such an awesome team of cheerleaders!!

I will delete his number. He does not have any social media accounts, so only contact I need to delete is his phone number.

This evening my realtor's GF messaged me. She said xBF is hurting and said he loves me. But clearly his 'love' was not strong enough to make actions to make amend.

Somehow I missed this. Thanks unwritten. Yes, I had some scary medical issue last summer, which made me realize that I cannot take time for granted. I do want to be happy and live the rest of my life with much less stress.

I deleted his number. One step forward.

Good job. Do you have any pampering scheduled for yourself?

Thanks Brain Hurts. No, I don't but probably should...

My emotions are still like a rolling coaster. I was fine last night and this morning, OK after deleting his number, but then after I got to work, I began remembering the conversation with my realtor's GF last night... and that really made my heart heavy.

I know I am delusional. As all of you have pointed out, it should be xBF who lost a lot not me. But sometimes I feel like suffocating because of his NC. He has told his friends he loves me, but he has not attempted to contact me. So basically he does not love me enough to do the hard work. Why is it so difficult for me to accept the reality?

It's hard to accept because you know you're worth the effort. I'm so grateful you got out of that mess. You're going to look back on this as the hugest gift, to be able to get you and your son out of that mess. How many people stay stuck there and waste their lives hoping for change that was never coming?

Stop talking to his friends. If someone begins to give you an update on him and his feelings, tell them you do not want to hear about him. If they continue, politely excuse yourself from the conversation.

We suggest no contact to people who are dealing with wayward spouses all the time. This is because the emotional impact from being in this toxic situation is huge. Although not quite to that level, the emotional impact of this man on you is huge, we can already see it in the fact that you do not feel worth more than this. No contact is the first step at getting this weight out of your life. This does not mean simply not talking to him. It also means, do not talk to other people about him, do not look at pictures of him, do not think about the good times (if there were any...). If you have access to him on social media, de friend him, unfollow him, block him, stay off social media. Out of sight out of mind is actually a thing!

I promise if you stay strong on these things you will be over him in no time.

Get busy so you don't have a bunch of free time to feel lonely. I suggest spending as much of it with your son as you can.

Thank you NewEveryDay and unwritten. I took my son for his new shoe shopping yesterday evening, which helped distract myself.

On the way back in the car, I was telling him to not stay up too late at night (he will go to his dad's house this weekend) so that he won't be sleeping till 1pm the next day, like he did during the summer break. To which he replied "I wasn't sleeping till 1 mom, I pretended because that's when xBF leaves the house". Often when I was working and xBF was off, he would stay till noon and went off to run errands. My son often texted me saying he was hungry but since xBF was still in the house son did not want to go downstairs, as xBF will say something that is negative. My son's short answer last night reminded me how I needed to save my son out of such uncomfortable and controlling situation.

Yes, it's still hard because as you NewEveryDay said, I keep wondering why xBF doesn't try to fix it if he truly loved me as he claims. And unwritten, ironically I may be afraid of that 'out of sight out of mind' will happen to xBF. Why? Perhaps because that will make me feel even lower. I have always been nice to him, have given him a lot, did not get much back from him, his sister begged me to marry him, he said he never had this long relationship and this is very special and that he loves me and we would marry. After all that, and xBF knows he was a jerk to my son, yet he can easily implement NC and soon it will be out of sight out of mind. I will feel so stupid and low. That thought kills me.

I know it feels different now but he put very little effort into and value on your relationship all those years you were together too. Dr. H talks about that, that one of the many reasons not to sacrifice in a marriage is that the other spouse devalues your contribution. The effort you made was valuable to oy and your life will improve as you put that effort of caretaking and financial responsibility towards yourself instead.

The only difference now is that you are being honest with yourself about it. Like me you will have to be very careful not to get into any more relationships where you are not valued with time, effort, and thoughtfulness.

Thank you NewEveryDay. Just found out another item he bought is missing, so he must have taken it with him when he left.

This is an ink cartridge for my printer which he cannot use at his place since he does not own the same model printer. He was printing his mortgage application, resumes, and all sorts of heavy documents and used up all of my ink. So when my son needed to print out something for his school work, we could not. I went out to get a cartridge but this is a color printer and expensive, and I felt resentful that after xBF used it up, he did not have the courtesy to replace it. After I replaced the cartridge, xBF began using it heavily, so I asked him to go get another cartridge. He called me 'cheap'. Go figure... Anyhow, he did end up buying another cartridge since he does use my printer very often. But that was a while ago, and as far as I am concerned, he continued to use my printer, almost on a weekly basis while neither my son or I were using it for the past several months (since my son was off from school). I don't mind that he uses my printer, but I could not believe that in his mind, if I made him buy the cartridge since he uses it, he thinks I am being cheap. He used up all my paper too, which I do not particularly mind since it's not expensive, but the point is, after using my resources all these years for free, he had a nerve to take the cartridge with him!!! Just like he took my dog's spray, which absolutely he has no use for.

I am so aggravated. And here I am, missing him and portraying him as if he was a saint. I am rewriting the history, just because I feel vulnerable. If he was such a nice, fair, and considerate guy, I would not have had the resentment and desire to break up with him for all these years to begin with.

Mind is a powerful thing - once I believe I 'need' him, I conveniently overlook his true personality, forget how harsh and mean he was toward my son, forget how often I felt that I do all the work and he did not do anything but just took advantage of my niceness, mask the fact he kept talking about marriage but never actually planned for it or proposed (in fact, he jokingly told me "I'll marry you today if you buy me a Ferrari"), and even began feeling I was wrong and I was mean to him to want to break up with him!

It is as if I have been brain washed to think that I need to do all the work to 'keep' a guy even if he does not do any of the hard work that is necessary for a successful and loving relationship.

I must become stronger to ditch such ideas. If I think through it and feel unreasonable, I have to have courage to be able to discuss that with my partner. When I talked to several friends, including xBF's friends, they were all surprised when they learned that the past 5 years he was not paying rent or sharing utility and other bills. They told me to "charge him!" but I could not. I did bring that up several times but he never said he would pay. He kind of just listened to what I was saying, but he never offered to pay or provided his rationale as to why he thinks he did not have to pay. And I could not persuade him.

He is a freeloader and never even moved to a renter. Have you read the book Buyers. Renters and Freeloaders yet?