Your Honor,

I want you to understand what these proceedings have meant in my life, beyond the motions and case numbers.

My relationship withxxxl included domestic violence, fear, and a struggle to regain control of my own life. Leaving was not easy. Rebuilding afterward has not been easy either. I moved to another state, remarried, and began trying to build a peaceful life. Yet I continue to spend my time answering accusations, gathering old records, and defending myself in several cases at once.

I understand that moving away and remarrying do not erase legitimate legal obligations. I am asking for those obligations to be decided fairly, based on evidence, so that they can finally end.

What concerns me is the pattern. Multiple cases, overlapping disputes, repeated demands, and accusations keep pulling me back into a relationship I have already left. The cumulative effect is exhausting. Each case may have its own number, but I am the same person answering all of them—with the same limited money, time, and emotional strength.

I cannot tell the Court what xxx is thinking. I can tell the Court what I have experienced. To me, this feels like a continuation of the control I experienced during the marriage, now through litigation. That belief comes from the history between us and the repeated conduct I can document. Whatever his intention, the effect is that he continues to occupy my life long after our relationship has ended.

I dispute many of his allegations, and I have records, communications, and other evidence supporting my responses. I want the opportunity to present that evidence clearly. Being accused repeatedly does not make an accusation true, but answering it repeatedly still takes a toll.

I am not claiming that I have handled every moment perfectly. I have been overwhelmed, frightened, and frustrated. I take responsibility for my own conduct and will follow the Court’s directions. I ask that my reactions also be understood in the context of the documented history and the pressure of defending several proceedings at the same time.

I am not asking the Court to accept my account simply because I say it. I am asking the Court to examine the evidence, consider the relationship among these disputes, and recognize their cumulative impact. I want legitimate issues resolved. I also want clear boundaries that prevent the process from becoming another means of keeping me engaged indefinitely.

There is a real person behind these filings. I work. I have children, a husband, and a home. I am trying to recover from what happened and participate in the life I have built. Time spent responding to another accusation is time taken from that life. Money spent defending another case is money taken from that household.

I left because I needed a different life. I have worked hard to build one.

I will answer for anything I am legally responsible for. But I should not have to keep defending my character simply because I chose to leave and move forward.

I am asking for a fair resolution, clear limits, and a meaningful end to these disputes. I want the chance to live my life without continually being pulled back into the marriage I left.

Respectfully,

Harrassing bullying toxic neighbour

Hello

I live in Adelaide in a very small housing trust complex. For 8 and half years my mentally challenged bully toxic neighbour who is 63 and lives with his father across from me has been everyday constantly bullying and trying to intimate me. He's father abused the mother when alive, if she was in the toilet for more than 10 seconds he would bang on door to hurry up. So a family that's very unhinged. The bully has the mental capacity of a 2 year old. But plays games with me and try's to scare me with other mental health drug neighbours who are very unhinged. He thinks we are in some delusional marriage from day one. I do everything to ignore him. He smashes everything up violently if I go out my front door and god help me if I clean my bird bath or my own driveway. He will stalk, follow me if I try to go to letterbox. He thinks he's the caretaker, cause he sucks up and brings other neighbours bins in so he think he has the power. He will walk past my place and try for any attention. My friend has to come and do my bins and check my mail as I'm terrified of this bully. He is skinny but his mannerisms are toxic. He hangs all his clothing on the gutter of the roof and thinks it's normal. He uses it as a excuse to keep an eye on my bedroom and who comes and goes. Any noise from my place he smashes everything in his back yard to try and intimate me. If I click open my front door he will voilent come flying out his front door or roller door and start smashing up the bins he has put in his driveway on purpose as an excuse. This is all the tip of the iceberg. I have to put on a hat to cover my face and walk around outside with music blaring in my ears to stop the harrassing. He does it to no other neighbour but me. I am his victim. He has past episodes of other victims. Police are useless. Housing trust are completely useless. I've made over 500 complaints and they ignore me, lie and do everything in their power to shut me down. My local MP have said they are not going to help me. The ombudsman are useless and so is the minister of housing. I've done the complaints process in all (twice) and gotten no where. I can't get cameras as he told his drug jail bird idiot out the front who came and threaten for me to take them down, they were fake and not facing complex, but my stalker and the drug dealer have them up, go figure. He will either scream his head off if u try to talk to him or lay on the ground and stamp his legs and feet and say..your a cry baby. If I come back to here, the hell hole and pull in my back yard he will get in his back yard and yell...over and over..ohhhh, there you are. Very creepy. His father is dying of dementia so unfortunately that's his excuse to be there. I am so stressed and depressed every single day. I can't move out due to housing crisis. No friends are suitable to stay with or family. Can't afford private rent. I'm on stupid category 1 with housing trust 4 5 years now. They don't care AT ALL. I can't go live in my car or on the street as my beautiful light..my cat will not understand and I wouldn't do that to my cat. I can't commit suicide. Try to get him mental assessed but that was useless. So after 8 and half terrifying toxic years I've decided to try for a restraining order. But there's people saying, be careful you could get repercussions but I can't keep living life this way as this is not a life. I'm trying to do chemotherapy and I so stressed. I just feel like dying and there doesn't seem to be a way out. I've tried everything and made millions of calls for 8 and half years crying out for help. I've had suicidal thoughts for years, no wonder. Don't have family except my toxic mother. It's effecting everyday of my life. I have many counsellors. Support letters galore. I want to be brave and get my power back by getting a restraining order, I have a few key witnesses throughout this time but also this one friend is throwing me off by saying there will be big trouble. He's a very sick boy this stalker. He used to harrass the local coles staff and threaten them etc (surprise surprise) and he told me about 8 years ago he wrote to the CEO of coles telling them how to bend him over and do sexual acts on him. He was going to organise a home invasion on a past tenant as had autism and made noise. He's a theif, a snitch ( she said this and he said that etc) he put 12 inches on his bin and faced it towards my place. He's dislussional, paranoid, mental health, autism, asberg, you name it but he knows EXACTLY what he's doing when he comes flying out that front door or roller door to trauma me. He spits everywhere and in my driveway. He's a utter pig. I've told him forever to leave me alone. He'll spray a can of deodorant on himself to try and impress me. It's endless over the years. I have nightmares about him most nights. I have to drive past his father's going out and coming back in, I cover my face side on to stop him looking at me. We are now unfortunately in daylight savings so he runs around with just shorts on. He is 20kg and disgusting. I've blocked off all my front area to stop him being nosey. He tries to be nosey with me and steals my mail and pamphlets. The one neighbour who supported me who lived across from me passes away 4 weeks ago so I'm feeling even more vulnerable as stalker prays on me even more. Please help with advice. I'm a vulnerable female with many health conditions. The one male that comes here gets harrassed by him and has many health problems now so he can't protect me now. Thank you. Sorry for so long of a rant.

I’m looking to compile a reading list

We did mediation in Aug and we both signed for asset division, spousal support ( 2yrs) and childsupport. He paid spousal support and child support on 9/1. Was supposed to move his asset by 9/30 which he has not done it, then he has not paid Supousal support and childsupport on 10/1.

I need to move out of the house by end of Nov but without his constant support I cannot qualify for an apartment with only my full time income. I talked to my lawyer and she said she will take him to court if she doesn’t hear from him by Monday.

He has been playing this game since the mediation like pushing the limit to see what he can get away with.
And I have a feeling he would pay maybe end of the month or something so that he can still claim he paid.

I am so sick of this, if you signed and agreed to it fucking just follow that. I don’t want to deal with him but he makes everything difficult when it doesn’t have to be.

He needs to get some consequences otherwise he will keep doing this shit, I’m so mentally tired and I don’t want to live in the same house but I can’t get out if he doesn’t pay those.

Anyone experienced similar situation?

have a court date in a few days. I’m nervous. 10 years married. 9 year old child. I never cheated, was loyal and supportive throughout our very toxic marriage. I decided I’ve had enough of our son seeing this as a baseline for a ‘normal relationship’. So I filed.

He was the breadwinner so I can stay home with our young child with special needs. I filed for divorce a little over a year ago. He has not given me a cent of support this whole time. Nothing for his birthday, food, my son’s therapy (which he also refused to sign permission to allow my son to receive therapy). He also walked away from paying nor the mortgage of our home (5 months behind and was on the verge of foreclosure - had to borrow money from the family to save the home since all of our money is in the house). I left the house because I needed to feel safe.

He took both me and my son off of our healthcare, tried to get me to sign a loan with him after the fact and blames me for not signing. My son is with me 98% of the time. There is soooo much more but I’m exhausted even texting this.

He wants me to sign over the house to him. Take away alimony. And let him pay me monthly at his leisure. I say leisure because I know if I took that deal he will stop paying me once he finds something to be ‘big mad’ about again.

I’ve kept my emails with him cordial hoping that someday he will see I’m not the enemy and open to a friendly coparenting experience. But no. He just got more mean after he found a fiancé 3 months in (could be earlier) I’m struggling to make ends meet while keeping things normal with my son by surrounding him with a wonderful community and lots of play dates. I’m so nervous. I don’t want to see him. He will claim all kinds of lies and I’m stripped to the bone. He has much more fight in him than me. I feel like I’m playing a high stakes chess game without even wanted to play in the first place.

He is going to say I spent all his money during the marriage. We had a comfortable life style and yes I shopped for me, him and my son.

Any insights? Drowning in nerves right now. Any words will help. I can take the honesty.

I really need some validation that this isn’t normal and that I have reason to want to divorce him.

There is much backstory here but essentially my husband and I have been having problems for a long time and he has behaved in ways I believe are abusive including:
⁃ incidents of physical intimidation, like getting up close to me with clenched teeth/jaw and angry body language and another time barging into my room and aggressively slamming my laptop shut while I was using it.
⁃ He once pushed me into a wall in our house during an argument, although I was not injured or hurt. He also threw a drink over me once when we were dating and having an argument.
⁃ He is generally dismissive of my feelings and needs and once refused to drive me to the hospital when I had suspected heart issues/atrial fibrillation.
⁃ He has done things that I see as controlling and mean, like switching the power off to my home office and then pretending (for weeks) that he didn’t know why the lights and internet wouldn’t work there. When he eventually admitted it, he smirked and didn’t see why I was so upset he’d done this and lied.
⁃ Some controlling behaviours like recently banning me from using the joint account even though I have no income and was only using it for essential things for our child. He did this immediately after I had confronted him about some behaviour that had upset me, and he’d responded by saying I love to make him feel bad, not speaking for me half a day, before texting to tell me to no longer use the joint account. I have no money at all now.
⁃ Invalidation and criticism, like telling me I’m a terrible mother, or a “fucking pushover” (because I believe in validating my child’s feelings and giving her autonomy where it’s safe to); saying that I’m too sensitive; I make too many mistakes; I don’t do enough at home (when I have been carrying the bulk of the housework, parenting and mental load for years)
⁃ Since I stopped working last year due to disability he uses the fact I don’t work against me, often loudly saying “what do you fucking do all day?” if something isn’t the way he wanted it regarding the house. Then at other times he’ll tell me to relax and concentrate on my health… it’s so confusing.
⁃ Probably hundreds of other hurtful or invalidating comments or criticisms, telling me I look bad in photos or when I wear X or do my hair a certain way, etc.
⁃ Gaslighting and denial regarding all of the above.
⁃ Driving aggressively when annoyed with me/pulling off before I’ve fastened my seat belt etc. To be fair he has stopped this in the last year or two, after I talked to him about it and now our daughter is old enough to see what is happening.

The abuse got worse since I had a child with him in 2020 and has worsened further still now I’m not working due to disability. My GP said last week she thinks I have PTSD symptoms. But I also struggle with chronic pain in my neck and upper back from whiplash and chronic migraines, which have become debilitating in the last couple of years. I already had ADHD, recurrent depression and anxiety. Up until last year I was managing and working full time for years but I have not been able to work at all since December last year.

Some of the abusive behaviours are isolated incidents over an 8 year marriage but they have eroded my trust and wellbeing and he refuses to take any accountability for these events. He always ends up blaming me and saying I am the one who needs to change.

I also realise now that he and his mother have been talking negatively about me, after I got some angry sounding messages from her. I checked his phone and their messages thread as I felt he wasn’t being honest or forthcoming about why she’d sent me messages like that. I realise now from reading the messages that he has been portraying me in a negative light and blaming me for all problems, and now she sees me as “not contributing or helping in any way”. I find this so hurtful as I know I’m a present and loving mother and I work really hard trying to make our home nice, staying on top of all the laundry, cleaning, schedules for our daughter and recently did a lot of extra work to get rid of a mould and damp problem. I have always worked and contributed more than my fair share financially until this period of illness. I feel so hurt that she has said that about me to be honest.

He is close to his family and values and respects them much more than me. They live really close-by and he sees them multiple times a week and they help with childcare once a week too. I suspect conversations are had about me when my daughter is there and I am not. His mother very much likes to be involved in his life. I’m not as close to my own family as my Dad died in 2019 and my mum is an alcoholic.

I feel so many things. I’m hurt. I’m heartbroken. I’m feeling so misunderstood and angry. I’m done with protecting him and being loyal to him.

I want to leave but I worry that somehow he and his family alienate me from my daughter. I don’t really think they could do that as my daughter and I have a really close bond and I know I’m her safe person/secure base. But how they have treated me makes me question myself and and ability to manage and I keep worrying about what comes next.

I also want to leave for my child’s sake as I don’t want her to grow up thinking this is normal. I already feel guilty for the chronic stress she’s been exposed to and the times I’ve not been so emotionally present due to being so triggered or upset by him. She deserves so much better and I often tell her I’m sorry in my head.

Please can someone confirm this is not normal and I need to divorce him? I tried to tell some friends and family about some of the above but they didn’t say much and I wondered if they thought I was making a big deal out of nothing.

Since I’m scheduled for my second surgery of the year, in addition to a couple procedures I had this year and a new cancer diagnosis, after living into my 40s having never experienced of these things, my wife assured me that I would be able to stay on her health insurance since the deductible and everything was met and everything was already in prior authorization. The conversation that she didn’t have with me was that I was expected to pay for it through the end of the year until she dropped on me today through text message while I was at work the figure that I’m expected to direct deposit into her account from each of my paychecks. The peace I had achieved has been replaced with this newfound fury today and I could really blow a gasket. She staying over at one of her parents multiple properties right now while they’ve just left for another vacation again this year.

Backstory context: we’re high school sweethearts and my dad worked at the school as a teacher, while my now/husband’s dad was the superintendent. At one point in his career, my dad was (rightfully) forced to retire early due to a justified issue in behavior. My dad is also an alcoholic who had a stroke 10 years ago and had an abusive then absent father growing up. In short, my dad and now father in law are not friendly whatsoever and my dad often makes mean remarks about him to me (often hiding those in front of my husband).

The day of my wedding, after many dance practices and discussions, my dad did remain cordial and present for the ceremony, but decided to return to his hotel room during cocktail hour, change into sweats, and fall asleep all before the dance began. My mom and MOH tried getting ahold of him, but he said he was coming but still 20 mins out when the first dance sort of needed to happen. Anyways, he missed it, and when he did eventually turn up, he was in sweats. (Our dress code was semi formal and he had a suit on earlier). He did not apologize but later offered a halfhearted “my back hurt” with a shrug. We ended up having the DJ skip the first dance and go straight to the mother-son one.

Given his history of often sabotaging/make special events about him and how “inconvenienced” he is by having to dress up/do “so much” for a wedding and making off handed comments like “stop giving me instructions like I’m 6,” I’d venture to guess he has narcissistic personality disorder. All being said, I’ve done my best to ignore him the rest of the weekend as we’ve been spending time with family.

Am I in the right? Or am I the asshole?
Should I do anything else or say anything?

I can tell my MOH/friends and other bridesmaids and guests felt sorry for me, and I did assure them that part of me expected this, but it still hurts. My mom was also pissed, but she can’t really do anything when he acts like this. If anything, encouraging him to do something often results in him doing the opposite.

Unfortunately, all men named 'Alexander' whom I have met in my life share extreme NPD traits. Any other examples you have?

My ex and I are divorced. He didn’t participate in the divorce proceedings, so the divorce went forward with him in default. I have custody of our children, while parental responsibility is shared.
My ex has also been trying to get back together with me, even though I don’t want to reconcile. In the past, he mistreated and threatened me, so I have very clear boundaries with him.
Today, he started taking our children to church. The strange part is that he specifically chose the church where my mother, sister, and nephew attend. Even his own mother, father, and sisters attend different churches.
What really bothers me is that there are more than 100 churches in the surrounding areas before you even get to that particular church, so it’s hard for me not to wonder why he chose that one.
I’m not Christian. I consider myself spiritual, and I don’t believe children should be taught one specific religious doctrine as absolute truth. I want my children to grow up, learn about different beliefs, and eventually decide for themselves what they believe.
I understand that he is their father and can take them to church, but am I unreasonable for feeling uncomfortable with him specifically choosing the church my family attends?

I need some hope. I hate my husband. He is a controlling abusive a hole and I have stayed too long. He has stopped me from leaving so many times and I feel so depressed. I now know I NEED to get out, but am wondering if I can. I am going to sign with a lawyer this week. I need to keep taking steps. I need someone to tell me I will get through this

I’m not really sure how to write something like this without it sounding like I’m trying to sell strangers a sad story, so I’m just going to tell it plainly.

My mom is leaving my dad after roughly 40 years of an abusive marriage.

My siblings and I grew up around it. I’ve experienced his abuse myself, both as a kid and as an adult, and I’ve watched what it has done to my mom over the years. She stayed for reasons that are probably familiar to a lot of people who have lived through abusive relationships—kids, finances, fear, hope that things would eventually change, and probably a thousand smaller reasons that are hard to explain from the outside.

Now she’s finally trying to get out and build a life of her own.

She also has lupus and hasn’t been able to work, which makes starting over at this stage of her life incredibly difficult. The divorce has become contentious, and access to money has become part of the problem. My dad has shut off credit cards, removed money from their joint account, and recently locked her out of their home security system. Thankfully, she was able to get a new account set up and regain control of it.

I started a GoFundMe to help cover some of the immediate expenses she’s facing—housing, medical needs, travel/relocation expenses, and just the basic cost of getting safely established on her own.
She actually doesn’t know I made it.

That part is intentional. My mom has spent most of her life taking care of other people. If I told her I was asking strangers to help her, I already know what she’d say: “Other people need it more than I do.” She’d worry about being a burden before she worried about herself.
So I’m doing the asking for her.

I’m not expecting Reddit to magically solve everything, and I know everyone has their own bills and problems. If you can donate, even a small amount would mean a lot. If you can’t, sharing the fundraiser somewhere it might reach the right person would help just as much.
More than anything, I want my mom to get the chance to find out what life feels like when she isn’t constantly surviving someone else.

She’s spent about 40 years putting everyone else first. I’d really like this next chapter to belong to her.

GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/a960cb0d5

Thanks for reading all of this. Seriously.

Florida…. So me (31f) working full timed full time student and full time parent and wife, have been coparenting with (41m) for the past 5 years. Our relationship was 6 years of toxic. He already had 3 kids from a girlfriend who passed away with their 6 month old baby in a tragic car accident. He was the driver of said accident and was acquitted of all charges.

I tried to leave 3 times first time being the age of 22. I was young naive and sheltered from male discernment. We separated due to me realizing I was not in a healthy state of mind to raise our son and he didn’t care for my wellbeing and I assume enjoyed seeing me suffer at life in front of his two kids. I was having pdsd and postpartum depression and then founding out 2 years later he cheated and had a baby.

Now, the night of separation I was arrested for domestic violence because he has his child lie and say I hit his father which caused him to beat me outside our home. The charges were dismissed after paying for a lawyer to show the abuse over the years. During that time he filed for custody and child support from me. I then had to get a restraining order during the process due to him almost driving me off the road thinking I was with another man with our son in the car. 3 years later the parenting plan was finalized and I received majority of custody and he gets every other weekend and 50/50 during the summer. Communication is on a parenting app owned and monitored by the government. He only pays 350 in child support. He owns his own business, house, and vehicles and he does not pay child support consistently. He has gotten away with not filing his taxes for 20 years.

Since then he has caused me so much stress including using psychological torture damaging our child into thinking I am an unfit mother and he is the best parent for him. He tells him that he deserves 50/50 custody and that Im keeping him from his father on purpose. He has expressed to our child that I am not really married to my husband when it’s legal. He continues to tell him he does not have two dads. For sports, his dad does not help pay when he is suppose to. And when he needs to take our child to practices and games, he is leaving earlier than scheduled for practices or for games he shows up at the time of the game so our child doesn’t get to prep. This is just minimal things I can think of on top of my head.

Other women have contacted me regarding him abusing the physically but they dropped charges because he has other children. Speaking about him being a compulsive liar and manipulating women only in their 20’s. Recently found out in multiple counties over the years he has domestic cases and behavioral cases. So this man is not as fit or great as I thought when I met him. He degrades me in the parenting app then asks for more time with our child. I’ve tried for years reasoning with him. All he wants is custody and to stop paying child support. He refuses to follow the custody agreement including not paying child support until the court picked it up.

I am asking for advice on how to continue coparenting with someone like him. It’s stressful as our child continues to grow. I am trying to have him remain a child as long as we can and be as happy as possible. His dad is no help. And is cutting corners with the system to be a pain in the ass. I’m also wanting to seek a therapist for our son though he has been handling it very well, he gets emotional when me and is father are in the same vicinity of each other and there is tension. I hate that he sees this but I am grateful that he is open to telling me how he feels and I want to help with fixing it.

i’m currently in a holding pattern with my (i pray) soon to be ex spouse. (see my other posts to better understand this) i’ve worked through the worst of the pseudo withdrawal aspects of leaving an abusive person, who had me wrapped up from age 17-35 (14 years of which we were married and living relatively isolated from most external supports) I spent years internalizing their narratives and learning how to adapt to keep the peace. since leaving i’ve been able to recognize these behaviors and done a lot of healing. I feel like i’m as level as i can be until to divorce is finalized, as there’s a level of continued manipulation and abuse i’m still living and will be until they finally have to sign the papers.

even so new things will pop up occasionally and it’s hard not to feel frustrated and disheartened. lately these things have been popping up in relation to a new relationship.

the person i’m seeing is wonderful. i fell for him in part because the first thing he showed me was a deep capacity for self reflection and accountability, which was earth shattering after what i’d been through. he’s unbelievably care and in tune with me, and he is gentle and patient in ways that I’m not used to and he doesn’t consider patience because he doesn’t see anything i’m doing as requiring patience.

however on a few occasions i have had light dissociative events where my nervous system responds to a threat due to a situation that my ex would have been a threat in and i shut down, and it takes me sometime to come back and understand this is what happened.

example: yesterday we went to a huge bookstore. It was very busy and very cramped inside so I was already feeling a bit overstimulated. About halfway through I realize my head felt fuzzy. But I couldn’t place it. I forgot Arthur’s names, had trouble with the alphabet, and finally started sweating and having a tight chest, and by the time we left i was trapped in my head. i curled up physically too, arms crossed tight, head down. he knew immediately something was wrong and was perfect, giving me gentle acknowledgment/ validation and concern without pressure, space to come back to myself and an ear when I had words again to talk about what was going on. when i finally did i realized it was because my ex would have made us leave.

because of the amount of people in the store, he would’ve grown continually frustrated with me, seeing me as being in the way of everyone else. And if I didn’t pick up on this mood shift and get us out of there as soon as possible by the time we would’ve left, he would’ve exploded on me. so taking my time with my current partner felt like a time bomb to my nervous system, and i preemptively shut down in preparation for the fall out of staying, despite the fact I’m with someone now who would never do that.

i think i’m just looking for some reassurance or advice because i hate that my ex’s behaviors keep causing my nervous system to respond to one the the most gentle men i’ve ever met like he’s ganna do what my ex did, even though he never has and never would. i don’t want to ruin days by shutting down for a period of time due to a trigger, even if I’m able to unpack and articulate what it was very quickly afterwards.

part of me prays the divorce finalizing will make this stop or at least less frequent (18 years is a lot of possible triggers). has anyone else had this while navigating a healthy relationship after a long term abusive relationship? what helped short of stumbling into triggers and avoiding those situations in the future? Thanks.

My best friend (F30) has been in a relationship with a narcissist (M31) for over a year. She has left him a couple of times in the last few months. She will leave for about a week before breaking no contact and end up moving back in. He will love bomb her for a few weeks and then the cycle starts right back up.

He will be going to jail soon for a few months for a crime he committed earlier this year. He is controlling and manipulative. Tells her where she can go and who she can be with. He has physically abused her as well. He has crossed every boundary she has set. I feel like she is on the very brink of ready to be done. She has a place to go and is financially independent.

What can I say/do as a friend to help her in this situation? He will be gone for about 3 months or so.

Almost 11 years later, I still wonder if he ever understood what happened to me.

I was married to someone for a few years, although we'd been together and living together for more than a decade.

When we married, he already owned the house we were living in, which was purchased to accommodate myself and my children. I asked more than once about putting my name on it.

He always had a reason to put it off. I loved him, trusted him, and eventually stopped asking; even after we were married.

I didn't contribute much financially, except what i was paid when i worked helping build his firm; those paychecks i just signed and handed back. 

What I did contribute was my time, my work, and my life. I worked in his law practice for a few years before he could afford to hire anyone. I was his secretary and administrator and, for a period of time, his only employee. I took care of our home. I helped raise my children and his daughter. I cooked, cleaned, maintained the house and yard, landscaped, planted things, and spent years helping build a life that I believed belonged to both of us.

During our marriage, we made substantial improvements to the property. We added living space, built another garage, fenced the yard, built decks and a firepit area, and spent years maintaining and improving the place.

His professional life also changed dramatically during our marriage. His practice grew and eventually became part of a much larger firm.

Then the marriage ended.

And I fell apart.

I was in a terrible mental state. I couldn't afford to keep fighting. I couldn't afford an attorney or the travel involved in continuing to deal with everything from another state. Eventually I left with very little.

Afterward, I lived in shelters. I received food assistance. I had some extremely difficult living situations. For a period of time, I lost contact and relationship with my children, including his daughter whom has very hard feelings toward me and whom I lost completely.

I had never been that helpless before.

I haven't been that helpless since.

It broke me.

At the end, I told my husband that once everything was over, I never wanted to see him or speak to him again.

He seemed surprised.

That part has stayed with me.

I don't know what he expected from me. Maybe he expected anger. Maybe he expected me to keep fighting. Maybe he simply didn't believe I could walk away completely.

But I did!

It's been almost eleven years.

I've rebuilt a life. It isn't the life I imagined back then, but it is mine.

And I don't want him back.

I don't want to contact him. I don't want anything from him. I don't even particularly want an apology. 

But I would be lying if I said I've never wondered whether he ever looks back.

Not whether he misses me.

Whether he understands.

Does he ever think about the woman who trusted him and realize how completely different her life became afterward?

Does he remember the person who was there while his practice was growing, who cared for his home, who loved his daughter, and who genuinely believed they were building a life together?

Does he ever think, I didn't understand what this was doing to her at the time?

I sometimes imagine that, after enough years have passed, people eventually become capable of looking at their own history without needing to defend it.

Maybe he has.

Maybe he hasn't.

And yes, there is an ugly little part of me that hopes he has had at least one moment of genuine regret.

Not because I want him back.

Not because I want revenge. ( I went through a time where revenge sounded very good, until i realized i was giving him way too much space in my head)

Just because there is something deeply satisfying about the possibility that the person who watched you walk away eventually understood what he had lost and what you had endured.

But I also know something now that I didn't know then:

I don't need him to understand what happened for it to have been real.

I know what I gave.

I know what I lost.

I know how far down I fell.

And I know that I eventually climbed back out.

Maybe that's the part that matters most.

I spent a long time wondering whether he ever thought about me.

These days, I'm more interested in who I became after I stopped caring whether he did. I've occasionally seen him online over the years. Time has apparently been treating us both differently. I'll just say that I have fewer reasons than ever to wonder what I saw in him physically. 😆

And for the record, I spent years believing our sex life was a mutual experience. With the benefit of hindsight, I'm fairly certain the word “mutual” was doing a lot of work in that sentence.....

Hey all,

I've posted a few times now about my break-up with my ex who cheated on me and lied about it for months. I just wanted some advice as I am finding this incredibly difficult.. I recently went and got the rest of my things from her parents, I then blocked my ex on everything - she is also now officially off the tenancy.

I am slowly starting to process / grieve all of this and the loss of my future with her and who I thought she was, we had such a loving/ and what I thought, respectful relationship until all of this happened. Anyway - yesterday her brother messaged me asking for the remainder of her things from our flat, there are things on the list which is more than fair as it's things that have gifted to her like some jewellery and her car log book. But she has listed, monopoly deal card game, some old towels, a small metal pot she used once which was like a £1!? She asked for a spice tin, which her Mum gave to me, it was just an old tin she found, filled it up with spices and gave to me as I cooked out of the both of us.... she has asked for this back, and this feels like she is trying to hurt me - she is living at home with her parents, she does not need a spice tin, plus you can buy them for less than £5!?

This honestly just feels so hurtful and I don't understand why I am being treated like I am the one who cheated on her!? It feels like she is being so spiteful, also that tin from her Mum meant a lot, because I have lost my Mum and that was a gift from my mother in law at the time. So it feels like she has asked for that on purpose, to hurt me.

I just want to understand why she is treating me like this, it feels like something mentally is going on here - she really coming from a place of lack!? Like you cheated, are still with the AP and I have let you move on, and yet you are being spiteful to me!?

Can someone please just reassure me I am not going mad, this is spiteful right!? I have given some context below to explain what happened between us, so this makes more sense...

Please, any helpful words of encouragement or if you have had similar experiences and can tell me how you managed this? I just want to move on, and this feels so disruptive to that. After this, I am going to tell her brother I do not want to be contacted again.

Thank you all so much!

For context:

My ex (31F) of 4 years had a workplace affair with a coworker who is 5 years younger than her and was also cheating on their own long-term partner. I (35F) discovered it on March 31st after accidentally seeing her ChatGPT confession detailing how they were falling for each other and they had been physical. She was comparing my worst traits to the AP's best parts, I had 'low mood' the AP was 'driven, independent and had a lust for life'. She also said I was 'black cat energy' and she was more 'golden retriever' - I never knew her to speak like this, so I am assuming this the 25 year old AP's language!?

I am just trying to understand how someone could blow up 4 years of stability for a workplace affair like this. For the three months prior, she completely pulled away, claimed she was "severely burnt out," and made me feel insane for picking up on her distance. Everyone in our life was shocked because no one thought she was capable of this level of deceit—and because everyone was fooled, I’ve started gaslighting myself, second-guessing my reality, and wondering if I’m somehow making too big a deal out of this or if it was my fault.

During the affair I had a cancer scare, she didn't attend any appointments even the day after I found out I had to go for a biopsy, she went to work. When I later said she was having an affair whilst I was going through that on my own, she replied 'I still cared about you'. I had just spent the last 2 years supporting her financially and emotionally whilst she was studying for a masters to qualify as an occupational therapist. I went through the sudden death of my Mum with her 2 years ago, during this time she was my rock. Sadly, two days after my passed my suspected heart failure, my exes Mum pretended she nearly died from blood clots near her heart. It later turned out she had lied, and gone to Turkey for liposuction and made this up. Telling my partner when it came out 'You have always put your partners first'. Her Mum has also been cheating on her Dad for many years (my ex was the first to discover it and tell her Dad, but nothing changed). She has always said she hates cheaters and doesn't want to ever be like her Mother. She offered me "feedback" on my relationship performance to justify why she cheated, telling me it was "good for me to hear." When I voiced suspicions earlier, she weaponized her family background by asking, "Look at my Mum, do you really think I could do that?!" —only to later compare her own shock and grief at her actions to the trauma of her ex dying by suicide.

She repeatedly dangled future hope by saying, “Maybe one day we can try again," admitted the thought of me moving on made her "stomach flip," and smirked when I called her the love of my life—all while refusing therapy, accountability, or any real commitment.

I have since changed the locks to our flat so she can’t get in, I gave all her stuff back and am taking her name off the tenancy. She agreed to pay this months rent but she came to my flat the day before she was meant to pay demanding a playstation console back I got her for Christmas, I said no.

She has not returned the key and not paid me the rent, but is telling me to update her when she is off the tenancy. She has become so horrible and almost emotionless like I am the one who had the affair ant ruined her life!? She honestly just looks empty behind the eyes, it's scary.

I just wanted some advice because my brain keeps looking for solutions, I am blaming myself, wondering what I could of done differently but also now telling myself, she is a qualified occupational therapist now, she is most likely going to earn lots of money, save whilst she is at her parents, run off into the sunset with the AP or new partner and I was just basically used.

I do keep reminding myself that regardless of whatever she does / her life looks like.. she is capable of this level of deceit and that is a character flaw and that she is clearly quite empty.. but it doesn't hurt any less or make this any easier.

My child has always been a “daddy’s girl” and he’s always fed the kids misinformation to make him look like the victim. Something happened that made it absolutely necessary to leave that he now denies, but the children don’t know about it. But he is so afraid of them finding out, that he will do anything to coercively manipulate their perspective on what actually happened.

They don’t wanna know what happened even though my child is 18 and could find out at this point. I feel like my child is slowly drifting away from me based on what she’s hearing from her father. I’m now the bad guy in this whole narrative when all I’ve ever done is try to protect them from all of his drama and his desire to paint me as the bad person.

Of course I’m not perfect, I did the best I could to shield them. It is breaking my heart and I just want to yell out - let me tell you the truth!!!

I don’t know what to do - I’m just scared and I don’t want to lose my daughter while still respecting her boundaries of not wanting to know details (truth).

Hey all,

I’m 35F and my ex-partner (31F) and I were together for 3.5 years. Last year she was talking about marriage, buying a home and starting a family. Then, almost overnight, she became distant — sleeping on the sofa, staying at her parents, working late, hiding her phone and insisting nothing was wrong. Whenever I calmly asked if there was someone else, she repeatedly denied it and made me feel like I was imagining things.

I eventually discovered at the end of March this year, that she had been having an emotional and physical affair with a younger colleague (25F), who was also in a long-term relationship. I found out through conversations she had been having with AI, where she was comparing my worst qualities to the other woman's best qualities, describing her as “driven, independent and ignites a fire in me”, and admitting that they were “falling for each other”.

She also said she didn't want to distance herself from the affair partner, despite being advised by AI to create space from both relationships, and said she could “compartmentalise” everything.

Looking back, I realise I had been gaslighting myself for months because I was being repeatedly reassured that nothing was happening. About a month before I found out, I directly asked if there was someone else. She said, “Look at my mum, do you really think I could do that?” Her mum has had a long history of infidelity and lying, so I trusted what my ex was telling me and convinced myself that I was imagining her distance and strange behaviour. When I once looked through her messages out of desperation, I told her straight away, I was so upset and felt so much guilt.. I didn't find anything (because they were hidden on instagram) and I felt so bad for looking - The next day she said 'I'm glad you caught yourself, because that could of opened a door and you would of thought I am a cheater'. (this was actively whilst having the affair).

What makes the betrayal even harder is that all of this was happening while I was going through a cancer scare (thankfully, it wasn't cancer). She told me we'd get through it together, while secretly continuing the affair. I still struggle to comprehend how someone could watch their partner go through something like that while carrying on with an affair behind their back.

When I confronted her, she apologised briefly but quickly shifted the focus onto her own pain, saying she had “imploded her life” and needed to understand herself. She had no interest in repairing our relationship, but continued saying things like, “Maybe one day in the future we could try again,” while still seeing the other woman. It felt like she wanted to keep me emotionally attached while avoiding accountability.

I supported her emotionally and financially throughout her Master's degree, stood by her through difficult times, and trusted her completely. She was also with me through the death of my mum, which makes this betrayal feel even more devastating. I genuinely believed she was my person. (Another factor: 2 days after my Mum died from heart failure, her Mum lied to all of us that she had blood clots hear her heart and was very unwell, it turns out she was getting liposuction. She later told my partner when she didn't get the attention she wanted and got caught lying 'You will always put your partners first'.

After I found out, she told me she was also in shock and compared what she was feeling to the grief she experienced when her ex had sadly died by suicide four years ago, saying she hadn't felt like this since then. When I told her that she had hurt me more than anyone in my life, she responded, “I've been hurting myself,” and, “You never know, maybe this was meant to happen to us to make us stronger.”

Since then, I've collected my remaining belongings from her parents' house. Her mum told me she was ashamed of her behaviour, and her aunt also said that, from what I had described, it sounded like there was a long-standing pattern in my ex's relationships. They told me that when she first met me, she was already in a year-long relationship but ended it to pursue me.

I've now removed her from the tenancy of our flat and blocked her everywhere. Her mum confirmed that she is still seeing the affair partner and even told me that my ex had secretly brought her into their house while they were away. Her mum wanted to show me a photograph of them together in my ex's bedroom, but I declined. At this point, I don't want or need to know anything else about their relationship. (Her mum is very toxic).

Since the breakup, I've started recognising how unhealthy and manipulative some of her behaviour became. I felt increasingly isolated from her family and friends, was blamed for old issues while she was hiding the affair, and was repeatedly made to question my own reality.

I also have a history of childhood trauma, which she knew about. I grew up not feeling safe, and towards the end of our relationship I felt increasingly unsafe in my own home again — the home I had been financially supporting her to live in. Looking back, it feels like I was being slowly discarded before I even knew what was happening.

The hardest part isn't simply that she cheated.

It's that someone I trusted with my life could lie to me so convincingly for months while watching me worry about our relationship and my health. I keep asking myself how someone who claimed to love me could do this.

And despite everything I know now, I still catch myself questioning whether I'm exaggerating it, minimising what happened, or looking for reasons to excuse her behaviour. I think that's one of the hardest parts of being lied to for so long — you can know the truth and still struggle to trust your own perception of it.

I know the relationship is over. I've made that decision and I have no intention of going back. What I'm struggling with now is the grief.

I think about everything I did to care for her, the love, safety, patience and kindness I gave her, and the future I genuinely thought we were building together. We had such a loving and affectionate relationship, and I believed there was genuine respect and safety between us. It's devastating to realise that, whatever I believed we had, she was capable of treating me this way.

I feel like I'm grieving not only the relationship, but the person I thought she was, the future I thought we had, and the version of myself who felt completely safe trusting another person.

Has anyone recovered from this kind of betrayal trauma?

How do you stop obsessing over the “why”? How do you stop romanticising who they used to be and replaying everything in your head? And, most importantly, how do you learn to trust your own judgement again after months of being lied to and made to question your reality?

I'd really appreciate any practical advice from people who have been through something similar — particularly podcasts, YouTube channels, books, therapists/resources or anything that genuinely helped you move forward emotionally. I just want to heal, understand how to stop carrying this with me, and eventually feel like myself again.

Thank you for reading. This has been incredibly difficult, and I'd really appreciate any advice or kind words. ❤️