SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I think so little of him and so do the kids at this point yet he still disappoints. It's amazing.

Our son..our ONLY son had a really big day today. He recently started his first sport and today was his first game EVER. And his team won! He was very proud and so was I! His father...uninvolved in every sense of the word.

The narc didn't even bother to call to see how the game went. I already knew he wasn't going to make it and probably won't make it to any games any time soon because he doesn't have a car anymore. But not even a call? His excuse....he was late for work and didn't get a chance to call...he works at night. The game was bright and early in the MORNING. I swear it's like his kids don't even EXIST except for a 10 minute stretch around their bedtime and for 2 hrs on one evening a week (but not even every week).

Other than that and having to send CS, his life doesn't involve them AT ALL. The kids and I are a convenient excuse to explain his financial state. After spending their entire lives living with them and at least being somewhat involved (being "around" is a better term for his version of fatherhood), he is now primarily a nightly voice on the phone to them totally by choice.

He had a long woe-is-me excuse as usual to explain his complete lack of involvement in anything involving the kids but not a "sorry" or an ounce of regret or even the slightest hint of wishing that he did anything differently today like picking up the damn phone at some point during the day and saying "good job" or "congratulations" to his son who suddenly is living as though he doesn't have a dad.

I must admit that hearing his BS is much more tolerable lately. His excuses always felt like trying to push a square peg through a round hole. Now I get that the sensation was caused by the fact that he is and has always been full of crap and I was trying to make his lies (the square peg) match up with reality (the round hole). Now it's like I'm watching a toddler bang a square peg into a round hole over and over again but being completely unwilling to pick up the round peg and try something that would work even when it's being suggested (because toddlers love to flex their budding independence even when it guarantees failure.) It's one of the things I don't miss about having a toddler (or Ex) around!

This forever-toddler is banging that peg over and over and over because he REFUSES ABSOLUTELY REFUSES to believe that what he's doing isn't working! He's doing some serious mental gymnastics to explain why his current state has nothing to do with his choices.

Even though literally everything in his life has changed for the worse and he's losing things left and right that I know he never expected to have to do without, he will not even consider that he is the problem. Someone here once wrote the term "militant ignorance" and it was a lightbulb moment for me. He is fighting hard to maintain his current level of ignorance. He cannot allow his brain to process and accept what his current situation is showing him and NOBODY is going to make him learn a damn thing.

I'll never understand how parents can go on their merry way, as though they didn't have children. I don't get it. My kids are an intrinsic part of my life. I can't even fathom walking out and having no say in their day to day lives. Boggles the mind.

When he is old and alone he will regret his decisions. When I was a kid I used to wonder why one of my neighbors who was old and alone was so miserable. He would chase us away from his property, call the cops because we were making noise playing, complain to our parents etc. Just an old miserable man. He passed away when I was almost grown I guess I was around 17. It was customary to attend all the neighbors funerals to show respect at that time. So I get there and he actually had 2 grown sons with family of their own. I had never seen them ever visit him. No holidays or even visits with his grandkids. After the funeral I was talking to my father about him. I said I never knew he had any kids or family as no one ever visited. I thought he was just an old cranky guy who never married. My father explained to me that when he and my mother first bought our house he used to be a nice guy with his W and kids. That he started fooling around with some "Floozy" as he called her. When his W found out she took the kids and left. He moved the "Floozy" in and she only stayed a few years or so and took off herself. And he never saw his kids again. I remember telling my father I felt sorry for him. And my father said "Don't be sorry for him. He made his choices in life"

All these years later when I see an old miserable person I always think back on that old man. And I wonder if they have the same story. And now after I have experienced infidelity I'm convinced that most of them do. Call it Karma or whatever. But there is a price to be paid for ones actions in life. And that old man paid the price for cheating on his W and turning his back on his kids. He died an old miserable man with no one to miss him. And the kicker is he was not as old as I thought. I would have sworn he was in his 80's. But as it turned out he was 65. He just aged terribly after his mistress left him all alone with his guilt. Perhaps this is the route your XH is taking. Being a D father myself, I cant imagine life without my sons. But we all make choices in life. And we have to pay for them sooner or later.

They will reap what they're sowing. Our kids will be grown one day and they will remember who has/has not been there for them.

[This message edited by BrighterFuture at 4:10 AM, November 17th (Sunday)]

Don't be sorry for him. He made his choices in life

Strong08 you had a very wise father

I'm sorry housefuloflove. I know it hurts to see your baby being hurt by his father. ((Hugs))

Stronger 08 great story. Great advice from your dad too. Hfol you are better and the kids will see this. Once again in time. All the best.

Housefulloflove I go through this also, except for my stbx use to be very involved with the kids....until he moved in with her.

Stbx did not come to any games for DS for his HS fall sport, and only went to one for DS and it's her senior year. Her team made it to state and I knew he would say he couldn't afford to go. Because I knew how much she would want him there I asked my oldest, who now lives somewhat close to him, to call and ask him if he wanted to ride down with him to my house, and then they could ride the rest of the way over with me. He told him it was to expensive .....it would have cost him 20 bucks.

He didn't even show up for her senior night, and she came home crying and saying he is choosing not to be there for them. So yes, the kids see what they are doing and they know who is there for them, but the damage they are inflicting on these poor kids and the memories they are ruining for them is what I find unforgivable, because even though they will have to live with these choices they are making....so will our kids.

Oh yes.. It truly boggles the brain. I still have a hard time when my son goes to the Dooosh for his EOW visitation. I hate being separated from him for those 2 days.

Since the Dooosh doesn't see or speak to either one of my girls-- I just can't. Can't imagine what bullshit he has sold himself on to make that ok for even one minute. My oldest daughter hasn't spoken to him since Nov 2011. Two fucking years!!!. He has damaged that relationship beyond repair. (Really, he did. He told our younger two that he wasn't their sister's "real dad" last Fathers Day. I had her before we became a couple, but he has been her dad since she was 6 months old, she doesn't even know her bio father, AND the Dooosh adopted her !!! Do you understand the level of fucked-up-ness that is? Well obviously he does not. It was cruel, despicable, and clearly meant to inflict deep emotional harm to both me and our children.)

My teen daughter has not seen him since that Fathers Day. Can anyone out there see a correlation?? Yes?? Why he cannot is so beyond me. He thinks and claims "parental alienation" to anyone who will listen - which I think has probably dwindled down to just a few new acquaintances and his COW.

I would move heaven and earth for my kids. Damn, I already have! I make all the sacrifices for them, I am the one they can count on, and they know it.

He's going to end up like his father before him- another cheater- who has kids that could not give him the time of day unless he is passing out money. Alone, selfish, narcs.

The disappointing won't stop. Hopefully your kids will stop setting themselves up for that-- hard as that must be.

Behaving like a toddler is so accurate, mantrum is another.

It used to make me so upset for my kids. That the once very involved father my kids had, was no longer involved in their lives. I would try to make him be the parent we knew him to be, it was an epic failure. My kids got it long before I did and called me on it. I had to pretend to myself that he was dead in order to stop waiting for him to step up and be a parent. It was not going to happen.

At one point he made everything about OW-the kids had a choice they could either have both of them or neither of them . They were a pair don't cha know. He even avoided the marching band's senior night because DDs (twins) wanted their last time on the field to be together. He would not walk without her, the kids wanted their parents. He told them he wouldn't show. The 2younger kids were busy trying to convince him to show up. They asked (now XSO) to walk with us. He told them he would be honored BUT if XH showed, he would step back and take pics for them. I will never forget my kids, XSO, and I scanning the stands for him as we lined up. He never showed. A couple of years ago NW would not allow XH to visit DD or her new baby girl in the hospital. He had the younger girls fighting her for him. NW would not give permission and he ended up sneaking into the hospital spent 5 minutes and left.

There are many incidents like this, and he wonders why they don't make any effort to see or talk to him.

I find it sad. Not in my control, and I will not risk my relationship with them to help him.

Hugs,

I was told in IC that for my own well being, I needed to change my Expectations of STBXH. By expecting STBXH to behave like a reasonable human being, I was just setting myself up for disappointment.

I've been a lot more at peace in my emotions since I changed my Expectations. Perhapse this could help you too.

Thanks guys! It really is fucking pathetic. I've learned to expect the worst from him but I have yet to stop hoping for better. I guess it's past time to stop that to with him. It's such a disappointment. It isn't even an OW keeping him from his kids. He just doesn't care about anything or anyone. It makes me so sick.

I don't put a lot of the details here about the absolutely insane things he does that at this point is making his life worst DAILY! A part of me still hopes that the state of his life will be a wake-up call but I also know that if I'm right about him being NPD (and he gives me no reason to doubt it), nothing can wake him up because he's already dead on the inside.

Ugh, he really is tragic. I've been calling him a walking tragedy for a while now but lately other people who I've never said that to have been using the same word "tragedy" to describe him..I've even been asked by more than one person if he had a brain tumor. I've also been asked if he had a combat related head trauma ever (he is former military) and once I was asked if I believe in demonic possession because they think he has been possessed.

But he keeps on trucking along like all he has done is normal.

I totally hear you hfol, and it truly sucks.

My DD17 was scheduled for oral surgery earlier this month. XPOS knew this as it was one of the last communications we had. The surgery got pushed back to later in the month so it didn't take place, but XPOS doesn't know that. On the day it was supposed to occur neither DD or I received anything from him even asking if she got thru the surgery okay. Nothing. Not a peep. This from a man who was always involved with his children and never missed anything major. So along with him poofing from my life he has poofed from his children's as well.

I don't understand how they can live with themselves, but I don't dwell on it either. That is just the way broken, fucked up people are. XPOS will be that lonely old man that dies alone, just as the old man did in stronger's story.

"I was told in IC that for my own well being, I needed to change my Expectations of STBXH. By expecting STBXH to behave like a reasonable human being, I was just setting myself up for disappointment."

Gemeni- these are words of wisdom, and exactly what I need to do!

T/j- can someone tell me how you guys copy others post so they look different than your own text? I am on an iphone

T/j- can someone tell me how you guys copy others post so they look different than your own text? I am on an iphone

I bet you can't do it on an IPhone. To do this, I copied what you wrote, hit the reply button, pasted it, then highlighted it and hit the "quote" button that is to the left of the reply box.

I'm guessing you can't see that on your phone.