So I'm pursuing divorce. STBXWW has moved out, and the last time we were intimate was back in October of 25. I'm doing fine, honestly. She's struggling mightily as has I always suspected she would. I think I'm getting played for a fool because she keeps asking for more and more money and I just keep giving it to her. I feel badly for her and sincerely, despite everything that happened between us, I want to see her be ok. But I guess in some way that has kept doors open. She doesn't have a washer and dryer and only lives a few miles from me, so she keeps coming to my house to do laundry. This was only supposed to be temporary, but I'm now believing maybe she's not getting a washer and dryer so she continues to have a reason to be over here. Or maybe she really is just that broke and I should just put a stop to it by buying her a cheap washer and dryer. IDK. I still listen to all her problems and just try to be a listening ear when she reaches out. I don't really know how to stop doing that or just not care. I've been with her since I was 16 years old (25 years). We still have kids together and so there's still things I want for her like her car running properly and being safe and reliable for our kids. So I'm finding it impossible to really "sever" the relationship to her in the way I remember my parents doing it when I was a kid. It seems like to my memory, my parents kinda went their own way for years. My dad would deliver child support checks when he came to pick us up and that was about it. There were no cell phones then, and I don't remember either parent ever calling the other. But for some reason, I can't seem to detach quite as effectively.
So a few nights ago she came by the house and I had had a few drinks with a buddy of mine and gotten home and went to bed. I guess I was still buzzing a little bit and in the middle of the night she was knocking on my bedroom door. One thing led to another, and it was just so natural and familiar that I wound up being intimate with her (and then immediately in the morning thinking, "wtf did you just do, now you need STD testing again and all that can of worms is opened back up"). Well, I've got a couple of women I'm talking to and trying to be very transparent with that I'm just in the friendship stage and not willing to be "committed" to anyone. But one woman that I'm closer to than the rest, I felt I had no choice but to keep my integrity and tell her exactly what happened. She deserves to know and make her decisions as to how close she lets herself be to me with the entire truth. That was a hard conversation. Apparently she had grown A LOT more attached to me than I realized (and I knew she was falling for me and was scared of that anyway), but now because of a decision I did not plan at all I've lost her. Which is reasonable and seems preferable to pretending it never happened and having that skeleton in my closet if things progressed. But the new woman has been very explicit in making it clear that I'm being played by my ex and I'm an idiot who can't let her go. She is divorced and was a BW who, once she knew her husband was cheating, she cut ties and apparently never looked back. My thought is that maybe my entire structure is just dysfunctional with my ex still coming over at all hours of the night doing her laundry or whatever, but I honestly didn't go out with her or go seeking her in any way. Shit just happens sometimes I guess. I do not feel like I'm a cheater now at all because I'd been so explicit that I was still in the status of dating other women and getting to know people and my commitment was that I'd be transparent if I'm romantic or intimate with other people. My commitment was never that I'd avoid relationships with others. But I guess I'm kind of trying to gauge is, amongst people who've been through divorce, how unusual and screwed up am I? This whole thing is just a mess that doesn't seem to fit in clean well defined boxes to me.
