He and my daughter never got along. He left one day after 15 years and we divorced. The divorce was messy and emotional. She considered his conservative parenting style abusive but he never touched her. She was able to go to private school and have an upper middle class raising thanks to his help.I never had anyone else after him because I never stopped loving him. We recently reconnected and he is alone and in poor health. We are both working through that part of our lives healing and getting closure. Though the eyes of seniors now, he is 77 I am 70, we have found that we still love each other and I want to be there for his upcoming surgery. Seems forgiving him has made room in my heart to be able to do that. She has melted down giving me all kinds of ultimatums and it's breaking my heart. Any advice out there.
Loneliness is driving this .
You can always remain friends .
At 16, my daughter wanted to run off with an unhinged loser boyfriend across the country to live with his grandmother. Both my husband, her stepfather, and her bio father, talked her out of it thanks to their "conservative parenting styles" which saved HER from a total disaster. Today, at 31 years old, she is thankful to both of her dad's for guiding her properly, as they should have. They didn't touch her or scream at her abusively either, they just acted like parents which lately isn't cool. Just follow the lesbian childcare "expert" who insists you must ask your infants "permission" to change his diaper. If you don't, you're abusing him.
Nobody here knows why your daughter is issuing you ultimatums when you haven't even mentioned marriage to this ex. I'd ask her if it were my daughter. Why she's SO upset at the prospect of you 2 reuniting that she's willing to cut you out of her life? She may tell you, and it may upset you. Or, she may still be an emotionally unstable and "rebellious" person that's having an adult meltdown. It happens.
My stepdaughter is bipolar and refuses to take her medication. Her husband is truly a narcissistic man in the truest sense of the definition. He divorced her after he threw her out in the street with nothing one night after they had a drunken fight. No car, no money, no clothing, no access to her child, no joint bank accounts, no credit card, nada. She had to go stay with a friend and beg money from her family to hire a lawyer. He sent their child 100 miles away so mom couldn't see her. The child was 3 at the time.
She just remarried him in a barn wedding on Fathers Day weekend. Some toxic couples just gravitate towards one another, like pigs to mud. The child is 7 now, and baby number 2 is 1 year old.
Good luck to you, and choose carefully. My husband has been stuck taking care of me for 19 months now and it's not easy. Good thing we really like each other.
So I kinda side with lea on this one
I'm 70 myself, widowed and single for 23 years. The last thing I would want is to be a caregiver slave at this age, for someone I haven't been around in many years, is sick and looking for a nursemaid. The stress alone would kill me. I was deeply in love with my husband 23 years ago when he was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, and I devoted myself to him totally, until his death. I was much younger then.
The love you had long ago is not the same anymore. This is a dangerous fantasy for you, so be very careful.
Mental abuse is abuse and long term mental abuse is more or just as damaging as physically abuse
But with that being said this is such a long story and so many different possibilities here. For me this is impossible to answer. I don't believe anyone can give you an unbiased answer. This is a life time of , love with you and him, and hurt for her.
I would say you need to get some therapy, and really think about this.
I also think if this is about loneliness for you, there are many other options than to go back to an ex that was abusive to your daughter.
Also I'm thinking about this, think of your daughter, not In the fact that you will be hurting you relationship but think about what you are teaching her? Are you showing her that it's ok to be with someone that's mental abusive, is that what you want for your daughter?
I think as women we have power to teach the next generation, how women should be treated and respected. Not only the power, it's are responsibility!
When I left my husband someone that had no clue of my life asked me, how can you do this to your kids. I didn't do it to my boys (4) I did it for my boys, so they would know not to treat there significant other that way.
Also , my husband is 72, I'm 61 if I'm end up being single at 70 there is no way im going to have another relationship. For one very important reason, I don't want to caregiving anyone at that point in my life!
If she has never behaved this way in the past, then it might give you pause to think that maybe there is more to this hatred of her father than an out-of-control teen and an over controlling father. But if this has been her MO over other things, then I would not give as much credit to abuse theories.
On the flip side, you say you found that you and ex still love each other. Is it really each other that you love, or the IDEA of each other - that is, the idea of being with someone familiar, someone to age with, to have nearby as things get tougher, physically or something of that ilk?
Be very careful. As someone else said, he is your ex for a reason. Don't look at any possible reconciliation through rose-colored glasses. Make sure you think long and hard before you make any decisions, ad weigh the pros AND the cons of getting back together.
When I got on better with my dying ex, I forgot the bad times and remembered what we had in common (lots and lots - travel, art history, reading, almost all the things that my wonderful second husband doesn’t go for, plus babies and time together). 'Rose colored glasses' start many relationships and keep many others together. People write books about ‘what is love’. I don’t think we are going to do it on this site! The questions for OP are good, but not the answers.
This is NOT a caregiving issue. It’s a marriage relationship issue and a parenting issue. I got into it because a) I have had troubles with an estranged daughter and b) I got on well with my dying ex. I thought the other posts were too one-sided. Most of us have experience with care issues, and have had little experience with either of these things, so I chipped in.
I think that we all need to chip out. OP can find other more relevant ways to deal with her problems, not a site where the expertise is about caregiving. That's if it's genuine.
Sorry, folks, I think I was followed down the wrong track.
IMO a health crisis is not the time to decide whether to get back together or not with an ex .
He left one day and you had a messy divorce . Your daughter considered him abusive . Abuse isn’t just “ touching “.
He may be back in the picture now because he needs a caregiver . There are a lot of red flags here that you are not seeing .
Your daughter seems wiser than you about what kind of man your ex is .
If you don't want to be the nurse with a purse, insist that you keep your finances separate and that he hire caregivers on his own dime - is he still interested?
Personally, I can't understand how you can still be in love with someone who walked out on you AND put you through a messy divorce. I get that some relationships aren't meant to last forever, but that doesn't mean a divorce has to be messy. Since he walked out, it was on him to make the divorce settlement generous enough that you parted on good terms.
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