What did I do wrong?

[AlienGirl]

Lately I keep wondering what I did that was so bad it caused my ex--who by all accounts is a nice guy--to leave me while I was sick, and to take the kids with him.

What did I do that made him go against everything a "nice" person should do? Am I that terrible? And if I am, can I do anything to be better?

(For anyone who doesn't know, my ex served me with papers three days after I finished chemo and radiation, and moved to the other side of the country with my kids, then aged 5 and 7. At the time I weighed 80 lbs, could barely stand up, and was deaf from inner-ear swelling. I hadn't eaten solid food in three months. He filed a restraining order keeping me from showing up unannounced or approaching the kids without permission, because he said my history of depression endangered them. What did I do, how awful am I, to have driven a man everyone says is nice to do something that seems so far beyond common decency?)

I know it's water long under the bridge now; the kids have a new mom and I have a new life, but lately I just can't get it out of my head.

Tucker

[LWolf]

1. You did nothing wrong, Tucker.

Your ex' choices, and mistakes, are his own.

:hug:

[mrgorth]

2. Maybe he's not that nice

Trust yourself on that. It sounds like a deplorable act to me.

[regnaD kciN]

4. Positively Newt-onian, I'd say...

And, as to the idea that your ex was a "nice guy," please keep in mind that lots of people can seem nice, well-adjusted, and even empathic when things are going well. It's only when they have to face a crisis that another, more desperate and self-centered face emerges.

Now, I don't know your former husband, so it's really unfair to psychoanalyze him from a distance. But I've seen cases where a member of a couple was suddenly faced with losing a partner (from terminal illness, a move to another part of the world, a sense that the partner might themselves be thinking of splitting up, or whatever), and their reaction was to insulate themselves from the pain of being left behind by distancing themselves and, in essence, being the one to leave intead of the one that got left.

It's possible that your ex-husband really did love you to start out with, but, in light of your cancer, found himself backing away from emotional committment in case you died. Essentially, he forced himself to stop caring about you so much to the point where he really did stop caring about you.

On the other hand, maybe he just couldn't deal with the day-to-day responsibilities of caring for someone who is sick, or even experiencing the reality of having an ailing family member (much the way that many children shy away from visiting their parents in nursing homes), and decided he could only love someone "healthy." (In which case, good luck for his current partner whenever the time comes, however far down the road, that she suffers from illness or even old age!)

Both these sort of reactions are common, but that doesn't make them acceptable on a level of human decency.

[movie_girl99]

3. the kids will never have a new mom

you are their mom. do you see them often?