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The original was posted on /r/twoxchromosomes by /u/kitnel on 2023-09-13 17:04:10.

My ex and I divorced almost exactly a year ago. We had been separated for over a year before that though.

We split because he was jealous of my friendships and demanded I stop communicating with my friends, with one in particular he believed I was having an affair with.

After the initial blow up, I needed time to decide if I wanted to make the split permanent or work on our relationship. After 2 weeks of him love bombing me and telling me to think back to when things were good between us, I decided I had to think back too far for good times and that the weeks alone were relaxing without him, not depressing.

At first he accepted my decision and we tried to make our split amicable but it quickly went sideways. We both moved out of our home to try and speed up some basic improvements we wanted to make to sell the home easier. He took the dogs, which breaks my heart to this day but I just couldn’t afford to keep them both (plus he wanted half of their costs in order for me to be able to see them in a park for 15-30 mins once a week)

After moving out things quickly went south. He changed the locks so only he had a key. He refused to give me a set and so if I wanted to go in and work on the place, it had to be on his terms and time line. He was unhappy with any work I did do. He took out the air conditioning unit so I was working in mid summer heat, pulling weeds in the yard, giving myself heatstroke with no respite from the high temps. Then he refused to leave the keys for me anymore. Said he and his buddy would do it all themselves.

When it came time to sign the documents to sell, I got to see the house for the first time in months. He had gone overboard doing work on the place that I had never agreed to and that provided no additional value to the home like staining the deck and putting up new stairs outside. I steamed and stewed but didn’t communicate with him as per his wishes.

Then it came time to divorce (where we lived you had to be separated for a year before filing unless you could prove cruelty or infidelity - which he did ask me to lie about to the court in order to speed up the process). After dividing the proceeds of the sale of our home, calculating things like the cost of the car that was in our names but only he drove, splitting assets, him trying to go after my inheritance from my grandfather and being put in his place, him and trying to claim I had a pension when I didn’t and me letting him keep his own pensions, him holding the entirety of our savings and me having to beg for some of it to be able to pay my rent before the inheritance cleared, it finally came down to the costs of the repairs. Now his friend did odd jobs on the side and my ex considered himself fairly handy. So when I got an itemised list of all the costs in an obviously self typed excel document as an “itemised invoice” with no actual receipts I became immediately suspicious. He was also trying to charge me for cleaning that I was going to do until he refused to allow me access to the home.

Initially the cost he provided was 8000. Which my lawyer asked for clarification on being that the itemised list was less than 2000. What we then received was a VERY clearly copy pasted Microsoft word invoice for the 2k materials plus 4k for labour with the note that my ex had purchased some of the items himself and would just eat the extra cost. Clearly trying to get me to just agree quickly to the now lower cost. The problem is that I’m an admin for a living, I know what the office templates look like and what legally needs to appear on an invoice for it to be valid. So I went back to my lawyer to ask for proof of payment and since her spidey sense was also on full tingle, she already had the email ready to go.

Well turns out my ex had “paid the contractor mostly in cash” and couldn’t provide receipts but did send over his bank statement to prove he had withdrawn some cash (that didn’t match with the amounts listed in the invoice). I’m sure he thought he was smart, but after being with someone for 15 years you should know how they think a lot of the time. I also knew that my ex was renting a house from this same contractor friend. Now that I had his bank statement, nowhere did I see a rent payment but funnily enough I noted that the amount that wasn’t paid cash and was transferred directly would be about what someone might pay for a deposit and first months rent. He was trying to get me to pay for his new place by disguising it as a renovation cost!

Well after my lawyer pointed this out and asked for documentation of his rent and deposit he decided to call/text me for the first time in a year. What would it take for me to sign. As much as I wanted to be vindictive and retaliate, I didn’t, I was the bigger person and agreed that if he signed over halfway between what each of our lawyers agreed was the appropriate amount, I would sign and he’d never have to talk to me again. He agreed and things progressed smoothly after that.

That was until I decided to move back to my home country. See I had moved continents to be with him and after being alone in the city I’d lived in for a decade, I decided that I needed familial support. So I handed in my notice and told everyone that I was heading home. I sent the ex a two line email stating that I was leaving and he’d never have to worry about bumping into me ever again as I’d already booked movers and a flight.

Now remember that guy friend from the start who my ex believed I was having an affair with? The person he’d had no contact with for almost 2 years at this point. Well he decided to track her down at the school she worked at and called her office to tell her about her husband’s supposed affair… To this day I don’t know if it was about him needing to regain control, me leaving permanently or something else but luckily this wonderful lady was fully aware of my ex’s bullshit and I got to send him a follow up email stating that if he contacted her again, she would be going to the police.

Now why am I telling you this story? Well today I redownloaded the kindle app on my phone and had to start by deleting the dozens of porn books he had downloaded to my account while we were together. It made me morbidly curious and so I checked his reddit account. Worst decision ever. Apparently since we split he’s been fully indulging in fantasies I had no idea he was into and one of his posts made me throw up in my mouth (no exaggeration). It made me wonder if I really ever knew who he was or if our split just made him stop caring about hiding it.

I loved this man for over a decade and now, all that remains are a few pictures of me and my family on our wedding day. It got better, it got worse and then it got way better. Now I have my family close by, my nieces and nephews are amazing kids and I get to be the cool auntie, my friends from before I left have welcomed me back with open arms and I’ve found a wonderful man who I’m enjoying getting to know and love. My only regret is having to leave the dogs and I console myself that the international move would’ve been stressful and scary for them if I had kept them.

Life moves on, things change, your rock bottom will not last forever and your highs should be celebrated when they happen.