SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is my story.

In April 2025, after a couple of rocky months, my wife came back from a short trip to her hometown and, out of the blue, told me we were over. It hit me like a bolt of lightning. I asked questions. She said we had grown apart, that she didn’t feel seen by me anymore, and that the attraction was gone.

From that point on, I started working on myself. I meditated, helped more at home, joined a support group for husbands—nothing worked. In June, two weeks before we were supposed to go on vacation, she told me she needed more space and decided to go on vacation with a girlfriend instead, leaving me alone with our child and no backup plan.

She came back and said she wanted to try again. I continued my path, kept working on myself, and tried to be the best version of me. Still, she seemed disgusted by me. She sent me to live in the basement because she "needed more space," then moved out in November for the same reason—yet still wanted to spend Christmas together.

The days we spent together were great, to the point that everyone around us was saying, "What’s going on here?" Then, on December 31st, she told me again that she needed more space and couldn’t be with me anymore. I told her I respected her choice. She said she wanted to end things amicably, for the sake of our child, before things became nasty.

Well.

Just two days later, I found her journal. It contained graphic details of her relationship with another man that had been going on since September 2023—one and a half years before she ever said things were bad between us. There was also a clear plan to make me quit my job and relocate to another country where this guy lives, so she could take our child with her and be with him.

I am shattered. One thing was the divorce, but discovering I had lived in a lie for so long is a whole different level of betrayal. Letting her go is easy now; healing is not. I don’t know where to start. I’m torn between telling her to fuck off and staying amicable for the sake of my child.

The crazy part is that everything was planned from the beginning. In her journal there was a mkt about the different options and she stroke out the confession one because she was afraid of public shaming

The most important thing to understand:

It was never about you or what’s wrong with you. It was always about what’s wrong with her.

Read "Women’s Infidelity: Living In Limbo" by Michele Langley. She has a website you can download from. Two volumes; quick read.

Really helped me understand my cheating wife.

Tell her you’re going to get tested for STDs and she should too. Remind her of her nastiness.

Best wishes.

I am not trying to rain on you but every woman I know who left, left. They were done. They all said there was nothing wrong with their husbands, who were blindsided btw. Sometimes people get married because it is expected by family pressure, or peer pressure, or fiancé pressure, or you keep hoping you will feel differently. I know so many people who either talk themselves into a marriage or their families do. In the US without religious pressure you wonder how people with common sense keep doing this. If you are in another country the same.
I don’t think there is one thing wrong with you. You and she just married the wrong person. Where she took this into cruel territory is lying and plotting against you. I see absolutely nothing understandable about her behavior. The day she took her first step into a new relationship should have been the day she told you and left. There is no excuse, ever, for harming another person. Putting you in the basement! No!
I hope you already have an attorney. I hope you see a dr if you need help with anxiety and sleep issues. Don’t let this wreck your health. She is not worth it.

It very likely does not sound as just an affair, it is a replacement.

She had an exit option, once she felt is secured, she became ready to breakup with you.

There is about nothing you can do to save your bond because your WS bonded already with someone else.

She might regret it in the future, but for now it is over.

You should try to focus on yourself, on your future and your child.

She does not sound amicable to you, quite abusive in fact.

Match it and protect your boundaries, don't think it's all your fault: it was the WS decision and you cannot change it.

Do not react either, respond appropriately, amicable if she is, stand your ground if she is not. Protect yourself and your child, that's the only decision you truly have power to take.

If you want a deeper insight about you WS:

She is not a monster. Deep down she is probably suffering through what is happening in a different but similar way as you are.

So way she is treating you so poorly and doubling down?

It's a subconscious mechanism. She feels some level of shame for replacing you with OM and working from an A to a full replacement behind your back for only she know how long.

The only way her nerve system can justify her choices without destroying her ego, is if she can devaluate you to a level so low, that she can tell herself she was fully justified on he choices.

If she can make you the villain, she becomes the hero in her story, and her conscience stays clear.

It is not rational, is emotional, that is why it feels so cruel.

What can you do to preserve yourself during this transition?

This does not mean you can change her direction, but it means your best choice is to hold your frame, do not accept disrespect, do not even argue. Simply stop to be so agreeable. Calmly say no to any of her demands to degrade yourself (live in the basement, to the doghouse... stand up and smile, say 'no way' calm and collected).

If she attacks or insult you, do not react, go along, agree with her absurdities, double down and blow them up of proportions make a joke of it. She says she cannot stand you around? Agree that it will feel so much better once you both will be apart and find your own happiness, with a smile.

Do not pick up on her arguments, she does not want to fix anything, they are a pretext to validate her already set in stone choice. Be functional, not reactive, almost like with a stranger.

For the time you have together, live your life as she has already left, as you were alone with your child. Only interact for the practical things of daily management, do not pick on any provocation she may send your way. Smile it off.

If you have your own interests, working out, meeting people, culture, do it now. Do not hang around her, do not even inform her, start already living your life as she was never there. Your silence will hit her ego more than anything could.

Do it for yourself (for her too) and above all to show your child that no parents should ever push or accept disrespect.

She will still move on, but you will preserve your dignity, and she will always respect that.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 3:44 PM, Friday, January 9th]

The most important thing to understand:
It was never about you or what’s wrong with you. It was always about what’s wrong with her.

100% true. Don’t take this as a judgement on you – it’s a failure of her.

Reality is that anyone in a marriage can decide to divorce. They can decide to cheat, drink, waste marital assets... whatever. It’s a free world and we are free to decide to do things that are morally wrong. If your wife decides she wants to have an affair and / or to divorce... well... she CAN decide both.

Just like you can decide you don’t accept her behavior. You can decide that living in a marriage where your spouse has chosen the affair partner isn’t "your thing", and that since she has chosen the AP over you, then divorce is the inevitable outcome.

In some ways it can be compared to having a possibly gangrenous foot. The options are to wait and see if medication can heal it, or have it amputated from the knee down. Obviously you don’t want to amputate, but you also know that at some point the choice goes from losing the foot from knee-down or losing your life from blood-infection. The "better" option might not be all unicorns and fairy-dust, but beats the worse option.

My suggestion: Embrace the decision.
However – be realistic about it.
I would NEVER suggest making divorce harder than it needs to be, but really evaluate what the assets and debts and the overall complexity of divorce would really be like. You mention taking your child to another country – SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY look into what that would mean. Everything from what you could do if denied visitation to cost and locality of visitation.

Your goal with divorce is not that you part as friends. It’s that you part knowing that the process was as fair as possible and that you both have ensured the best for your child. You want to be amicable coparents, you want that you can both be in the same room at your kids violin recital, and that your financial- and emotional lives are as separated as possible.

It’s not "nice" or enjoyable – but you can learn to live with a limp.

Take photos of those journal entries. And keep copies in a few different storage locations. They may help show a calculated pattern that could help in the divorce. Depending on where you’re at.

Thanks everyone for the input. Regarding the logistics, there is no issue, in the sense that she has already moved out as of December, so she will simply continue doing what she has been doing so far. Remember, she is the one who decided to end the marriage on December 30, before I found proof of her betrayal on January 4. So, in her mind, nothing has changed. What has changed is my mental framework.

For a year, I had already been grieving my family and my love, as I felt them constantly slipping through my hands while I was trying everything possible to keep them intact. On December 30, when she gave me the final announcement that it was over, I started grieving for real. Then, just 24 hours later, a new layer of grief began: the idea that she might have had a short affair that caused everything that had happened in the previous months. Then, on January 4, another layer was added—the affair was not just an affair, but a parallel life made of plans, trips together, and love. All of this lasted more than two years.

As I try to find ways to cope with all of this, the fact that these three layers are intertwined is a real struggle for me. When I start making sense of the first layer, I move to the second, which is harder, and then to the third, which is even harder—then I circle back again. My brain never stops. I feel the urge to go back and read the journal to know more, but I know it would only hurt me further. She has not communicated with me at all since I confronted her, and that is not helping. We will need to meet next week to talk about child arrangements, and just the idea of it is killing

All I can say, no matter how hard feels right now (I know well what you are going through), stop going through the pain of the betrayal right now.

There will be time for it, it's the grieving phase. Not now, while you are still "dealing" with her.

For your dignity try to hold your center, that is the only thing that she fears right now: you to be a mirror of her wrongdoing.

She wants you to fold and beg, to be hurt and weak, so she can feel she is not leaving a man, but a baby.
It's up to you if you want to give her this "victory" to her twisted ego.

Remember, there is nothing wrong with you, the affair is a reflection of her issues, otherwise she would not have kept it secret, she would have left you the moment she lost love for you.

This time alone is a blessing. Pretend she does not exist, do not contact first, do not reply immediately, think about your interest and life first, recollect your pieces and hold them together at least until she is out of the picture.

You are the wounded partner here and she has to be abusive and crush her empathy for you to bear tolerable the kind of shit she is pulling off. If you fold then she validates her horrible decisions (you are 'not a man' after all, she is 'the heroine breaking free from a prison of unhappiness'. It is not logical, is emotional, this is the mechanism of her ego's self preservation)

"Good news", with her out of your life, you will fully heal one day, it will be longer and harder pain if you two wanted to reconcile. It will hurt like hell, but it will be over sooner.

And if you can hold your self respect until she leaves, you will have won. She will look back one day and realize that the validation and excuse for her choice was never granted. You will heal, while this realization will forever eat her inside.

Good luck

She is not a monster. Deep down she is probably suffering through what is happening in a different but similar way as you are.

🤢

Someone who lies, cheats, and in utter selfishness plots the demise of her family, deeply and unashamedly betrays her husband and father of her child, creates instability for her child certainly ins’t a bad person. Goodness no. Simply misunderstood. 🙄

Someone who lies, cheats, and in utter selfishness plots the demise of her family, deeply and unashamedly betrays her husband and father of her child, creates instability for her child certainly ins’t a bad person. Goodness no. Simply misunderstood. 🙄

You would be amazed how much bad normal people can become when they are acting upon emotion caused by their issues and trauma.

The horrible behavior is a survival mechanism or she cannot watch herself in the mirror.

This does not excuse her, just explains it.

Post #3, excuse me, Post #4:

She is not a monster. Deep down she is probably suffering through what is happening in a different but similar way as you are.

ATROCIOUS take. She coldly betrayed her husband the OP AND their kids for all these years. No she is a monster.

Anyway this highlights a danger. There are too many BHs who seem to join the WW-Apologists' Club, out of some sort of Stocholm Syndrome or something. Maybe they were browbeat into simping by their MC or other agents of the Reconciliation-Industrial-Complex. OP don't you be one of them!

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 9:24 PM, Sunday, January 11th]

ATROCIOUS take. She coldly betrayed her husband the OP AND their kids for all these years. No she is a monster.

Anyway this highlights a danger. There are too many BHs who seem to join the WW-Apologists' Club, out of some sort of Stocholm Syndrome or something. Maybe they were browbeat into simping by their MC or other agents of the Reconciliation-Industrial-Complex. OP don't you be one of them!

Absolutely not. The same way you are speaking out of emotion WS like this woman are acting out of emotions.
It means no logic, no empathy for the other part, just a selfish self centered, possibly narcissistic tendency into justify an action that sucks and is low.

You forget that most BS, including the OP chose their partners, they are the only one who truly know them (not me, nor you, we know our own). Excluding the rare case where the partner is a full fledged sociopath or psychopath, we can assume that are normal people and not monsters. If they loved each other before, they saw something good in each other.

And normal people can do such things that are exactly what you expect from 'monsters' when they act like this woman did.

If you can detach from your emotions you will see that there is ZERO excuses for her behavior. Explaining the psychology behind their immoral behavior is a tool to avoid being sucked in.

Nothing more.

You will learn that many WS have very similar patterns and very similar trauma and issue that explain their dysfunction.
That's why our horror stories are all similar. We met "normal" partners, in our case women, but they carried wounds unaddressed that at some point, for several reasons, pushed them to act lowly and betray us.

Yes, it is the worst possible thing your woman can do to you. Yes, it causes you a kind of pain that you will carry for life (if you try to R, best line of action to get over it is dumping them). No there is no excuse for their betrayal.

Knowing why is important for YOU first, to recover from the trauma.
Can you understand this?

I understand everything. If you do not believe that there is evil in this world, then you sre flat-out FOOLING YOURSELF. And make no mistake, this woman is evil. It took all these years for OP to discover this but discover this he did.

There is absolutely nothing that suggests OP's WW feels any sort of remorse for the awful pain she inflicted upon OP either.

You can believe your WW is evil and still heal snd arrive at indifference just as quickly.

Dantest - I haven't read all the comments yet, but BE SURE YOU TALK TO A LAWYER ASAP. You need your own protection and don't just agree with anything with your STBX without going over it with a lawyer. You need to know all the laws where you are and ALSO if this man is in another country, you need to know if she can just take the child and leave. This does happen. Unfortunately she does has treated you incredibly badly and there's no reason to think it's going to get any better so you NEED A LAWYER to protect yourself and expect the worst from her. In fact, I would not discuss anything with her without talking to a lawyer first. Also put together what evidence you have and don't forget to check financial records and make sure she hasn't been sending or stealing money. Get an STD test too when you can.

This really is not about YOU, as much as it hurts, I think she's a stinker and I think she's been using you right along. Maybe for income, for housing, even to conceive the child - some woman think of a child as just theirs, they don't even really care about the father or his role. That's again, why you need protection. You don't know this woman, she's been planning all this shit behind your back and you don't know what else she might think up. Please....do not put ANY trust in her or what she says at all, be wary. And do not blame yourself for this, no one is perfect, we can all be better people and spouses, but this is really all on her. She's conniving and deceitful and these are character traits, she didn't just grow tired of the marriage. She used you. So don't blame yourself. You main focus has to be on what's going on with the child and the money situation in the future.

The best of luck to you, and keep posting to us, there are many people here with a lot of experience and some of them are professionals in various areas, and we've all been through some heartache. You WILL get through this and come out stronger on the other side. Her, however.....I dunno....I think she's made a mistake. Don't take her back btw if it doesn't work out with AP. You can never trust her. She can't turn over a new leaf, she has a character problem.

I understand everything. If you do not believe that there is evil in this world, then you sre flat-out FOOLING YOURSELF. And make no mistake, this woman is evil. It took all these years for OP to discover this but discover this he did.

There is absolutely nothing that suggests OP's WW feels any sort of remorse for the awful pain she inflicted upon OP either.

You can believe your WW is evil and still heal snd arrive at indifference just as quickly.

There is good there is evil and there is a shade of grey in between. When you reach a degree of emotional maturity you understand that those are choices, choices do not define people outright, but some people can let choices define themselves.

Talking in absolutes is a sign of unprocessed emotions.

Right now you are judging her as a monster because she is choosing to let her bad choices define herself. And she is choosing that because deep down she knows her choices are evil and wrong over any aspect. Embracing and projecting the effect of her choices onto her BH is the only way her ego can survive what she know is a dirty, immoral betrayal of everything she once stood for.

She is rewriting a narrative where she is the poor imprisoned princess running away by the evil abusive and emotionally unavailable husband to find her happiness in the arms of her own prince.

The reality is likely this: she is the deceitful wife who used her BH as a safety net to benefit from the resources of their bond to invest into a new option (the OM or multiple prospective men), to step - up her life into something that she feels is an "upgrade" (which very often they find out, is not).

Instead of facing openly the issues with her husband, she decided to step over his, and their children, body, souls, past, present and future, in order to escape the issues that haunted her (which are likely tied to her unresolved traumas, rather than real incompatibilities, otherwise she would have left without any Affair or prospecting). And she will pay this price with pieces of her soul.

That she was doing exactly this, is hinted from when she came back ( from an affair likely not giving her yet impression of stability) and attempted "to make things work".

Is more common than we would like to think. Is bad, but you cannot fix the people who act like that, although we all feel the agony of that when we discover the person we partnered for life IS like that. Then you cannot see it being detached. Then our reality shatters. Our mental wiring cannot understand it, needs resolution, so it turns inward to "why am I inadequate / where did I go wrong?"

That's what is going on with the OP right now. His self worth and confidence is down the shitter. It's normal. It is natural. There is nothing wrong with him, it's all on her.

What I shared has the goal to help the OP to step out of this abyss and protect what he can protect now, that he will regret in later stages if he misses out to do it right now: his dignity.

He might later digest the whole betrayal and replacement and start healing, now is too soon, he is in the fire, not yet out tending to his wounds, he needs damage control, not post processing.

Seeing her as a monster while he is weak is both - intimidating and - humiliating. Intimidating because his hurt self sees the fight vs a monster as impossible to withstand in the moment while he is grieving the highest pain. Humiliating because he thinks his life choices in choosing her are bad.

Again these are patterns, it is not the true, is how a betrayed nerve system processes the shock of the discovery, it takes time to put things into perspective.

So IT IS helpful for the OP to realize these 2 things now:

- Intimidation: She is not a monster, she is a weak broken woman who is escaping her shadow: she looks like a big bad wolf to you because you are hurt. Look again, she is a frightened chihuaua yapping at you trying to intimidate you so she can get away with the most she can grab

- Humiliation: There is nothing wrong with you. She is acting from fear and she needs to paint you as wrong so she can deny herself what the reality is (that SHE is the one doing a fucking dirty backstab to you and your children) or she won't be able to look herself in the mirror again. She KNOW that, she "needs your help" in accepting her guilt instead of carrying it's weight.

Do not give her any ground, protect yourself, detach for the moment and leave the grieving for later.

This is what she is terrified of, because your action now will shift yourself from the punching bag she craves to make the carrier of her guilt, into a giant mirror reflecting every single detail of her ugly decisions back to her face.

And the only thing she cannot stand is exactly to see her reflection there right now.

This is how you fight back now.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 10:31 AM, Monday, January 12th]

Is there any benefit for you to see her as a monster?

I can share that I never viewed my ex as a monster. I viewed her as "damaged goods", something that I was better off being without. It’s been a very long time, and I lost all touch with her some years after d-day. Last time I heard about her through an old joint friend was about 8 years ago and it was a tale of a sad life. Didn’t make me feel like I had won anything, instead I simply felt sad for a wasted life.

The big problem with making the WS a monster or enemy is that your focus might turn towards getting even with the monster – to cause damage and pain to the montster. It can also take your focus from healing and more towards getting even or getting revenge. Two things we old-timers can share will never ever happen.
In situations like yours that could possibly be done in ways that make the inevitable divorce harder.
View her as "damaged goods" and as something you are better off without. Place more emphasis on that POV than seeing her as a monster.

For now try your very best to view this like a business venture that didn’t work... What is left it so terminate all obligations and expectations and to clarify who takes what.

The MOST IMPORTANT thing right now IMHO is for you to get legal advice.
Look – we might think involving attorneys makes divorce that much harder and that we can simplify by doing it ourselves. That is only partially true. What tends to make D harder than it needs to be our unrealistic expectations.
Any semi-capable divorce attorney can give you a 90% accurate guestimate on the eventual outcome once he has all the data. I venture that at least a third to half the billed hours tend to be getting that data. Then most of the remaining hours spent haggling over things that possibly have less financial value than the legal bill.
Enter the divorce with a realistic understanding (attainable through a couple of hours online) of what to expect. Based on what you know and what you know to expect then I’m fine with the two of you trying to settle the divorce yourselves, but ALWAYS have an attorney go through and finalize the documents.

For example: You two might have a couple of credit-cards issued while married, or a company loyalty card. You might decide in a divorce that she get’s and pays card A, and you get and pay card B. Then, three years from now you start getting calls from collectors because she defaulted on her payments. Your divorce agreement has no value whatsoever to the card-issuer, and all it offers you is the possibility of suing her for payment – AFTER you pay the card.
It's things like this, small legal and financial nuances, you want an attorney to cover for you.

Get the D out of the way. I think having it hanging over you and having to revisit the marriage so often will hinder you in your personal healing. As will viewing her as a monster or enemy. She's simply someone leaving your life.

The objection I had to that quote in post #4 is this: The OP is going to be going through a cycle of emotions, including rage at his STBX-WW, blaming himself for not being a better husband 'oh that time in 2019 silly of me to bring home 2% milk when she really wanted skim', and even including shame at himself e.g., 'maybe I'm just not man enough to keep a woman'. And yet through this he is tasked w getting himself out of this awful marriage while taking care of his daughter. And so as far as I see it, he needs to see his STBX-WW as THE ENEMY, AND NOT someone deserving of compassion--which tends to imply for too many a BH, someone he couldn't reach i.e., someone whose needs he misread. OP instead needs to respect and understand that his STBX-WW did him dirty.

The time for that sense of compassion for his STBX-WW may come later, but certainly not now.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 8:13 PM, Monday, January 12th]

The objection I had to that quote in post #4 is this: The OP is going to be going through a cycle of emotions, including rage at his STBX-WW, blaming himself for not being a better husband 'oh that time in 2019 silly of me to bring home 2% milk when she really wanted skim', and even including shame at himself e.g., 'maybe I'm just not man enough to keep a woman'. And yet through this he is tasked w getting himself out of this awful marriage while taking care of his daughter. And so as far as I see it, he needs to see his STBX-WW as THE ENEMY, AND NOT someone deserving of compassion--which tends to imply for too many a BH, someone he couldn't reach i.e., someone whose needs he misread. OP instead needs to respect and understand that his STBX-WW did him dirty.

The time for that sense of compassion for his STBX-WW may come later, but certainly not now.

I understood you the first time.

Consider you may be in different moment of the Ordeal than this man. We all react differently but is crushing for everyone nevertheless.

His story highlighted he is processing the pain by becoming agreeable to the point of self humiliation, because he long to R and the WS is spitting on it, taking advantage of his state to soothe her own ego and self image and justify her terrible choices as "breaking free" instead of "killing the soul and destroying the life of a partner who loves her".

The OP is on the retreat, bending the head and the knee hopind the woman he loves and who used to love him will feel empathy and regret and come back to sanity.

Let's agree to one truth:

She will NEVER do that, she is on the path of destruction, it's female psychology, a woman who is doing that cannot step back, she will exploit the situation because she must follow her own ego's narrative or collapse. It's purely emotional, she cannot think it through, she must disconnect from empathy, is psychological survival. She already replaced him is too far down that path.

When he is at this disadvantage imagining her as a terrible monster will only undermine his confidence more and make him hate himself for his 'weakness' (is not weakness, is pain, is trauma right now OP. Looking back you will be able to see it someday).

In short it's adding scorn and future self hate to the trial of fire he just begun to walk pushed by her choices.

So resizing this "lady monster" to her true nature is the best way to stand up to her: she is as some said just a woman, a scared "damage goods" woman, she is terrified to see you as a man because she is running away, and if you show her your masculinity her narrative bugs out, it does not compute, she needs you to be beaten, begging, reacting how she pictured in her fantasy.

Or she will forever remember that you stood up to her tantrum, helped her packing an opened the door to get rid of her as "damaged goods"not as the weak man she is breaking free from, but as the strong man who let out an immature partner who was draining his life instead of elevating it.

@OP - If the emotions are too high to read through this with clarity let me tl;dr it for you:

"I have tried to show you my love, my forgiveness for your terrible choices and that no matter how shitty of a person you have become, I could still choose you.

But enough is enough, you clearly have no empathy, no interest. I see it now, I accept it. I loved you but I love me more. You are just a pest, not a partner. Let me help you packing and show you the door.

You can fuck off now."

Tell it without emotions, like you are talking about the weather with a stranger. She will choke on it for the rest of her life.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 8:43 PM, Monday, January 12th]

There was also a clear plan to make me quit my job and relocate to another country where this guy lives, so she could take our child with her and be with him.

First and foremost, talk with a lawyer and find out what you need to do to put a hold your child's passport so that she can't run off with your kid to another country. EDIT;ADD: Do this before you have a separation agreement or divorce decree. International child custody cases are an absolute nightmare, and depending on where he lives, you might never see your kid ever again. A friend of mine is a family lawyer whose client took the child abroad before the first hearing on child custody (without informing my friend or the child's mother, of course). There was nothing stopping him because the child's passport hadn't been flagged.

I would also make sure that there is a stipulation in your divorce decree that she can't take your child for trips out of town or move more than a certain number of miles away from you without your prior approval.

And if reading the above makes you think to yourself, "Oh she would never...," eliminate that phrase from your vocabulary. I'm sure there was a time that you thought all of this was impossible, and yet it's happening.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 8:53 PM, Monday, January 12th]

Dantest, as you can see on this forum there are people with opposing ideas. Now is the time to use what you can and leave the rest.

You need to be practical and, sadly, grief interferes with that but it is necessary. Ask friends to suggest a tough lawyer. You will need it. You need to look after your health. Your soon to be ex has used subtle put downs and they have worked on your sense of self worth. I suggest you see a dr for temp meds for anxiety. You do not want this stress to become chronic because it breaks down your immune system. You need to get a court order in place asap that neither parent can move the child out of the area. Try to eat healthy and get enough sleep.