Did I Think It Would Get Better? Really?

How could I have been so stupid.

It is my birthday in a few days. The plan was to take the boys to a family-orientated restaurant after swimming lessons that evening. Another plan was to take the boys to see Santa tomorrow (on my own as I have always done as he has never been interested before.)

His plan, or so he told me, was to take the boys (with new girlfriend in tow as she has been complaining she won't see them on Christmas) to the cinema and for dinner.

And then "She said we'll just go here." And here was a fun park type place - with Santa. And here was where her mother works so she could show off her newly acquired family. And here is where my patience ran out.

Am I being unreasonable in thinking it is over-stepping the mark for them to be taken to meet her mother? Am I being unreasonable in being upset that he took them to see Santa knowing full well that it was where we were going tomorrow? Am I being unreasonable in acting angrily when he accuses me of telling the boys to call her names when I have literally bit my tongue off to make sure I said nothing in front of them?

So shouting match ensues.

He says he has done nothing wrong. I tell him exactly what he has done and that I don't appreciate the way he has pictured me as this evil ex. He says he has had enough that he will drop off their presents and not see them anymore. I say that supervised visits would suffice. He says we are not getting back together. I say that he might want her to hear him say that for whatever reason but she would be pleased to know that there is no getting back ever. His bridges are not only burnt but the foundations gone too.

Best of all, he shouts "I left because I wanted some control over my life." So he moves in with someone he admits tells him what to do. I never controlled him, it was the other way around. I never once told him which job to take, which of the many career paths to go down. I never once told him I wanted this or that, never once complained when he quit jobs at the first problem.

Maybe that was my biggest problem, maybe I should have told him to get his finger out. Maybe I should have held him to his many promises he made, confronted the lies he told instead of excusing his behaviour at every step. I did everything I could to make his life easier and he screwed it up - on his own. I carried him, first financially and then emotionally, until I was no longer of any use to him. Now I realise he was not worth it at all.

The mood is: anger, frustration, annoyance, hopelessness.