u/alienflowerz

This situation happened almost 2 years ago. I'm divorced now (yay!), and i'm processing and remembering some things differently from how I initially thought they happened.

TW: coercion, verbal abuse, mental abuse, death of an animal, infidelity

Background:

My ex (now 33M) and I (now 29F) had a kid in 2024. For my first mother's day he got me tickets to a show I really wanted to see. The show wasn't until October. I spent all of the summer dealing with PPD as a stay-at-home-mom while my husband worked on coercing me into agreeing to a polyamorous relationship. He worked his way up to saying our relationship and marriage would be over if I didn't agree to letting him "explore this part of who he really is".

In September of 2024 I agreed and he started going on dates (unsurprisingly he had already been cheating on me, since I was 6 months pregnant on our one year wedding anniversary actually, but that's not the point of this post). By the beginning of October I was sick to my stomach and told him I needed to take space and go to my parent's house with the baby. He said if I left he'd get the courts to give him full custody of the baby because I was just a stay-at-home-mom and he provided insurance and financial stability. So I stayed.

Two weeks later we went to the show together. I was trying to use this as an opportunity to reconnect and heal part of what was broken. At some point once the show had started he sat there checking his phone instead of watching. I tapped his arm and looked at him confused and he started yelling in my ear that he was checking on our baby and texting my parents. I leaned to the side in my seat. He tried to grab my hand and shoulder and pull me back to him, but I pulled away. After the show we got in the car and I asked him why he didn't like me anymore? Why couldn't he speak kindly to me anymore? Why did he seem so annoyed and upset to be around me? What had I done? (Nothing, he was/is a piece of shit).

He had completely ruined the experience for me, and it had been something I was really looking forward to. Luckily in December the show was coming back around and I would be able to see it again. It was in a farther away city on a Sunday night, and would be more expensive, but it was the least he could do to make it up to me and help repair our marriage. And he agreed.

The rest of october came and went. So did November. Then December came. We started our Christmas shopping. I didn't want to be pushy. But I asked if he had gotten the tickets yet. I remember how angry he was when he looked at me as he said "no."

He did get the tickets.

We had plans to get a Christmas tree with my parents. We decided to stay over at their house the night before so we could go early in the morning and spend the day there with the baby. We had a good time, cut the tree, brought it home and decorated it, all was good. When we headed back the baby fell asleep. I decided to stay in the car when we got home so I could monitor while the baby slept and he went inside to unpack and feed the cats. I stayed in the car for 20-30 minutes while he was inside.

When I came in he was freaking out. Saying the cats must have gotten into the closet while we were away and got the rat poison that was up in the top and back of the closet (the previous tenants had a mouse problem when they had moved in 5 years prior, the house was old. We patched holes when we moved in a year before these events. He was a bit paranoid and got some rat poison to make sure. This all happened before rhe baby was born.)

I laid the baby down, changed a diaper, and called poison control. I talked with the poison control specialist while he brought the cats to the emergency vet. I called my friend and asked her to come over and keep me company.

The cats didn't make it. They had eaten the rat poison. Most of the ones on the market are nonlethal to other animals, but this one was a nerve poison, and there was no antidote.

He told me he had borrowed money from friends in order to pay for the vet bills. Because of the money he said we couldn't afford to go to the show anymore. When death of a pet wasn't enough to get his money back from the ticket company he faked an illness and got it back that way.

He continuously said "I killed them, it was my fault." We thought they had gotten into it just before we had gotten home from my parent's house. If we had gotten home sooner maybe we could have caught them. So I reassured him there was nothing he could have done, we were both just as at fault, we were out of the house, we should have gotten rid of it a long time ago, but he did not kill them.

He proceeded to use the fact he took a day off of work to grieve the pets as an example of him being there for me when he continued to avoid being home and caring for the baby. As an excuse not to be honest about our finances because he was "still paying off the vet bills." As a reason to get me to say he wasn't the bad guy.

Now that it's two years later and I've realized how abusive he was, how much he manipulated me, I remembered this scenario again. And I started to rethink it. There was 20-30 minutes when I wasn't in the house when he was. And he was growing resentful of me and our relationship. He had already been living a double life for over a year when the cats died. And he was not happy about having to make up my mother's day present to me.

This isn't anything i'm going to pursue or question with him. I'm going to take it to therapy and deal with it there. Write about it in my journal.

I couldn't think it at the time because he had always loved the cats. We'd had them for 7 years. They were our boys, his boys. He cuddled them and loved them and kissed them. But he also cuddled and loved and kissed me, and he still abused and manipulated and coerced me.

I don't know the truth, and I never will. But I think he killed the cats.

Hey witches! I just got divorced today 😁

I'm having a divorce party in a few weeks to celebrate. The guests are all the women and non-binary friends I've made before, during, and after my relationship with my ex.

I'm planning on doing a cord cutting at the party, but don't want all the ceremony to be focused on my ex. The energy i want to bring into my post-divorce life is one filled with friendship and community. I love these people and want to honor them with some ceremonies and rituals to bring positivity into this new stage of my life.

I'm thinking of burning some intentions in the fire pit, maybe making some spell jars, but want some other ideas or guidance on what to do.

Thank you for the positive vibes and your knowledge and practice.

My 2.5y/o was at her dad's house for a long weekend with him before he and I both go back to work (we each work in schools). I was facetiming with her one morning and saw she had a new stuffed animal. I asked her/him about it and he said that while they were grocery shopping at Walmart and older woman was following them around the store. She approached him after a while with something under her shawl and asked him if he could give this gift to our daughter. After this she ran off and he said he didn't get her name or anything, but gave the toy to our daughter.

I was furious, that's such a creepy story and absolutely unsafe behavior from an adult. I've been introducing our daughter to the idea of safe and unsafe adults and adult behaviors, and this just trampled all over that. I sent him a text saying as much after we hung up. He said he didn't mean for the story to be upsetting, and it wasn't as creepy as it sounded, but he agreed no more gifts from strangers.

I have her back now, and i'm still caught up on it. I want to ask him to tear it open to make sure there's no airtags, listening devices, or other trackers in there. If so he needs to call the police. If not, then I want the toy gone anyway so ripping it up doesn't matter.

I'm just so concerned he doesn't think this is a big deal?! I didn't think I'd have to tell a grown man who has gone through student safety and abuse training what unsafe adult behavior is.

Hi poly people. I’ve posted here before for perspective on my situation with my soon-to-be-ex-husband, as his fixation with polyamory was at the core of his abuse towards me.

As my request for perspective has to do with polyamory, I’m once again asking you all for that because I know there won’t be any anti-poly bias here.

Mini-update on my life first: I graduated from my program Summa Cum Laude, I have a job lined up to start in two weeks, and my daughter is absolutely amazing and compassionate and kind and silly. (Also, I’m dating again, and my bf is everything my ex wasn’t).

Since leaving my stbx-husband I also met his affair partner. By myself. Because I found her on Instagram. I had asked him multiple times to meet her since I knew she existed and had met my child, but he was refusing, so I did it myself.

This all happened back in November of 2025.

I was a little taken aback when I walked into the cafe and saw her. She looked just like me. Short, straight, dark brown hair, wearing more outdoorsy/earthy clothes, and reading a book. When she started talking to me her vernacular was similar to mine too (something my ex had always made fun of me for). She’s in the same career field as me too. The only difference was she’s roughly 10 years older than me.

I had set up the meeting as a way to get to know the person who was in my child’s life, but also as a way to figure out wtf was actually going on with this woman.

Long story short, my ex had lied to me about the whole timeline. He told me he had met her for the first time in September of 2024. This is when I had agreed to open our relationship after he coerced me into agreeing (I was 6 months postpartum, exclusively breastfeeding, and going back to school at this time). He told me he did not introduce our daughter to this woman until August of 2025.

She told me no. She had met my daughter in December of 2024, and had started dating my husband in October of 2023… when I was 24 weeks pregnant… on my 1 year wedding anniversary. I sat there stunned and crying.

She told me “I thought you knew.”

I said “clearly not.”

I then asked her how they met. She said Feeld. So that at least wasn’t a lie. She said he’d told her he and his wife (me) were newly poly, and I didn’t want to meet or talk to any of his partners.

I asked if she knew I was pregnant and she said not at first. She said he didn’t tell her until around December of 2023.

I asked if any of this raised red flags for her, if any of this seemed weird. That it was insane he’d been lying to both of us.

She told me that she would discuss these things with him in her own time, but that that was a personal and private matter as part of her relationship with my husband, and since I left him it doesn’t concern me anymore. She said we should refocus the conversation on my daughter, since she’s the one we all should be most concerned about and care for.

I found out through more conversation with her that she’s married, living in a queer town as openly polyamorous with her husband. They’ve been poly for 10+ years. She’s a part of the poly community in her area. She might want kids, but her husband doesn’t, so they never had any.

My husband had met her husband, her family, been to special events she had for herself in the last two years.

I asked if he’d brought my daughter to these events. If he’d had her meet anybody else. She told me no, so that’s a relief at least.

I asked what my daughter called her, and she said just by her first name. She said it was important for my daughter to see her father supported during such a hard time in his life, what with me leaving him and all.

The last thing I asked was if she had any questions for me. She asked me “what is it like to be a mom?” And I just broke down crying again.

I messaged her later on Instagram to get confirmation of what she told me in person (two party consent state), but she refused to confirm any information until I made myself come across as pathetic and sniveling and mentally ill to get her to condescend to me enough to confirm the information.

I’m trying not to editorialize my hatred for this person too much here. There’s a lot more I could say. I’m asking for advice now because it’s been eating at me so much just how insane this whole interaction was.

Here’s how I feel: it feels like she’s using mu daughter to vicariously live out having a child without any of the hard parts. It feels like she has a complete disregard for my emotions and experience at the hands of my husband. It feels like she has a male centered worldview because she ignored what should be very clear red flags even as a seasoned polyamorous person. It feels like she looks down on me and somehow thinks she won.

The kicker is, my husband now works in the same place as her and makes less than half the money he used to because he decided to center his life around her, instead of his child. And now is complaining in court about child support expenses But I guess I can’t be too surprised because that’s what he’s been doing since before she was born.