After 12 messy years of marriage, a string of lies, and watching his ex spiral, he’s moved on.

Now she’s resurfaced with health scares and sentimental apologies—but he isn’t interested in reopening that chapter.

Read on for the story.

AITAH for not wanting to sit through my Ex’s apologies or have a relationship with her?

My Ex and I were married for 12 years. 13 if you count the year that she strung me along thinking there was a chance to get back together.

She had weight loss surgery, and through and after that, I noticed a change, which culminated in her saying that she was moving out.

When we separated we said we’d be honest about how we were feeling and with each other, and if there was no chance.

That didn’t happen, and she had two different BF during that last year that she was seeing and others just didn’t want to tell me about, and only told me when she came by to wish me a happy birthday because I was direct and wanted a path forward.

Woof.

I found out later that she’d even told one of her BF that we were never married, and brought him through under those circumstances when we were still living together.

I told her something was wrong and something had changed, as did her kids and everyone else in our lives, but she brushed it aside and said this was just her finding out who she was.

It took a lot of therapy and meds, but I got my head right and moved on, and we had little to no contact, other than what was necessary and about the kids.

Good for you.

A few months ago, she had a serious bout in the hospital, and almost died a couple of times as a result of the weight loss surgery she’d had, not following doctor’s directions and thinking that her diabetes just went away after the surgery.

During this time, she also found out that she was bipolar, and that’s what happened after the weight loss surgery- she went into a manic phase.

I know all of this because my son’s wife tells me everything, even though I’ve told her I’m not interested, but that’s a different story.

Wow.

I noticed at my son’s wedding and around that time, she started coming back around, and was talking sentimentally and hugged me a few times, and I was too polite to push her off, but didn’t return them.

Then one day she texted me asking me what I was doing- keep in mind that before this, our conversations were limited to separation of assets and the kids, and if she needed advice on something which I was fine to give since she’d come to me for advice when we were married.

I said I wasn’t doing anything, and she went into apologizing for ‘not being present’ and for the way things ended, said she’d been thinking about it and told me about diagnosis and problems, and asked if I wanted to get together for dinner that Friday.

Whoa.

She wanted to go over what happened, talk to me about her recent scares and her diagnosis, and ‘work through things’.

I begged off, saying I had something planned for Friday (which I did). She asked again the next week, and I answered the same.

In my mind, she’s offered explanations. But this doesn’t really take responsibility for what she did or how I might feel about it, nor the hurt she caused.

Telling someone that you were never really married but it was just for convenience is painful- I know it hurt my son and my daughter when they heard it too.

But she’s never really owned up to it, nor all the lies she told during that interim ‘manic’ period. And frankly, I’ve moved on, am not interested, and don’t really care. It’s a closed chapter.

What a circle of life…or relationship woes.

My therapist and psychiatrist say that it’s healthy and that I shouldn’t feel bad for drawing my boundaries, my son and daughter understand, and my son-in-law thought it kind of weird how my ex was talking about me as if everything was OK and we were close when they were visiting.

But I still feel like an asshole for not giving her the closure she wants, or being more concerned about her failing health and brushes with mortality, or really wanting anything to do with her in my life.

AITA?

Some closures aren’t owed. Protecting mental and emotional boundaries isn’t cruelty—it’s self-preservation.

This person says to kick her to the curb.

This person says OP doesn’t owe her anything.

And this person can see right through her.

Past wounds don’t need re-stitching when the scar’s already healed.

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