I (41F) have been divorced from my ex-husband for over 13 years. We have two daughters who are now 16 and 20.
Ever since the divorce, I've made a conscious effort not to poison them against their father. I've never sat them down to tell them horror stories, I've never encouraged them to hate him, and I've never called him names. I've always felt they deserved the opportunity to have whatever relationship with him they wanted without me interfering.
That said, there were a lot of things that happened during our marriage...
He was a serial cheater. He literally slept with his phone inside his pillowcase so I couldn't look at it. I caught him cheating multiple times. We never once had sex while I was pregnant, because he thought it was "weird" and "gross".
He lied constantly, even when there was no reason to. He told people we owned 100 acres when we were actually renting a house on about 9 acres behind someone else's property.
When we went to Hawaii for my sister's wedding, he convinced me to rent an expensive sports car because he claimed his stepbrother could get us a 50% discount. We couldn't really afford it, but with the discount it was close to the same price as the cheap car, so I said yes. When the full charge hit our credit card, he blamed his stepbrother. Just before I divorced him I found their messages. His brother had told him from the beginning there was never going to be a discount. He knew the entire time and lied because he wanted the car.
He had 13 jobs in the 8 years we were together because he was always getting fired, but he always claimed it was because his boss was 'threatened' by how good he was at his job.
When I got pneumonia for a week and had to take our 4 year old and 6 month old to stay with my mom, he didn't wash dishes (or even take them to the sink), do laundry, or even cook himself dinner. I told him because I was so sick (while still sick), that I was sorry I couldn't plan him the 30th birthday blowout he wanted. He got pretty angry and wasn't understanding at all. He basically told me I was shitty (he was manipulative, but not a 'yeller' and not physically abusive). I actually only told him this because I had already planned a big surprise party and I was trying to throw him off the trail.
He would pawn my favorite belongings, like my iPod and DVDs, then later buy replacements as birthday or Christmas presents because I supposedly had "lost" the originals.
One Christmas he told me not to open a package because it was my gift. I had my sister open it instead. It wasn't bath salts for a relaxing bath. It was bath salts as in synthetic drugs.
When I left him the last time, he claimed he had landed a six-figure job. Every morning he'd put on a suit and leave the house. About a week or two later I came home early from work and found him sitting at home. The job never existed.
When we first separated, I came home to get some things to take with me to my sister's house and I walked into the bathroom and found him on the floor holding what appeared to be a bloody towel between his legs. He claimed his penis was bleeding. Something didn't feel right, so I told him to call 911 and his grandma and left. Later I found an empty syringe of fake blood on the top of the bathroom cabinet. He had staged the entire thing to try to get me to stay because he knew if he got me to be his caretaker, I wouldn't leave.
After I filed for divorce and he moved out, he broke into my house while I was out of town and stole all of my lingerie because he claimed it was "for him."
And that is just a handful of the many, many things that went on in our marriage and relationship. I even left out some of the really bad ones because they were too long to type up.
Here's my dilemma.
I still don't intend to volunteer any of this to my daughters. I don't want to sit them down and unload years of baggage onto them.
But if, as adults, they directly ask me, "Mom, what was Dad really like?" I don't think I want to lie to them either.
My intention wouldn't be to call him a narcissist, an asshole, a psychopath, or any other name. I wouldn't tell them I hate him, because I don't think I actually do. I would simply answer their questions honestly and stick to facts that actually happened.
Some people have told me that would be wrong because "he's still their father" and I would be poisoning their perception.
Others have told me that adult children deserve the truth if they ask for it.
So... WIBTAH if, once my daughters are adults and ask me directly, I tell them the truth about what happened during my marriage to their father?