I tried to be civil w/ my ex, to never run him down to our daughter or really let her know how much I hated the SOB. I think I overcompensated trying to be nice, for her sake, cause she loved him and had a really wonderful and cherished relationship with his mother.
As it turns out, the grandmother died of cancer when my daughter was just about 10 years old. So I'm glad we played it as we did for that reason. But, at the same time, we'd just found out some months prior that the asshole had been engaging in criminally inapropriate activities with our daughter.
My gut instinct had been to let my new boyfriend (now husband) beat the guy senseless the first time he barged into our apartment without knocking and proceeded to bitch me out for not keeping my place clean enough and for having a male friend over for the night. In retrospect, I think I should have gone with my gut on that one. The way he treated me while we were together, I should have known he would be fucking with our little girl at least psychologically and emotionally.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson