Overheard DH catching up with his best friend over the phone today. Covid19 doom and gloom, etc. Then he briefly touched on the topic of SD. Hasn't seen her all year due to social distancing and estrangement. Well let's be honest - 99% due to estrangement and 1% due to social distancing. He's still sending her periodic text messages. Hope you're well, keeping safe, etc.    *crickets*

And the comment that put a smile on my face: "It's like once the money dries up so does any form of communication". BINGO! So happy that it's sunk into his skull that they're only after money. He also said he now looks at it differently because it doesn't affect him in the same way anymore. Once he used to turn himself into a human pretzel and pay whatever BM and SD demanded to "prove he cared". Now he says paying is just fked up and he's going to continue to message SD but not expecting anything back and accepts it as it is. Really happy to hear it because DH would have no reason to lie to a friend whereas if he said the same words to me there'll always be that niggling doubt in the back of my mind that he's only saying the words required to placate me.