I need to get myself together - please help if you can

[BrianBlessed01]

My ex-partner, and dad to my two sons died a few months before COVID. We had been separated for years but had remained close and co-parented successfully. While we were together, he got us into loads of debt, which I was oblivious to, and, when our boys were aged four and one respectively, and someone from the mortgage company called round after we'd both got back from work, to explain that our mortgage hadn't been paid for four months (which was news to me) I went upstairs to our bedroom, where our baby was lying on the bed, and told my partner that this woman was at our door, and he threw himself out of our bedroom window in front of me. I had no idea about any of this, it turned out he was in loads of debt. He ended up in a coma for around two months, and I supported him for the sake of our sons (and I still loved him). We separated, and remained friends, supporting our little boys. The trauma of seeing someone pitch out of a window, in a situation you had no inkling of, with your little baby on the bed, was traumatic. My ex then died in October 2019. My family have never, ever, recognised what I've been through. My three siblings all married, hiding behind the protection of their spouses. I am so angry. I am a nice, intelligent person, who has raised our boys successfully, but when my ex died my younger sister (who hasn't worked for 25 years, sponging off her husband, who wasn't rich) didn't so much as text me. How can I move on?

I couldn’t read and run. What you have been through is unimaginable. Have you had any counselling?

Oh my goodness, what an awful thing to go through. I think (and this is such a platitude) but it's just time isn't it. You can't just switch off. It will get better. Also families are selfish and shit. We don't choose them. Oh bless you, just sending a hug because I am crap at offering advice xx

I'm so sorry to hear this OP.
What an awful situation.
For you to have the debt sprung onto you to then seeing your partner do that in front of you and your children is so horrific.
Have you managed to clear the debts or begun to?
How are your children coping with their father being gone?
I hope you're healing too.
Your family sound atrocious and I'd be going lc or nc.

This sounds awful and my heart goes out to you. Have you had any counselling?
I think building a new support network will help you immensely. Trying to connect with others who have lost a partner may be of help.

Thank you guys. I sprang into action when my chap was in Intensive Care and got letters from the hospital, and got the debt (around £40,000 NO IDEA, to this day, what he'd spent that on) written off. Thankfully, we weren't married, otherwise I'd have been in a whole heap of trouble.

I’m so sorry you had to go through this. You sound like someone who has morals and empathy. The rollercoaster you’ve had to deal with is unimaginable. Truely. I find it hard to say much on a public site like this about something so traumatic but I will say this. You are so strong in a way I cannot comprehend. You haven’t done a thing wrong I hope you know that. Even juggling a family alone is extremely difficult to do that and experience what you have is commendable at the highest level. I can relate to your situation with your siblings though. I’ve always felt different like I think you do in the way my oldest brother when I was a 11 made a huge mistake not intentionally but under the infulence and went to jail. All I’ve ever felt is remorse and sadness. I still 13 years later lay in bed feeling awful for him. It’s funny though at the age I’m at now. I haven’t gone through anything like you have but the things I have gone through both my older brothers don’t seem to care or want to help their little brother through these hard times. You ask how you can move on? What do you mean? From your ex partner or from the disappointment of your siblings? I don’t know how this site works very well but I’d love to have a chat but I already feel embarrassed that people will be judging my reply and I’m not the best at writing I just see this and really wanted to let you know that you have so much life to live and so many people including myself are in awe of a human that can get through what you have and have the strength and ability to share that

You can move on. You can hold your head high that you supported your DP though unimaginable shit. You've provided for your boys.

You don't need family to tell you what a great job you've done when it's been shit.

You and your boys are living proof of that.

Thank you, @Foleyator , you sound as if you've been through the mill as well. I also have a psycho brother, who lives in Japan, came over for my Mum's funeral and ended the whole thing by accusing me of stealing his camera! Mental. When I think of him now, my main worry is dealing with him at my Dad's funeral (as my two sisters are 'protected' by their spouses, my brother is also married.)

@itsgettingweird Thank you so much. I'm grateful for my friends, but my family have been totally shit. I know I am a good person, and have been a good Mum. I have become too reliant on booze, which is a shame, and it's easy to judge me on that.

@BabyCloud Thank you. My ex and I were friends long before we got together and had kids. We didn't work out as partners, but we had a deep connection, and I miss him terribly. My Dad and my late Mum were big fans of his. My siblings... well, I'd like to know how they'd deal with what I've had to, put it that way.

This is absolute trauma. I cannot even imagine how you are coping. The horror of watching someone attempt to take their life in front of you and your baby as a vulnerable new mother. You need specific trauma therapy and ongoing support. Not talking therapy- someone to help you process it slowly and appropriately. Be careful because edmr is one of the things people say, but it needs to be done appropriately and in conjunction with other therapy. I would find a clinical psychologist who specialises in trauma and talk it through and make a care plan. I've had terrible experiences with private therapy providers and it is the Wild West out there - so you need to research and find someone that you can utterly trust and feel safe and comfortable with in your gut before you do anything. I really hope you find the right support- it is life changing what you've experienced. That you couldn't protect your child from the harm inflicted by your partner initially will have had a profound effect on you. Take care of yourself and don't push your feelings or needs away. This is far more than simple grief xxx

If you have ptsd alcohol will become a very successful way of medicating what is too much for your nervous system right now. Don't judge yourself just notice it and what comes up day by day. And find help.

Sending you virtual hugs and strength OP. U have been through unimaginable grief and have done amazing to find the resources to get to where u r now.
I don't feel qualified to give you any advice other than stay strong. Is there are professional support/groups that you could tap into?

Thank you so much everybody who has responded. I'm trying to stay strong, but I am ashamed by having developed a reliance on alcohol, which my family is now judging me on. I hope I can sort this out in due course, but they have been absolutely shit. It's hard being the only sibling who doesn't have the support of a partner, plus, I really struggle financially, without a double income. Thank you; I already feel less lonely. x

@BrianBlessed01 can you see my message privately? I’m not sure how it works?

How are your friendships? I think a refocus away from your odd family would be worth a good go. Getting out to meet new people, support groups, community classes, park run, whatever floats your boat really and makes you feel more YOU.

@Foleyator yes I can. Thank you. I'm laid low with a horrible tummy bug atm, and probably off to bed very soon, but I'll get back to you! x

You’ve been incredibly strong, but as PPs have said, that was a huge trauma you suffered. Can you look at counselling for something like PTSD? I was also thinking of complicated grief - I’m not sure how your Ex eventually died, but grief can bring up a whole host of difficult emotions and trap us into certain cycles of behaviour. Perhaps you could look at bereavement counselling? I wonder if it’s easier to focus on being angry at your family rather than face anger at your Ex? I’m not wanting to speculate, but just to show his strong feelings can get displaced or projected (maybe your family are all totally crap as well!).

My husband was suicidal and I found it incredibly traumatising even though he never even made an attempt. It’s such an intense rejection, that someone doesn’t want to stay on this earth for us. It makes us focus on the essential uncertainty in the world and we learn to expect things to go wrong in a way that others maybe don’t encounter. I don’t know about you but I can get so easily stuck into a cycle of flight mode. Sending a handhold, I hope you find peace.

Thank you so much @FreshLaundry, for such a kind and enormously perceptive response. My family ARE totally crap - but I'm now trying to stand up for myself. Which I shouldn't need to do, but heigh-ho. Thanks so much everyone, it's a shame I need to reach out to strangers for support, but you really have helped. xxx

@FreshLaundry I'm sorry, as well, that you've been such a painful situation. x

I am so sorry but what I am going to suggest will bring a rain of abuse down on me from other posters, but I am going to say it anyway. My comment is meant for you, not them, and they can take it or leave it!

So, to you, BrianBlessed01,
I am so sorry about what you have gone through and are still going through.
But….you say you are struggling financially, but yet you admit you drink too much! In fact you say that you struggle without a double income…..but also, you are drinking your one income away! Booze is expensive. I noticed yesterday that brandy is £35 a litre in my supermarket! Is there no way you could gradually give it up, or at least cut down? Until you do, I can’t see much changing. Also, if you are constantly under the influence, this could be the reason your son doesn’t bring his girlfriend home. Nobody can do this for you, but if you don’t, everything will always be like this.

It is undeniable that you have suffered a massive trauma but your posts reflect much more than that. The biggest part if the trauma was that, in an instant, you went from happy/safe/supported by your then partner to betrayed woman whose financially incompetent partner tried to kill himself in front of her. That was the biggest “moral wound” of all: that what was solid (the relationship) melted into air.

And it is this rage at him that is stimulated and revisited every time your “lucky” siblings who are “supported “ financially and socially by their partners come into your life.

There is a deep relational trauma here. You are jealous of your siblings good fortune, which you think they don’t deserve. At bottom the reverse us often on our minds. We worry that our bad fortune is something that we deserved and we are angry that our nearest and dearest (siblings) can’t or won’t lift the shame of our misfortune from us.

No one can make you feel better about your ex partner. You are experiencing complicated grief and rage that he betrayed you, shamed you, and abandoned you first to coma and then to death.

Your siblings can’t ameliorate this pain. Drinking is a solution that itself produces more problems.

Try to begin fresh. Stop holding grudges against your siblings or your ex. Just deal with your current reality directly. Drinking to excess will not make your life any easier snd will ultimately damage your children—as will your rage. Stop comparing your life to your sisters’. If they didn’t exist would you be happily married to a supportive person? No: you would have made the same choices and ended up with the same partner. Raging against your siblings is futile.

Get therapy, stop drinking, and start your life over.

1. Go to Alcoholics Anonymous. You might not be alcoholic, but it won't hurt to go along and see what you think of it. Don't dismiss this idea, just go.

1. Go to your GP - tell them everything, then get a referral for counselling. Or if you can afford to, go private. You are traumatised and scarred, and need professional help to start to heal

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate it. x

Wonderful, insightful, thoughtful post, thank you