A new thread for those struggling with separation - Part 2: Onwards to a happier future

[Itisallgoingtobeok]

This is a continuation of the thread that in which so many people have found comfort, advice, and solidarity. The original is here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/divorce_separation/4837197-a-new-thread-for-those-struggling-with-separation?page=40&reply=131988731

Onwards to a happier future for all of us!

@harlemriver you're doing SO well. Getting the final order is the strangest setback. You've got this xx

(Sounds mega cosy at yours, can I come? 🤣)

Hahaha @CleanShirt it is SUPER cosy and calm in my house. Also add two cosy dogs to the picture, one snuggled up with her paws in the air, the other lying at my feet. Plus scented candles and lamps and snuggly throws and vases of garden flowers (still getting roses and cosmos even now). I have made my rented house a total haven and I know it wouldn't be nearly as calm and contented if stressy chaotic ex-h was here. Will try and hold onto that thought!

@harlemriver DEFINITELY hold on to that. Stupidly I've starved off a lot of bad times by realising I don't have to nag someone to put stuff back where they found it! X

Also @AloneAgain2023 I totally get the analogy about sailing into the future Vs abandoned alone, I often feel similarly. What I tell myself is, right now is a snapshot of the early days, not the full story. He has a head start on happiness because there was another relationship in the works before the divorce. But realistically that relationship probably won't work out - most don't! I view it as my job now to make sure that I'm ok in the long term and to write my own story for the future. Living well is the best revenge etc.

It's really hard and I sometimes doubt if it is even possible but it's got to be better than surrendering to sadness. In the first stages of separation I listened to that Beautiful South divorce song, A Little Time, and its three-act structure - unhappy, abandoned, thriving - and especially the line about "sad into un-sad". The goal is to get to un-sad, even if it takes a little time!

How are you doing today @harlemriver?

Must be something in the air, I've taken a bit of a nosedive today after weeks of doing ok. It's my 40th next week and all the "we were meant to's" are flying round my head.

Had to stop myself looking at his Instagram - I've only done that once since he left in January so very strange I want to now. I miss him and it's bizarre, the man up and abandoned me without a second glance and put the divorce in 4 weeks later.

Very bored of this rollercoaster now!

Ah sorry to hear that @CleanShirt it really is a rollercoaster. I'm on a better curve today, feeling much more able to leave it in the past and be grateful to be free. It is exhausting to be so at the mercy of shifting feelings but I think that is just the process. My counselling session helped so maybe you could try that? At this time of evening I would say, wallow tonight and feel the painful feelings etc. but wake up tomorrow with a plan to do one thing to shift the energy, whatever works for you (gym? A good rage playlist to put on for your commute, or dance around to if you are working from home?). Hope it passes quickly. Tomorrow is a new day!

Yep I dropped an email to my therapist I thought I was ready to stop seeing. How wrong I was!

Really glad you're feeling better today. We've got this x

I have read last few pages of this thread and really need to find a way of losing the anger and moving forwards! I am on waitlist for counselling through work and just wondered how it has helped others. No idea what to expect and feel uncomfortable talking to a stranger about my personal life. Makes me feel so vulnerable and embarrassed but just think I need to do something to help me move forward! Anyone who has had counselling offer any advice about what it’s like and how it’s helped?

"He has a head start on happiness because there was another relationship in the works before the divorce" really struck a chord with me. In the early awful days of being told it's all over, I really really struggled with STBEX being sooooo fucking happy, because he'd already done all his processing and was I think relieved to be free of the "burden" of his secret affair(obvs no sympathy from me on that!).

I've had to live with him since as we try to sort out housing, and it's been pretty shite. He can afford to move out and rent but won't.

But I'm kind of used to it now. My mental mantra is now "weasely little twat" and I'm absolutely fucking delighted to never have to put up with any of his tedious self indulgence ever again. And he was one of the "good" ones, .... or so I thought.

My counsellor has been amazing to help me reframe some stuff. The scales fell from my eyes one day and I realised how much I'd compromised and how lost and unhappy I'd been. So I'm no longer, "oh woe is me, this nice man rejected me which makes me bad and wrong", I'm "fuck you Dave, you sad little MLM crisis cliché, let's crack on with my next life chapter which is all about me and DS". I do "selfish" things to suit me because I realised that's exactly what he's been doing for the last 20 years without the slightest thought of me. Being selfish is liberating!

And every little shitty annoying thing he does is extra shiny because soon I'll never have to put up with him any more, no more mentally gritting my teeth or bearing his sulking or constantly being made to feel not good enough. Shudder. What a half life I lived. He makes my skin crawl now when I allow myself to notice him and I cannot believe I believed his self imposed pedestal for so long. It's almost laughable. Weaselly little twat. I deserve better.

Xx to you all. You will get there. You don't have to believe their narrative. Fuck that, write your own!

@Stressheadmumma I'd definitely say try to find a counsellor you click with. My first one via work via phone was shite. So much better to meet one in person - I really really didn't want to, could barely get through the inital phone call with mine and thought I'd just cry for every session. But she has been fantastic at gently asking questions and helping me to understand that many things are not in fact about STBEX and if I just want to cry for an hour, well that's ok too. I felt so so much better after the first session, even though before I wanted to run away and hide. I thought she was the most wonderful person I'd ever met :). Just being heard can be very powerful, and having someone holding space for you to be however you want is so refreshing after years of not feeling good enough or right.

Mine follows my lead really, and asks me to reflect on things, and helps me join the dots in patterns, and always takes time at the end to bring me back to stability before I leave.

Then I go for a well deserved pint!

@Stressheadmumma i have found counselling incredibly important in the past 18 months but it definitely depends on getting the right fit. I tried counselling twice before and didn't find it helpful at all. This time round I saw a counsellor initially about anxiety and panic attacks that were happening before my marriage ended. I didn't even realise they were connected to my marriage, I was so far in denial. A couple of weeks later everything fell apart and she has helped me hugely in processing my feelings and understanding the dynamics of my relationship. It's expensive and I only do sessions once a month or so but it is money very well spent for me.

In other news, I think I have finally had an epiphany to let go at long long last. A bit like with fitness, when you hit a wall and plateau before getting a boost, I feel like my recovery has suddenly accelerated just when I thought it had stopped. This is a very long explanation but I'm mostly posting it so that I can look back at it and remind myself in the future - no expectation that anyone else should read it!

I've been so torn up in thinking about the happiness of ex in his new relationship, but I have finally truly grasped that it doesn't matter how happy they are, he was never ever going to give me what I needed. When ex and I first met, I was extremely independent. I was travelling a lot and working abroad and we lived apart for quite extended periods of time. I thought that was a sign of how strong our relationship was but I have only just realised that that lifestyle allowed him to be a very part-time partner (which suited him as he was a workaholic who only wanted to spend time on what was important to him). The cracks really only started to show when I began to ask more of him, when we were living together all the time and when I wanted more of his attention. He couldn't deal with that, and I became more and more neglected and ignored and sad and anxious and unhappy.

In his new relationship, he will be back to being the perfect partner because it won't (yet) be asking very much of him. From what I can gather about the new woman she is a capable and independent person too, so maybe she never will ask more of him. She might be very happy to have the very limited part-time attention that he can offer. The point is that I wasn't happy with that. I wanted more, I wanted a proper marriage with meaningful time together, and attention to me and my needs, and support when I needed it, and a social life with friends and family. Those are very reasonable requests but I simply wasn't ever going to get them from him, and my continual failure to get them was making me utterly miserable.

So I finally understand (at long last) that it doesn't matter how happy he is in his new relationship and how happy his new partner is with the terms of that relationship - they aren't the terms of the relationship that I want. I think at long last the feeling of wrongness and harm and victimisation is passing and being replaced with the sense of liberation that others are feeling.

Now that I live alone I'm not anxious and depressed and having panic attacks. I feel strong and capable again. For the past 18 months I've been focused on the wrong and harm that has been done to me and in my anger towards him. But I think I am starting to see that this might actually be a tremendous gift of good fortune after all and that I have been freed from a relationship that was actually causing me a lot of damage.

I have a day off tomorrow so am toasting my new sense of liberation with champagne and starting to look to the future with more optimism than I've felt for a while. Let's hope this lasts - and wishing similar happy feelings for everyone else (my post seemed to trigger a wave of desolation last time, maybe this one can be a wave of liberation!)

I am so envious @harlemriver that you have had that epiphany and have taken a leap forward. And happy that you can take that into the next days and months 🤗. You are completely right in your thInking, and ultimately we should all see and feel those things too. Fingers crossed we get there at some point.

Even though I know the things to do and not do, I personally still feel quite stuck. I’ve always been a pragmatic and logical person, so in some ways I’m quite surprised that I am still missing the relationship, particularly because of what it became in the last few years. But for me, there’s no getting away from the fact that for several years, it was absolutely the happiest time of my life. I didn’t have the happiest time growing up, and like most people, had my share of break ups before. So when ex husband and I got together, it really was just right, he was without doubt the love of my life. House and marriage followed and I thought I had my forever partner. And it isn’t even just looking back with rose tinted glasses, I’m very aware of his behaviour in recent times, but the regret of how we got there and my part in it is very difficult to put to rest.

I’m a great believer that there are situations in life where we have to try and help ourselves, getting over a divorce is one of them. But the rejection & replacement in this feels a bit insurmountable, and I feel very lost and unwanting of the future. I will look into having another counselling session I think.

But I am pleased to read your positive post, you must feel like cartwheeling round the garden! 😆 I hope it’s infectious!

I’ve just re read your post @harlemriver for a second time and it’s interesting you talking about his new relationship.

This is where I’m struggling, the fact that they’re in that lovely early few years. My ex husband I think has a pattern. When we got together things moved along reasonably quickly - he moved himself into my flat within 2/3 months and we had moved into our own (bought) home within 18 months. And he has now done the same with OW, it looks as though they are buying together less than 2 years in (both had houses to sell, so it is a bit of a leap of faith!).

Despite friends regularly saying ‘in time this relationship may go the same way, he has a pattern’ (I was actually his 2nd wife), I find I’m haunted by the thought that she may be ‘better’ for him than I was, more perfect for him, a nicer person, etc etc. And of course there’s nothing that I can do about that possibility, I guess that’s my low self esteem?

Enjoy your Champers 🍾

@AloneAgain2023 I have also felt stuck a lot. A lot. It was a key reason to seek out counselling. I've realised that I had just given up a bit, on my own happiness primarily, but somewhat on our relationship because in the face of an unhappy selfish complaining middle aged man I felt very stuck and nothing I could do in the face of being blamed for everything. And then it was over and I hadn't practiced doing things for me for so long that I was scared. But slowly slowly, just doing and choosing things for me and DS has meant I feel free. No longer have to factor in sulking or complaining from the weaselly little twat :). I guess I do have the luxury of not really remembering the golden years of our relationship, if there were any! The recent somewhat depressing years have really eclipsed them, and having to live with ex while I try to figure out accommodation options is shite but also helpful to have daily reminder of what a twat he has chosen to become.

I'm actually at peace with the idea that stbex's new girlfriend might be a better fit for him. If she wants a grumpy lying weaselly little twat, then she's welcome to him. I deserve better. But even thinking that took time and many discussions with counsellor and friends!

Things with me have taken an interesting turn because stbex has managed to be sufficiently shifty with explanations of his whereabouts and shifty with his phone, that DS asked me directly if ex has a new girlfriend and if the reason we'd split up was that ex had cheated on me.

We'd told him the non-blame version to date, on my insistence (not his fault, we grew apart, mutually agreed it's best for both, blah blah blah). Ex is blinkered with how wonderful himself and his new lady friend are that he's wanted to tell DS so I guess he's got what he wanted.

I am really really trying to focus on what's best for DS but I couldn't lie to that direct question. Well, I dodged the cheating thing but confirmed new girlfriend, and tried to be somewhat even handed and said that ex obviously unhappy for a while and although he'd behaved badly to me it wasn't a reflection on DS and actually now I agree ex and I will be happier apart. But reality is it's still making DS split himself between 2 places in near future. DS is pretty angry with ex.

Any advice on helping DS appreciated!

@harlemriver Your post about what your ex couldn't give you in your marriage resonated so much, I could have written it. I'm so pleased you had your epiphany. Thanks for sharing.

@AloneAgain2023 it's hard to let go of the good memories. I think that process will inevitably look different for all of us. Do try counselling again and I hope you find someone that can help unlock the next stage for you.

I'm not sure that I'm "cured" yet, but I'm not dwelling on his new relationship any more. I'm starting to feel sorry for the new woman, to be honest! He will seem wonderful right now but he is unlikely to change on any meaningful level and it could take her several years to find that out - for her sake, I hope she is a faster learner than me!

Here are a couple of questions that I found helpful in getting to my recent epiphany and that might help you too:

• What are you holding on to? What do you gain by not letting go of this relationship that is now definitively and formally over? In my case, I think i was holding onto a sense of being right (I would never have done this to our marriage) and a sense of injustice (how dare he do this to me). But while there was a certain amount of moral satisfaction in that stance, it was focusing on the wrong things. As I said above, the relationship was actively damaging me by the end and I do not want to go back into that dynamic. So why hold on to it as though it is something I have lost rather than focusing on the freedom I have gained?

• if you let go, what can you let in instead? What might you be able to have in your future if you release the energy that you are spending thinking on the past and replace it with something else? I have spent literally thousands of hours thinking about my separation and divorce. Plus thousands more hours worrying about the marriage while I was married!! What else could that time have achieved? What else would you like your life to contain? I find this thought quite powerful. I feel so much regret at the wasted years in my marriage, so why am I now wasting even MORE time thinking about it when it is over and my ex has a new partner? He is out living a new life, so why am I keeping myself stuck thinking about him? It's time for me/us to move on too.

Of course, these questions might not resonate with you, but they helped me.

@PancakesForElephants that sounds like a tricky situation to navigate and I'm sorry that I can't offer advice on helping support your DS - hopefully someone else will have wise thoughts to add on this!

Thank you @harlemriver for taking the time to post your thoughts. The questions you stated are really intuitive and make so much sense. What am I holding onto? At the moment I still very much feel that I preferred my life then with him than now without him, even though I can clearly see that it was a damaged relationship long before we finally called it a day.

And of course, what to let in instead. I’m hoping in time that I will see my life feeling a little more ‘open’, rather than as it feels currently, which is small and empty. Right now I can find no motivation to get out there to find other joys and fill my world with other things. I hope the inclination will increase at some point.

I still regularly look back at my journaling notes referencing all that was wrong with us, all his poor behaviour, and all the reasons to not miss him. But of course it wasn’t always like that, and knowing he’s now skipped happily off into his new life is hard to bear.

I’m very self conscious about sounding like a stuck record, and I think that’s why it helps coming on here as so many of us recognise those ups and downs, and the annoying & sometimes irrational memories that we cling on to 🙄

Haven’t been on here recently but almost there with the court order to be sent. Fingers crossed it goes this week. Found out that my STBEx is planning on living with his affair partner. Whilst I can’t stand him, just feels a bit rubbish that he has this shiny new life and I’m left picking up the pieces at this end. Hope everyone is ok and sending virtual hugs to anyone that needs them 💐

I haven't had a chance to look at this thread for a little while, but the posts from @harlemriver are really useful, thank you for sharing.

I am still feeling very stuck, but when I thought about this, I am stuck. STBXH won't engage with the divorce process at all, so I can't move forward in any meaningful way. I desperately want the split to be finalised so I can start to rebuild, but that could still be several years away. The common sense part of me does not want to waste those years, but there is another part of me that is holding be back.

I have found a therapist, so I am hoping that will help.

Hugs to all.

Haven't found this thread before and am sorry that we are all in this unlucky club .

I am quite a few months into a messy separation . Fault on both parts but the final nail in the coffin was by H's unfaithfulness . I can accept that the marriage was probably going to fail anyway but am still incredibly hurt by the betrayal .

I am finding it difficult still to move on . You think you have got over the crying stage and then it comes back with a vengeance .

I did some counselling at the beginning too - which was helpful .
I think my difficulty is that my ex has got the life he wanted , has friends and family galore who are all supporting him to build a new life . He has a fantastic social life . He has left me with the bulk of the childcare and I am angry that karma doesn't seem to have kicked in !

I realised that I don't want him to be happy . It is inevitable that he will find a new partner soon , if he hasn't already done so . He will probably be seen as a bit of a catch as can be very sociable and charming . He has lots of female friends and is a great support to them . , but was never to me or to his female relatives .

Whilst another relationship is not remotely what I would want , but given my age it is also unlikely that I would find anyone suitable in any event .
I don't want to be a bitter and twisted .

Hello all. I am so scared. I am such a chaotic person and I just don't know how I'll be able to cope on my own and look after DD. I hope that having to do it will make me stronger but I'm scared I'll fall apart.

Hi , As your name says - parenting is about achieving a gold standard but being " good enough". We all have our own weaknesses and strengths . I cannot pretend that parenting on your own is easy . But you also don't have to accommodate your partner's views etc when making day to day decisions .
Like us all , you just have to get on with it . How old is your child ? Are they in nursery / school and do you have any family / friends support near by ?
Do you think that your ex partner will be actively involved in your daughter's life and have you had any discussion with him how that may work ? Hopefully he will be involved and you can use that time to recharge your batteries / catch up on appointments etc .

You have to look after yourself which means looking after both your physical and emotional / mental health .

Be easy on yourself , finances permitting do what will make your life easier just now eg supermarket food shop etc .

Sorry didn't check my post before sending - should read - parenting is Not about achieving a gold standard but being good enough ...

Evening friends. I hope people are doing ok at the moment and finding calmer sections of the rollercoaster. I hesitate to say this but I think I'm finally cured of my divorce heartbreak. The final order was a huge turning point. It made me really confront the denial I'd been hiding in and forced me to let go at last. It took a bit of doing but weirdly, since I reached that point, just a couple of weeks ago (!) it's like my life has unlocked and accelerated. The friends that I couldn't find? Suddenly I have had lots of people contacting me out of the blue - they know someone who lives near me, or they've moved near me, or they've lived near me for years and I just didn't know. It's incredible. I've been here for a year and had barely a single invitation out and now I've got coffee dates and drinks invitations and new groups for weeks ahead.

I've even managed my first post divorce hook-up!!! Given that this is a very public forum, and that I've probably made myself very identifiable over the past two years I'll just say it was lovely and reminded me that there is still lots of life to be lived. It's definitely not going anywhere further but I don't want it to, and that's quite powerful too. Someone up thread talked about their marriage as a hostage situation and although it's a pretty brutal description that's how I'm starting to view mine. I lost so much of myself for so long and I like the person that is emerging again so much more. I see glimpses of my younger self, fearless and strong and funny, and wish I'd not locked her up for so long.

No doubt there will be dark days here and there but it does feel like I've reached a new stage. I wanted to post this as it feels like this thread is in many ways a roadmap of separation and divorce and hopefully it helps to know that there are high points as well as lows.

I hope everyone in pain right now can find breakthroughs in their own healing. It's a hard journey. Sending love to all who are in the trenches right now.