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!

@Itisallgoingtobeok I know that feeling well, I hope you sleep (hope I do to!). Here if you need me x

Hello everyone. Thoughts with all those who are struggling. It really is a rollercoaster and I think it is dawning on me that it won't stop as quickly as I'd thought....There is so much to come to terms with. I don't have children, and I have one relative who keeps telling me how lucky I am and how much easier that makes divorce for me. Obviously it does make it very different, and I don't have to deal with the emotional and logistical complexity of managing children and ongoing parenting. But being childless and separated brings its own set of difficulties too. I feel very, very alone now, in a way that I didn't when I was married but childless. I also feel stupid for having invested my life and future so entirely in a single person without even realising that is what I was doing. And while in principle I could be off travelling the world or moving anywhere in the country or doing anything that I want, in reality I am tied by dogs, by lack of money and by sheer emotional exhaustion! That's also not what I want at this stage in my life. I've already done lots of travelling, lived in other countries and had many moves and new starts. What I want now is to be part of a community where I feel like I belong, to feel stable and rooted. But I think it might be difficult to achieve that on my own and it might even be too late to achieve it at all.

I'd hoped that moving house would be a fresh start and I would feel energised and ready to build a new life. I'm making efforts and have signed up for some group classes, introduced myself to neighbours etc. But it definitely feels like effort right now. I am still very tired and everything feels like wading through treacle. I am not getting enough work done and that is becoming a source of anxiety too.

As others have said, this time of year doesn't help for the blues. I read a book called 'Wintering' that basically says that bleak and hard times are part of life, part of the seasons of life. And taking the time to retreat and accept that is part of healing. And remembering that spring will come eventually!

Are you me?? I also don't have children and while I am counting my blessings that I can focus on myself during this time, the loneliness and the feeling of wasted time really resonates.

It really does take time. I read somewhere that it takes two years plus a month for each year you were married to recover from a marriage breakdown.

For me that's close to four years and is actually spot on.

Hi everyone, I'm trying to move on, it's so hard when I have to see my separated DH a lot due to having very young DC.
It was his decision yet he makes me feel guilty for putting up boundaries and insisting on set days. I'm standing firm but it feels like a wound that won't heal. I'm hoping in time it becomes easier.

God, I’m having such a terrible night.

My car broke down on the way to work tonight & I had to ask my ex-husband to come & help me. He did thankfully, but not after making me feel so guilty about reaching out for the lift home… apparently he needed to sort the kids out (it’s his night with them), which I appreciate, but he lives with his parents & two brothers who are able to help with the kids in his absence. It’s not as if he was on his own!

We drove back to mine in silence. It was awful. I kept looking at him & swinging between pure anger/hatred that he reluctantly came to help me in an emergency, & desperation for him to feel something… for him to tell me he made a huge mistake & he wants to try again.

After the way he made me feel guilty for reaching out to him for help tonight, it was a stark realisation that we truly are over. He tells me he has respect for me & cares about me, yet acts with complete indifference & appears annoyed/frustrated when I ask him for anything outside of having our children.

How did a 9 year relationship come to this? How can a man who used to worship the ground I walk on, hate me so much? I’d understand if I was a terrible wife, had cheated on him or made his life a living misery… but, I truly didn’t. I was by no means the perfect partner, but I gave him everything.

I’ve cried & cried & cried until I’m so exhausted.

I'm sorry @Rachel3108. I had an awful night and morning too, almost at the office and all I want to do is sob and get into bed. You're not alone. X

So sorry you’ve both had awful days @Rachel3108 and @SoRainbowRhythms. I’ve had a couple of crappy emails from my ex that have caused me to be absolutely seething and I’ve responded probably in haste but I’m so sick of him rewriting history and steamrolling over mine and our children’s feelings. The upside is I’ve found my anger. The downside is I’ve been so angry about it that it’s disturbed my sleep.

Hugs to you both xx

I stupidly went down a social media hole. He's deleted me from everything and removed any mention of me. His Strava shows that he's going about his business and enjoying his hobbies (including the day after he left me), and it looks like the girl he had mentionitis about is with him. I know it's my own fault for looking but I my panic that I thought I had managed to shut down has come back.

Sorry you've had such a miserable time @Rachel3108. That does sound very hard. I understand how hard it is when they feel so cold and distant and unconnected. Indifferent is exactly the right word for it. It's really hard to experience but it seems to be very common, if this thread is representative!

I’m getting crazy aggression on phone from ex when discussing child arrangements. Totally unexpectedly. Don’t know how to deal with it. Was sure we’d navigate things amicably.

@harlemriver i totally get you about the shut down thing. My ex did/is doing the same. Completely doesn’t care about anything up here now that he’s enjoying his new life down South with his affair partner. It’s like a different person.

@Verysad1978 does it have to be phone calls? Can you email or text instead? Just so that you don’t have to hear it all. Granted you may have to read it instead but at least it’s all in writing and you can choose when to read it. 💐

Same here. No idea what happened to the kind man I married.

@SoRainbowRhythms and @Browniesandcustard another one here who is still trying to understand what happened to my lovely husband. He turned into a cruel and abusive man. I am reconciled to the fact that I will never know.

@Iamnotapotato I am sorry you are having such a bad time, but perhaps finding your anger will help? Mine ebbs and flows, but mostly I am just so heartbroken.

Hugs to all.

How did a 9 year relationship come to this? How can a man who used to worship the ground I walk on, hate me so much? I’d understand if I was a terrible wife, had cheated on him or made his life a living misery… but, I truly didn’t. I was by no means the perfect partner, but I gave him everything.

I’ve cried & cried & cried until I’m so exhausted.

@Rachel3108 - your words above ring true for me. We used to have such a lot of fun, and then something changed and he looked at me like he hated me. I have spent a lot of time trying to work out what happened, but have come to the conclusion that it is a waste of my precious energy. I need that energy to get myself into a better place. As for the crying, I tried to control it and decided I needed to cry and if that was a lot of crying then so be it. I cry a lot less now, but when I do, it is still so raw. Hang on in there, it will get better, but it isn't easy, I know.

Hugs to all.

But being childless and separated brings its own set of difficulties too. I feel very, very alone now, in a way that I didn't when I was married but childless. I also feel stupid for having invested my life and future so entirely in a single person without even realising that is what I was doing. And while in principle I could be off travelling the world or moving anywhere in the country or doing anything that I want, in reality I am tied by dogs, by lack of money and by sheer emotional exhaustion! That's also not what I want at this stage in my life. I've already done lots of travelling, lived in other countries and had many moves and new starts. What I want now is to be part of a community where I feel like I belong, to feel stable and rooted. But I think it might be difficult to achieve that on my own and it might even be too late to achieve it at all.

@harlemriver - your posts are always so thoughtful, and seem to say what I am feeling, but unable to write down clearly. I am childless too and that feeling of being alone is awful. I too feel stupid that I spent so much time invested with one person, who with hindsight, was slowly trying to limit my wider social contact.

I am currently living in a rented flat in a really nice place, but I will at some point need to buy somewhere. I would like to stay here, but I don't think I can afford it, so it will be another move to another town and another new start, which at the moment I don't have the energy for.

I am trying to remain hopeful that things will come good in the end. I am sure they will, for all of us, even if the road is rocky.

I bought a copy of Wintering after reading your post, so will read that at the weekend. It looks like it could be really helpful to get my mind back in a better place.

Sending hugs to all.

Agreed, sending lots of love. Another person without children now sitting alone!

Just need a bit of TLC my ex partner moving out next week all of this was my decision I could not live without the love and intimacy and he was just very lazy etc ... I am so upset and my anxiety is through the roof ... 14 years is just awful ... thinking of everyone going through the same

Sorry to hear about all the sadness on this thread. It really is an awful feeling looking back at years gone by and wondering what happened for it to have ended up as it has. I genuinely thought I had hit the jackpot with my ex dp and that after a failed marriage I had met the right person. How wrong I was. It has shaken my self-belief that I have chosen two partners to have serious committed relationships with, both of which have ended in disaster. The reasons my marriage ended are complicated with some issues on both sides but other people in my life could see it wasn’t going to work out from the beginning. My more recent relationship was the total opposite. Everyone thought we were great together and it seemed like a good match on many different levels - except he turned out to be a liar and a cheat. I’m still so devastated, a part of me had hoped he’d be back in touch to at least see how I was, or to apologise properly but I haven’t heard a word from him. I wish he didn’t take up so much headspace still. I can’t wait for the day I don’t dream about him or think about him.

Good to hear from you@harlemriver but sorry you’re still struggling. Just like you and @SoRainbowRhythms & @Itisallgoingtobeok , I too have no children and am very conscious of how alone I feel.

I’m in the last couple of weeks (all being well 🤞) of living with XH, and will be moving into my flat. And while everyone always says ‘oh you’ll feel so much better when you’re out of there’, I’m not convinced I will. I have so many different feelings and emotions around this whole situation - heartbreak, anxiety, depression, fear of the future, fear of finances, anger & resentment etc etc. They all appear at varying times & days and I’m never without thoughts of how my life has changed and I’ve had NO say in it.

I know what you mean @harlemriver about investing everything into your other half - I did it too but to be honest I was perfectly happy with just ‘we two’ and seeing friends & family on occasion. I preferred to go places & do things with him over and above everyone else, rightly or wrongly. I guess that’s why we’re feeling this SO intensely, because our ‘person’ has removed themselves from our lives, against our wishes.

Your admission that simply moving house has not been the magical new start you hoped it would be really resonates, because I think I will be the same. It’s been 10 months for me living here since our separation, and most of those months being aware there is someone else. It’s been nothing short of agonising and taken me to frighteningly low lows. Despite all that time and being actually divorced, there’s some part of me that still thinks of him as my husband! And then I remember that he’s now in a serious relationship with another person, and the pain is still intense.

Just like you, I’m finding it hard to feel motivated to do anything. I can’t even feel excited about moving, because I don’t want to move, I want my lovely home and garden that was so special to me but which is now his. Even now, it doesn’t quite feel real 😔.

@Ginerous your story is so sad to read because I think we often have this idea that after a broken heart and a devastating divorce, someone will come into our lives that we will move on with, who will be better in every way than the lying, cheating husbands who left us. But your story shows that unfortunately the fairy tale ending doesn’t always happen. The idea of thinking you’ve found Mr Wonderful, who then turns out to be no better than the first one, is very depressing. It makes you really not want to go there at all. But the alternative, growing old alone, is a pretty miserable thought too.

I wish for all of us that we get some peace at some point, there isn’t anything magical that we can say to each other that hasn’t been said before. The journey is a long one, and sometimes one that I don’t want to travel on.

Hugs to every single lady on here and may we continue to get some chink of support from each other 💐

Hi, could I join please...

As you can see I am awake at nearly 2am, sleep is hard.

Ending of a relationship very close to Xmas. Had an awful Xmas time, despite having lovely family around. I ended it, but it ended badly, abruptly and dramatically.

Since then I have been trying to figure out who I am and where it all went so wrong. It's big questions.

I swing between wanting to sort it, and knowing nothing will change. The kids are happier (my kids not joint) and that's keeping me going. They are number 1 priority in my life and they are showing me this is better. It's hard though, to miss someone even though you know it's the right decision.

I still love him and miss him. I thought this was my forever and it wasn't. Snippets of conversations have shown me nothing has really changed but it's going to be tough to rebuild on my own.

We weren't married, but lived together, though the house is mine, so I'm still here which is some comfort.

It's hard when you want someone to make changes and to love you how you feel you deserve but they can't or won't.

Sorry to see you all here and having a hard time too xx

Sending love and support to all of you going through this. @Blendiful I hear you about the sleep. I hope you can rest or have a nap today. I've been awake since 4a.m catastrophising about how long my DH will stall on our separation. I instigated the break up because I was unhappy and am now sleeping on the sofa, pretending to the kids that things are as normal between us, and he's still sleeping in a comfy bed and getting his meals cooked etc. He's already implied that it's going to take him a lot of time to get all the financial info for the disclosure, and to find himself a suitable property. He's going to keep me living in this limbo for as long as he possibly can. I'm too desperate to keep things amicable between us for the kids sake that I don't feel I can be as assertive as I need to be to move things forward. It feels like I'm living in a cohabiting hell right now. @AloneAgain2023 the journey really does look long right now.
One foot in front of the other, one day at a time, is the best way to get through it I think....

I've finally heard from him. It's all over.