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Divorce/separation

Here you'll find divorce help and support from other Mners. For legal advice, you may find Advice Now guides useful.

Immense sadness as we near the end.

6 replies

Sunflowers67 · 15/01/2026 20:23

As the title says - I have been doing so well for the last 9 months and now its hit me as we near the end.
My original posts were on the relationship thread but I seem to have entered the realms of the divorce and separation thread now, seeing as I don't have a relationship anymore (or ever again, I hasten to add).
Long story short - he was removed from the family home by the police after his behaviour/drinking became very scary. Retraining order in place for some months which gave me calm and peace. I have not seen or heard from him directly since so I have had time to heal a little. It was a very traumatic time, I wont lie. Its taken every ounce of strength to fight my way through it all.

I have been to therapy and still go, local domestic abuse charity helped, I engaged a solicitor and now we are finally at the agreement and signing stage of splitting assets. His property has been waiting for him for many months and he didn't even pick up a pair of pants.

Anyhow, the last two days a man and a van have been at the/was ours/soon to be mine, family home. He has been collecting everything on behalf of my ex and taking it to his lodgings. The man with the van keeps making comments about how sad it all is and that he's glad that my ex has picked himself up and enjoying life - despite the troubles I have put him through.

What the????!!!!

How dare this stranger enter my property and pretend to even know what went on in our relationship. How dare he make comments about my private relationship - I chose not to tell every Tom, Dick and Harry what he did to me and he chose to re-write the story whereby he was the victim and I was unstable - that's his choice but I wont enter that arena. Today, I really wanted to. I wanted to tell this man that if he thought it was acceptable to call your 'beloved' a fat, ugly c*nt when you drank too much, refuse to regulate or even stop drinking, sexually assault her on a daily basis even when you were told to stop, refuse to be accountable for any of your actions and as for apologise for anything.....haha. Oh I wanted to give it to him both barrels.
He then proceeds to tell me how happy my ex is (no job, no one that cares about him, still drinking and gambling and still sofa surfing).

I am angry. I am sad. I feel the weight of the huge loss (he was lovely as well as nasty, aren't they all). But watching all his things being packed up into this van is just so final. And sad - did I say sad? I'm sat here typing with tears running down my face that I didn't get my fairy-tale ending that I thought I would have.

Why do men not feel this grief at the very end or do they just pretend to be okay? I think a part of me had hoped in the last year that he would have taken repsonsibility for his actions, gotten help, tried to not lose me/us - do anything to make it right. But he is still the victim and has no accountability. I will always be the bad guy that had him arrested because of his actions.

I needed to just rant it all out of me - thanks for reading.
If you have any insights/experience of what people do at the very end then that is so appreciated too.
Anything to stop this bloody self pity and kick me up the backside!

OP posts:
bathbathbathrelax · 15/01/2026 20:46

What you’re feeling is very normal and natural. I cried for months and months. I had to ask my counsellor if it was normal and they said, ‘yes’. I literally cried rivers and I am not a crier. I was so so sad. It’s grief and it has its stages.

What I will say is that I thought I’d be sad forever - however, I’m not. ‘This too will pass’ sums it up (with the benefit of hindsight). It gets better. Letting it out is good. Good luck.

Changes26 · 15/01/2026 20:49

You have every right to feel sad and to grieve. You’ve faced a huge loss.

Sit with all of your feelings but also please feel safe in the knowledge you’re now entering a new chapter that will be all yours and not his.

Anyusernamewilldo8963 · 15/01/2026 20:50

Totally normal to grieve what could and should have been and like you said it wasn't all bad so you are also grieving the good memories and the sadness that you won't make anymore as a couple and as a family. Take the time to grieve as it will help you heal and move forward to a much happier phase of life without him.

Sunflowers67 · 18/01/2026 12:04

A rollercoaster weekend so far!
I keep having to disappear into a bath or up the garden to have a good cry and it hits me at the most inopportune moments also! Putting some fuel in the car and it just overwhelmed me, at the dentist surgery, just someone saying "how are you doing" - and then just as suddenly I'm okay again and want to clean or decorate something - so at least the house is having a good sort out!

I just can't quite comprehend the shift from the lovely kind man that I fell in love with to the sneering, nasty, punishing one - it's like I was living with two very different people. And yes, I really miss one of them.

I know it will pass, I know one day I will be okay again but I just keep walking around muttering 'stupid f'ing man' under my breath all the time like some crazy person - because he was/is/probably always will be. That's sad too. If they can be nice and appear to be your perfect match for life then it shows they are capable of it. Its all just so confusing and really messing with my mind to try and decipher it all. I know I should just let it all go, focus on me and the good things, focus on healing - and for the large part, I do.

But.............then it creeps into my mind again and I am back on the whys and what ifs.

OP posts:
DexterMorgansmum · 21/01/2026 16:54

A number of us on here can empathise and relate OP ......A 20+ year marriage that I am still gathering the courage to walk out - and I am constantly hit by waves of grief and sadness all the time at what could have been and the way it is ending instead .....I do not have hope , I have acceptance....but that still does not reduce the buckets of grief and waves of sorrow about how things unrolled...

Even 24 years sometimes just feels like a blink of an eye ...I said on another post today that I hate him and I know this is true and real, the bottomless well of anger I feel is real .....and yet he was the one beside me when my baby was born, the happiest moment of my life - and a thousand other small happy moments too along the way, for sure .....hand in hand with the millions of horrible moments .....

Very easy to say that rights don't cancel out the wrongs - but the emotional mind always keeps balancing the two even when one is much by far heavier than the other .....

Sunflowers67 · 21/01/2026 20:48

#DexterMorgansmum

Thank you for your reply - and I am so sorry for what you are going through also.

I stayed longer than I should have because of the happier times and the lovely memories and I don't regret them. I don't see the many years with him as wasted or irreplaceable because I would have missed those moments. And the relationship could have lasted until 'death do us part' - if he had seen what his behaviour was doing to me/us and also him. But he couldn't or wouldn't so I had to make that decision. I couldn't change him but I could change my life. It was not how I could have lived for even another year.

So, its just a case of getting that acceptance and ploughing on with whatever life has in store for me.

I sincerely hope you that you find your happiness - with or without him.

Love the name by the way! Such a dexter fan :-)

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