New revelation has put me back to square one

[Carzycat]

I’ll try to keep this brief but also not drip feed:

Separated June 24 from a nearly 30 yr marriage and 35 year relationship,

Jan 2016,during a breakdown, told me he didn’t love me and wasn’t sure he ever had. Agreed to stay and had therapy. Over the following year or two confessed to 4 historical affairs and came out as bisexual. He had a friendship with a married (female) work colleague I was suspicious about. Lots of red flags including saving her in his phone with a man’s name, late night calls from her to our home phone but hung up, lying about needing to be away for work. I bought the book not just good friends and pointed out this friendship was damaging our marriage. He was telling her things he’d never told me and was lying about seeing and speaking to her.

We renewed our vows in 2018 - he said the breakdown had caused him to feel numb but his feelings had come back. A year or two later there were more red flags and in 2024 he said the only way he could be happy is if I trusted him completely and he could go on holiday alone etc and I said I was done. He repeatedly and as recently as New year said he wasn’t meant to be in a relationship and just wanted to be alone.

Divorce was finalised early March while I was away with my adult son who is intellectually disabled. 2 days after we got home he contacted our son asking if he wanted to meet his girlfriend. Son was shocked as had been told the same story I had.

Cut a long story short it is the former work coleague. He says nothing happened during our marriage but they met up a year ago as friends and a relationship developed. Now he is planning to move to the other end of the country to be with her leaving me to provide day to day support for our son.

it feels like the early days all over again. I had started to come to terms with things but now this has set me right back. Whether or not they slept together during our marriage is irrelevant, but their friendship was damaging and my worst fears have been realised. I’m crying all the time and revisiting everything trying to make sense of it all. I hate that it’s made me feel this way but I just can’t switch it off.
ive had lots of therapy and EMDR for complex PTSD - seeing my counsellor Tuesday night and hoping she can help me make sense of it all. Can anyone else relate?

I'm so sorry for what you're going through. It's a disruption of reality as you thought you knew it. Your reaction makes total sense, agonising though it is.

My experience wasn't the same, but xh and I split up kind of amicably after 17 years and 2 dc (I didn't want to, but he hadn't loved me for years and I couldn't deny it any longer). Then he told me after 2 weeks that he'd met someone on tinder and was in a new relationship.

It was exactly like the floor gave way beneath me and I was falling. For several years I had that sensation, though I carried on working and looking after the dc. I'm functioning well now, 9 years on, but I think some part of me is still stuck there.

I've also had EMDR for CPTSD, and I really think this new experience you're going through is suitable for it and you'd get some benefit from it. All the best x

I have been there too. Lied to and gaslit about someone. In our case she was my friend and the mother of my godson. Within 6 weeks of my fiancé leaving me and her leaving her husband they were apparently a brand new couple. It confirmed both our suspicions of the last year beforehand. It took me a long time to get over it but I did and built a great life for myself. My friend came across my ex-fiancé on a dating site recently. Oh how I laughed. Actually, even better, I first said "who? You are going to have to remind me which one that is again." When she first told me as I just assumed she was talking about someone she has previously dated when she said I saw X on plenty of fish. It turns out it was my ex and the name didn't make me think of him when she said it. It actually felt really good to know I had moved on that far.