Strategies for emotionally distancing myself from estranged husband

[Downunderdolly]

I have posted on here before about how long it takes to get over the shock of a husband leaving you when you didn't see it coming which elicited some helpful repsonses (thank you!). However I can't seem to emotionally distance myself from my husband. He left me six months ago (a week into IVF) after an awful year where we lost two babies (one ectopic, one decision to end a pregnancy due to severe chromosome issues)but we were too'ing and fro'ing for a while and I guess we properly separated in early Nov when I returned from a 6 week trip back home to the UK (we live in Oz and have done for just over 3 years). I didn't see it coming and whilst I accept that I was probably quite difficult to live with at times during the last 12 months (moany, unhappy, unsatisfied as was desperate to ttc no 2) he never told me that our marriage was in trouble, in fact was reassuring about it. We argued a couple of times in the week before he left but I thought we had resolved the issue. Anyway, net net, I am now left as a single parent, forced to remain in Australia until my son is 18 (he is currently three) and just reeling from the fact that the person I thought I would spend the rest of my life with doesn't feel the same way about me, possibly never did (I thought we had this amazing fairytale relationship, love/connection almost at first sight etc etc)and that I have to build a new life in a relatively new country that I have never lived in as a single person and in which I have almost no independent of my husband friends (a few good ones, but a lot have run for the hills). My problem is that despite intellectually understanding that he has left me and moved on, I emotionally can't seem to process it. More often than not when I speak to him I end up crying and begging him (how attractive!) to reconsider and give our marriage a chance, to try, to fix it. I again intellectually know this won't work and if anything is counterproductive but can't seem to stop myself. At time I also get hugely consumed by rage at my situation and end up yelling at him. I know that this is self destructive and won't help but I feel like all he wants me to do is "go quitely into the night" and is glossing over the fact he bought me to Australia to build a life together, that I left a great career, amazing friends, supportive family and put every penny I had earned (most of our mutual assets in fact)into our marriage, suffered two pregnancy losses, had difficulties settling in Australia and know he has farked off and left me high and dry.

So wonderful ladies....how did you manage to control your heartbreak and anger at the situation you found yourself. I know I need to be a bit more yo sister go sister about things but I am genuinely in disbelief that my life has blown up and I didn't see it coming, that I contributed to its demise through being unhappy and that I once had everything I wanted and now it has gone.

Just help really! (apologies if this is too long and rambly)

Not much help, just watching with interest. Broke up with my boyfriend yesterday, still utterly raw. If anyone can tell me how to stop feeling like this, I'd be very grateful.

Dear Downunderdolly

I read some of your recent thread as well and I feel very sad for you. Some of the posters in your last thread were advising you about whether or not you would have to stay in Australia until your son is 18 and how you could find a "loophole" in the rules. I know nothing about this but have you investigated enough? Is it possible to take your ex to court over this and cite all the things you have cited above (loss of job prospects, friends, family close by, money - all in the name of a relationship which you believed in)?

Would your ex consider relationship counselling, if not to repair your relationship, then at least to give you some closure and explanations? It does seem strange that you didn't see this coming and that it came out of the blue so to speak and maybe your ex is not telling you the whole truth (whatever that may be about.....)?

Are you yourself going to see a counsellor if you can afford it? It sounds like you really need to look after yourself and get all the support you can. Your ex, from where I am sitting, does not sound like a nice person. Could he not relocate to the UK?? Why is the law so much in his favour???

I feel very sorry that you are feeling so down and hope you do your utmost to look after yourself and not let yourself sink into depression. Baby steps and taking one thing at a time might help, also doing exercise if you can. Can your family from England come to stay with you and help you to deal with your ex and the whole situation?

I wish you all the best and please keep posting for whatever reason! :) :) :)

Thanks girls. Unfortunately have been to four solicitors and because over in Oz they start on a shared care presumption (we have private custody agreement so far that gives him about 20% access) and he wants to be an involved father I have pretty much no chance. He won't do relationship counselling, may do family counselling down the track. I am going to talk to a charitable family counselling service nxt week about how to deal with DS - he seems OK but must be affected and I want to be able to provide the best support for him - but DH currenty won't recognise or admit that his leaving has any impact on him.

ex-DH says that he has explained things enough to me. Net net he says that he built up huge resentment to me and the situation he found himself in as he tried to make me happpy and couldn't and sacrificed himself and his happiness in the process. He says he felt he wasn't enough for me and I shouldn't have been so obsessed with ttc no 2 and should have been happy with our family. He says that I destroyed everything. I recognise part of this in the sense that I was probably properly depressed but didn't recognise it but also though ffs had just lost two longed for babies....he was also being reassuring about our relationship and we were doing IVF...not warning signs for me someone is about to leave. Even now knowing that he did leave I still would not have seen the signs but do see the signs that we needed to have a serious chat about the direction we were going in if you see what I mean. My parents came out from the UK for weeks over xmas and had a friend from europe over for a few weeks recently which helps but it is a lonely road. I am also terrified about the financial side of things although I know compared to a lot of people I am fortunate in that I should have enough money to buy a (really crappy) house outright and I used to earn pretty good money in the corporate world. Its just that I thought I had done my time of 15 hour days and selfishly I love spending time with my son. Needs must obviously but I am scared none the less. I also feel so responsible for my own misery at times which makes things worse as I can't even enjoy feeling like the victim if you see what I mean. On the other hand I have held up my hand and said I see there was pressure on you to support me, I see I was introspective in my grief, I see that I lashed out a bit, lets do xy and z to save our marriage and he is the one that won't try. rambly again. function of the time here in Oz and half a bottle of cloudy bay x

Yes. There are a lot of psychological techniques that help you to manage distressed feelings and unhelpful attachments. Some examples of my favourites are an 'invisible shield', a tie-cutting visualisation and good old breathe-out-and-count-to-ten. Unless you happen to be a wizard at meditation and/or self-hypnosis, these are best learned with a counsellor.

You can do it in two or three sessions - mine used hypnosis to get them into my head quickly. Any changes you make that fast are liable to wear off, but the point is they make a difference almost instantly; keep practising your new methods and they become second nature :)

As awful as it is i think its a necessary part of healing . Six months is nothing at all , and worse , your not being heard or getting the answers you are entitled to.

I found it helpfull to write in a journal. It was mostly rants and was full of swearing , but it really helped to say the things i wanted to say as he didnt hear me. I would rant and rave in the car too ( when i was alone obviously !)

While i think its good you have some insight into where things have gone wrong , dont take all the blame , i dont think hes being totally honest with you.

I don't want to get flamed but what would happen if you came home for a holiday and didn't go back?

Youllskimmer, I have considered this but fortunately or unfortunately (depending on where you stand on this), UK & Australia is part of the Hague Convention which means that I would be prosecuted and bought back to Oz and probably 'lose' more % of custody as it would then be dictated by the court. Totally not flaming (my father in law suggested same thing if you can believe it) but also whatever my DH is to me he is a good father and I think a positive role model for my son. It would definately be better for me if we were in the UK but prob not for my son. It is infuriating thought that my DH can dismiss relocating to the UK (where we met and married) in a heartbeat. Again, I don't want to separate my son from his Dad but am considering offering to waive child support (huge financial pressure on my to find decent work) if he allows us to go back to UK just to see if I am right in thinking he is a good dad or if he is money motivated in this area. In two minds as if he accepts I will be devastated for what that means for his relationship with his son and also the financial pressure it will put me in plus will I be able to look in my son's eyes when he is older and honestly be able to say it was in his best interests to move back. On the other hand I will be able to be with family and good friends and probably earn a decent living part time or contract as have a 15 year old track record in London of being pretty good at my old job. Fark it is such a mess and I still believe so avoidable.....

god still saying that I still believe it is avoidable. slap me someone

Slap you?
No, have a hug instead.

thank you Ageing Grace. Believe it or not that has bought tears to my eyes. I didn't realise who much I needed a bit of kindness in my life. I wish I could be kind to myself but the truth is I hate myself for allowing this to happen to my son, who is my world, and to me. I also have amazing family and friends in the UK who I know are so worried about me and I can't believe I have let them down and failed my son so badly before he was even three. I mean honestly, who fucks up an amazing marriage in a couple of years??

or even how much....

:) Not such an amazing marriage, Dolly. It was short on kindness.

It's normal to take all the blame, especially when it's been so comprehensively dumped on your doorstep. But the blame is not all yours to shoulder. Someone who prefers to walk off without warning, and who perceives his distressed partner as a personal nuisance, has shaky relationship skills to put it very mildly.

Be patient with yourself, please. Lean on your friends & family a little more. Give yourself some time, some treats and plenty of care. You deserve some care.

Sometimes unexpected kindness can remind us how much we were missing it....Grace is great for that.

I can't recall if I posted on your original thread OP, but I notice that this bombshell occurred after you returned from a 6-week holiday. I'm assuming then that the OW hasn't yet emerged from the shadows? I'm afraid given what you've said, I'd put good money on him either engaging or lining up an alternative relationship during that 6 weeks.

You're hearing a version of events that doesn't make sense and it seems you are bargaining away a version that actually makes far more sense. It is possible that some of your relational issues contributed to him giving self-permission to have an affair, but they are never the only reason and are often rather convenient excuses for taking the opportunity to have an affair. The rather more mundane (but truthful) justifications for many affairs are that a new adventure became available, was wanted and the chances of detection were slim. The latter point is especially relevant given that you were out of the country for 6 weeks.

Why am I telling you this? Because once abandoned partners realise that they have been left for what was just another tawdry affair and straightforward infidelity, it helps to detach more easily and it stops the self-blaming in its tracks. It especially helps to know that there was nothing you could have done to prevent this happening.

Your H is only too happy for you to believe a hackneyed tale of a conception-obsessed wife, placing him as the unadored "victim" who couldn't stand the stress and the lack of attention to your romantic relationship.

I'd suggest you start by getting your history back, because I think you have been sold a pack of lies here and re-written history. It doesn't make sense because it's not true. You are not going mad. You know your marriage was better than he's led you to believe. You didn't imagine him telling you that your marriage was good when you asked him. He either lied to you about that (probably to avoid detection) or he was telling the truth and had not yet met the OW.

Don't ever feel guilty for trusting what you were being told, or trusting your memory and instincts. Those wonderful internal facets in you are causing you to feel justifiably bewildered now and at a loss.

Knowing the truth of your life helps you to move on, I promise you.

I did think there was someone else to start with, it seemed the only possible explanation but no-one has come out of the woodwork yet. I almost wish they would as, as you say, it would at least make sense of it and give me a reason why he won't try and address the issues. It would also help me to be at least be angry with him which may help me move on. I guess I will see over time. He denies it of course but like most men I don't think he would tell the truth to me anyway as he would not want to be seen as the 'bad guy'......another broken nights sleep just had, another day of waking up and just not believing what has happeded. I wake up each morning and its like falling down an elevator shaft, that feeling of sorrow and despair and dread.

Have you made any enquiries Dolly? Would it help you, to just assume there is someone else? I wonder whether your FIL either has some knowledge or at the very least suspicions, given his support for you taking the DCs and moving back to the UK. I honestly think if you find out, it will help you to get angry and move on. I feel so angry when people are abandoned and told lies about why that is. It keeps people stuck in a state of total bewilderment and an inability to accept and move on.

I'd be amazed if he wasn't either with, or hoping to be with, someone else, just because everything he's done is so classic for that, right down to blaming you for how his feelings abruptly altered. Nothing like guilt to make someone angry with the victim. And people don't flip on a dime like he did, in my experience. And his absolute refusal to contemplate relocating back to the UK is suspect on that front, too, IMO. While I can understand his wanting to be "home", the refusal to even engage with you in discussing it is making my antennae rise.

I'd offer the financial inducement in terms of waiving maintenance if you go home, definitely. Because if he accepts, there's no point staying in Oz for your child's sake because as time goes on his father is going to bother less and less anyway. If he is willing to trade time with him for $ this early in, it speaks volumes. If he refuses, then I do think perhaps you should think about building a life in Oz, longterm, for your child's sake. Because if he's willing to pay up a fair whack of his money to be an active dad, then he cares. If he puts $ ahead of his child, then he's going to fade out anyway.

The other thing is that you might want to contact your old collegues/employers in London and see if they have any ties with corporate firms in Oz. Or you could think about relocating to another city within Australia, which would be completely legit and give you a bit of space and possibly a higher standard of living, even on a part-time salary. Brisbane for example has far shorter working hours than the City - you might be able to strike a better work/life balance than you anticipate (I'm half Australian myself). And Intel, Microsoft etc all have their main Asian hubs in Sydney so your work history might be just the thing, and you never know, you may be able to find contracted or even part time work if a contact can recommend you as excellent. So many Australians do work in Europe for a time, after all. Your skills will be transferable and perhaps if you decide to move to a new area you can build a life that's yours, not an adjunct to your ex.

Thanks perfect. I am trying to build up some consulting work that I can do from home or at least part time for now. I live in the far Northern Beaches of Sydney so its about an hour's commute into the city - not impossible but two hours of travel time + working + three year old in single parent family prob won't work in the long run. I will likely have to move closer to the City but that is quite daunting as i dont' know anyone in Oz aside from the friends I have made in my village/town. Unfortunately, I can't move away from the Sydney metro area - again the law here - unless ex DH agrees which he won't. It seems so unfair as I imagine if he had the opportunity to work in say NY for a year we wouldn't see him for dust. I know ultimately that all of these obstacles will have to be climbed and can be gotten over but it is overwhelming.

Sydney's a lovely city, though - you'll make friends really easily in a new place, if you lock into kids/mums networks. I used to live in a place called Erskineville, which is near Newtown - Glebe is great, too. They're all very near the CBD - you can walk it in a half hour and even the god-awful citytransit gets you there in that time. The northern beaches would make me feel isolated too - you may even find the way Sydney works in a series of villages, like London, is cheering! And the Inner West is far enough away that you could establish some independence, as well as being near to the CBD, while being perfectly legal. You could carve out a life and a territory of your own, rather than him calling all the shots.

I am honestly not meaning to be a Pollyanna, but if you left London for the far Northern beaches, when you were a happy Londoner, I'm not surprised you felt bloody miserable. I'd have gone into a decline, myself - I used to feel like it was Eastbourne or somewhere when I went for the day, just to the Manly! Whereas the Inner West felt like living in all the bits of London I most liked. Plus you had the weather and the ocean within reach, too. Sydney's a great city, and you sound so employable. I agree it's worth exploring the options in terms of your ex swapping money for your freedom, but if he says no, then you can build a new life there. Truly, you can. A job might be a really good place to start, too - get you a sense of identity that isn't as his wife alone, you know? (I have a 2 year old ds, so I do understand the misery of even part-time work and am not negating that - but there are upsides, too.)

Maybe you could do an explore of the bits of Sydney you don't know, that are a fair way away, next time your ex has your little one? Have a think about what you like, where you've lived before?

I'd also make a day trip to the Blue Mountains, if you've not done that yet. I used to go when I felt low. It's so beautiful and the air so clear, it always lifted my mood a lot. Sort of reminded me that the world was an amazing place, and how small I was and my problems, and how much there was to enjoy, no matter what, if that makes any sense.

*just to Manly

Hey Perfect

Funnily enough after a couple of glasses of wine last night I booked 2 tickets for the 'Thomas the Tank Engine' day on the zig zag railway in the Blue Mountains in early April and a night in a guest house. TBH the idea of must me and my son being surrounded by what I think of as 'proper families' (sorry no offence to families like mine of just me and my DS as I know of course we are a proper family but am stuck in a rut of wanting more) on a family day out fills me with a bit of sadness but I also think that he will be missing out on so much that I need to get my act together and do nice things for him so he doesn't suffer anymore from this adult fall out. Feel quite proud I did it. Despite my general hopelessness have actually got myself a 'mom' job for 8 hours a week when DS in in Kindy two days a week helping out a local woman run her stationary business so that is something and a small step and have been trying to build up some consulting - so far only billed about $900 (500 quid) but am trying not to be entirely hopeless. Ironically, having as you said, found it really isolating up here (am in Avalon, overlooking Pittwater) I had actually just begun to find my groove - I think this place gets under your skin after a while (the insular peninsular and all that) and there are lots of 'free' attractions for young children with all the beaches etc. I will definately look into areas in the city and will prob move there but its taken me 3 years to find and make friends who I still feel are quite 'new', so the thought of it really just being me and my son is very daunting. I hear that the inner west is nice though...not v. familiar with it but do know a bit of Balmain which I like very much. I also worry that I'm not in the right place to make 'normal' friends as I feel a bit of a loon at the moment and honestly don't think that I woudl want to be my friend at the moment. I have made lots of long standing friends through out my life though so I hope that means I can again. So farking exhausting though. I'm 40 now and I feel that if at least I was say 30 I would have a chance of building a new life/possibly a new family. Have fantasies of having another child anyway (although struggled when had a DH) but that would be crazy wouldn't it??

Dolly, I see signs of a woman picking herself up and dusting hereself off. Well done. The womqn who moved to the other side of the world for adventure is still in you, she just needs some time to emerge again, and your DS will help you. Obv. It will take time, but this is the next chapter. I feel positive for you and send you thoughts and best wishes from pomland.

hmmm not sure about the Moose but appreciate the thought. Am sitting here struggling to finish a small writing project (brain is sluggish, have no confidence anymore) at 10:45 at night, exhausted, messy house, thinking how the fark am I going to manage when I have to 'properly' work and manage being a single parent. Again, I don't want to sound like a twat as I know that many people have it much much worse than me but I had such a lovely lifestyle for the last few years - not just money but the time to enjoy my son and enjoy not being in the corporate world - and it seems incredible that it is has all gone. It is also the lack of control I seem to have over my life - my to be ex DH has and can decided we are not to be married, that my son will be bought up in a single parent household, that I will live in Sydney for the next 15 years, that he will run through all of our joint savings (read mine as most of it was mine before marriage) as he lost his job (he now has one) and decided to rent a crazy expensive penthouse on the beach for nearly the same amount as our mortgage (house is on the market, not sold yet), that i will go back to work, that our son will go to long day care, that he can take the decent family car as he pays the lease, that I can't be with my family or old friends, that I look about 10 years older than six months ago as I haven't slept blah blah blah. It seems incredible that all this is decided for me. I feel like for all my previous independence, both financial and emotional, it is still like the 1950's for women ; (

Downunder try not to let bitterness overtake you even though its sooo hard.

The advice on here has been great all I can add is that my xh left and at the time I felt he took my life with him. I quickly made it my business to fight back and live as well as I can . I wasnt expecting to be single with 2 dc at 44yo but I am making the best of it.

If returning to the UK in not an option then look hard to see how you can rebuild your life there , your son will be happy in spite of being in a single parent family. This is such early days but it will get better given time I promise you just keep going

thanks gettingeasier and well done on getting things together. I know that I need to get 'better not bitter' but like many things in life it is easier said than done. I was never one of those people who defined themselves by their relationships and who couldn't be alone but right now I feel like I have just disappeared and that I don't have a 'real life' anymore if that makes sense. I realise how much I loved being married and how much I will miss it. I was 34 when I met my husband and honestly waited until I found the right person so it seems incredible to me that I got him and the relationship so very wrong. I am currently filling ina form for my solicitor as we have a round table/mediation thing on Wednesday. I keep singing that Sinead O'Connor song in my head "this is the last day of our relationship, I will meet you later in someone's office. I'll talk but you won't listen to me...". God I'm getting maudlin as well as bitter now so better go (in my defense it is nearly midnight here!).