Well, I made it through the first year. It's gets easier now, yes?

[RandallPinkFloyd]

H moved out a year ago today. The first year is supposed to be the hardest isn't it?

So that means that from now on it will get easier right?

On one hand I'm really proud of myself but on the other hand seeing families makes me cry.

I don't know, it's just such a weird feeling, thinking that it's been a whole year since my entire life crumbled in front of my eyes.

It feels like it's all gone by in a blur.

I need a good old MN kick up the arse I think. I've had a year to sort myself out, now I need to move on. I just wish I knew how.

well done you because the first year is so so hard. I'm interested in seeing peoples reply because I'm in the same boat myself. I sort of thought after a year I'd be fine but still quite shaky and constantly going over things in my head still! Think back to how you were this time last year though, do you think you've come a long way?

I don't know, everyone is different I guess. It's been 14 months for me and I still feel like shit most sometimes. The only thing that's changed compared to this time last year is that I'm able to get out of bed at weekends rather than lying there feeling sorry for myself.

Sorry - am just having a bad day today - must be the time of year - and I'm feeling lonely.

Determined that 2013 is going to be MY year

Thank you for posting, it's a relief to not feel like the only one.

I think I just thought I'd be feeling better by now.

I know I did the right thing but it's so hard. It would be so much easier to just ask him to come home.

I hate being a single mum.

I mean I love being a mum but doing it alone just wasn't something I ever even considered.

I miss being a family.

13 months, some stuff is better, some is worse/the same................onwards and upwards, I wouldn't go back to the abuse. Even the good bits we paid for too dearly

That's exactly it isn't it fool. Even the good bits we paid for too dearly

You remember all the good times and just want to go back, then you remember the shit times and realise you can't.

I would never go back. Think it's fear of the future and the unknown now that's getting me down most and the thought of a lifetime alone whilst exh is merrily shacked up with a new girlfriend

Sorry, I am generally a bit more positive than this nowadays so don't want to be filling your thread with doom and gloom - just had a bad weekend.

No matter what the present can't be worse than the past :)

I think that's why the whole year feels like such a blur. That fear of the future is just too much so I don't think about it.

I just do one day at a time

TBH I don't really feel like I have a future. Well not one to look forward to anyway.

I'm never going to own my own home, I'm in a job I tolerate and will never earn much, it's highly unlikely I'll meet someone else, I won't have any more children, I've hardly any pension, once my crappy 12 year old car finally gives up I won't be able to afford another one. It just all feels so bleak, existing one day to the next.

I was in a better situation 10 years ago than I am now.

Watching DS grow is wonderful but I feel like I'm failing him. He's never going to have security and I can't imagine I'll ever be able to take him on holiday or do all the nice things I thought we'd do.

Thinking further away than next week is just so overwhelming I can't do it.

It is hard, but it gets better. I've been single for nearly 2.5 years, and no longer feel upset when I see families together, in fact I had forgotten about feeling like that until I read your op.
I think all you can do is take one day at a time, and realise that some days will be better than others, and you may have a period of feeling ok, then have a "relapse" and feel shit for a bit again.
And remember that even though a family is still living together, doesn't mean that the people in it are happy or like each other. There could be all sorts of things going on that we don't know about, like affairs and DV.
It will get better

It's the time of year...... which is not helping.... The family thing is what gets to me...

i take DD on cheap holidays through The Sun newspaper promotion, or book direct with Parkdean. Paid £144 for 4 nights in Cornwall at half term. A holiday doesn't have to be expensive, if you can find something like that... or else find cheap Premier Inn promotions and get breakfast in a nearby supermarket..

I've never heard of Parkdean, thank you, I'll have a look at that.

The looking at families thing is the worst part for me.

I can be doing really well for ages, having a lovey day, then - bam- I see a family just doing their weekly shop together or having a meal and I just ache.

It sounds so pathetic but as well as missing him I miss being part of a couple. Just the basics of having a partner. We were together 11 years

Seeing my friends with their partners all talking together it's the little looks, the gestures, they way they talk to each other. Argh, I'm a simpering tool!

You're absolutely right, there is no way to know what is going on behind the scenes. I mean this time last year I was one of those families.

We went to the local park with my Sister BIL and Niece to have some photos taken for DS's first Christmas. We looked like the perfect family.

3 days later it was all over.

I am very nearly at 2 years.

My first year was just a whole bunch of relief that he was gone, and trying to make sure the kids were ok, we are more of a family now than we were when he was here.

This last year has been much harder actually, as he has stepped up his emotional abuse via the DD's, although he is much less subtle about it so I no longer doubt my feelings.

Next year will be better. I never really had the pangs of missing being a family, because really we never had that. I don't even miss the company or conversations because even that was difficult a lot of the time. I actually love being a single and parenting on my own, but I do wish that he would leave me to do it in peace and just enjoy his time with DD's (and his new wife -poor woman).

The half term break was £179, put I had a £25 off voucher for staying there before and another £10 off, so it made it £144 for the 4 nights. Just remembered that. But I stayed at Parkdean Ruda, right on the beach for 4 nights, through The Sun promotion and it cost £125 in total, so you can get some cheap holidays.

I was with XH for 10 years, married for 7, although he left just after 6..... My XH walked out right out of nowhere. I started this year "happily" married, so I thought and ended it divorced. It still seems like a dream, its all been such a shock to me. XH claims to have been unhappy for a long time, stopped loving me some time ago... he just didnt bother to tell me til the day he walked out....

It does take a hell of a lot of getting over, when something that has been your life for so long, is suddenly taken away from you.

Onwards and upwards is my motto..... At half term, I drove over 2 hours to Cornwall on my own, something I had never done before, to have a lovely break with DD. We went swimming every day and to the playground and she did the kids activities every day. When we went away as a family we did a lot of sightseeing so never visited the kids clubs, but she loved it and it occupied our days. In the evening there was entertainment from Sid and Lizzie (not everybody's cup of tea, but DD loves them).

XH wouldnt even have her a day a week in the summer holidays. i took her on two 4 night breaks, July and October and it cost less than £200 each time. I took food from home, cooked myself tea each night to save money (oven food for quickness). We ate out one night as a treat...

XH hasn't taken her anywhere or done anything with her, other than the soft play each week.....

Life is very different for both DD and me and I really wish it wasn't.

Sky you sound like lovely mum.

Nine months on, and yes we started the year being 'happily married' and will see our tenth wedding anniversary alone.

There are days I feel I've done something dreadfully wrong but I know that throughout this I have been the innocent. I still miss him, I still reach for him across our bed, I still talk to him and in my darkest hours I still prey for him to come home and for us to return to the family I once believed we were. But the reality is that HE choose to leave us for her. Not just me but our chuldren and our families. Leaving all of us in the horrid position of limbo and all because he wants to be in control.

I will never forgive him for what he has put our children through....putting her first in each and every way and telling our children lies, making them feel unloved and unwanted. I hope tyhis will come home to toost one day and he will feel the isolation he has imposed on our children.

For the new year all I'm asking is that this all comes to an end and I am free of his control and our children are loved by everyone around them even if that doesnt include their father.

Sorry to hear some of you are having a tough time. I really really hope 2013 is a great year for you all.

I'm struggling with DP at the moment, and in many ways would probably be better off without him. But I know how tough it would be, and I don't want to do it to DS (5). Threads like this Bring home how hard it is going it alone.

I am a year on too. I was doing really well until ex came back into DS life and then after one weekend promptly decided he didn't want to know DS after all. Cue utter psycho melt down from me and reverting back to screaming harpy and it his sodding treatment of DS.

All over and done with now. emails changed, phone numbers changed and I don't even know where he lives. Not very nice for DS however, from my point of view not having to deal with shitty behaviour is a relief and I feel that in 6 months life will be great.

I am going to set myself goals to achieve by the middle of next year so I have something to aim for and be proud of myself for that doesn't include my DS or anything to do with twuntface.

They are: lose 3 stone, get fit and into a regular exercise routine, get out the house more and see friends.

Nothing drastic or to difficult to achieve but will make me feel a lot better.

iwant what an arsehole..... did you post on another thread about that, the letter to OW one? the story sounds familiar...

I wish that I never had to deal with XH ever again, but for DD sake I know that's not possible. However, I never see him, speak to him, we communicate by text/email. That is for my own protection as my feelings are too raw. I class my marriage as ending in February even though he came back for six weeks, as he was texting OW all through that time.... so I keep thinking that its not long til the year now.....

Its funny how life becomes "normal" without them, but suddenly something happens and it just hits you again, that life is changed forever. I have friends who are in new relationships, but they are in a different place emotionally to me, and ready for a new man.

So I hope that within 12 months from now, I might get there too.... plus I need to set goals as well, lose weight and get fit also!

Today I found a dead rat crawling with maggots in the cellar. I simply got on with disposing of it.

My own rat walked out July 2011. There have been times, in the supermarket, when just seeing a father holding his child's hand, has made me want to cry. One day I was walking down the street and went past a lovely family. There was a funny sound of howling and it took me a while to realise that it's me.

Something is lost and broken inside me but as with the dead rat, I am able to deal with things...to be harder perhaps.

My ex left me with cancer, a falling down house and numerous issues with my teenage daughter, who has had some worrying health issues both mental and physical. But like all the lovely ladies here, we are still around...being strong....helping our children. We are not the cowards, the selfish ones rolling in our own egos.

It will be OK.

I never want a man again I'm afraid....but I wish you all a lovely future...

(Sorry if you were eating and I made you feel sick!)

I'm on year 4, it does get easier in parts, I still miss the family thing seems like every where you sodding look at times there are happy little units but we all know it can be an illusion, just one we all thought we'd have our own version of.

First ....Congratulations on getting a year under your belt!

Things I've discovered:

Don't look to far ahead or you'll wobble.

If you do have a wobble (& you will probably just when you thought you were doing ok!) just go with it, write off the day/week do what you need to get through & keep going after.

It IS a grieving process whatever the reason for the split, you have to work through all the different stages & give yourself time, a long as it takes, no one is the same & you can't set an arbitary time by which you "should" be moving on.

I could have written Froggie's post.
I too feel so relieved and so free now (despite the constant EA).
I look at nice couples and think yes, wow, it's possible and there are decent men out there. And I feel sure one day I might want one of them, just not now. But I am thankful everyday that my ds's are thriving, we are having fun and I'm actually proud I do it all myself.
Things that have helped me enormously are my work, my friends, my mum, music, my dates (I have a few 'gentlemen friends' who I go for dinner with, a movie etc.) and bikram yoga.

I also resolutely refuse to dwell on this massive fucking "mistake" forever. Shit happens, as we know, and I have had to work hard mentally and physically to actually believe the future is exciting.

And it is exciting............

I do wish you all well. You are never alone with your problems, some other poor fucker is feeling it too somewhere.

Crikey Punk what an arsehole.

Thank you Bossy.

The thing is most of the time I do actually do fine. Day to day I'm just getting on with it.

I'm coping far far better than I ever imagined I would. I've always been very independent and headstrong and self-reliant so I think all of those things have finally found their use!

Somehow it all feels like an act though. Like it's not quite real. Like at any moment the mask is going to slip and everyone will see that I'm just clinging on by my fingernails.

You're right there McMoon, there's way too many of us poor fucker's knocking around!

punk I am so sorry to hear your story. Stay strong. I never want a man again well not one living with me anyway xxx

skye yes thats me. Thankfully I have a big family and lots of friends so he will never be short of people that love and 2 of the best godparents (male) that adore him. I think the getting fit thing is a good thing to do as so good for self esteem and your state of mind the losing weight bit that comes with is just an added bonus!

randall do you ever sit down and just put some crappy film oon cry and let that mask down? I think most people are clinging onto life by their fingernails

"I'm coping far far better than I ever imagined "

That is worth holding on and reminding yourself to every day

Another one here whose husband walked out the door nine months ago without a proper explanation. It still feels raw some days and my mind can still race with the why, why, why's! But I am beginning to accept that he is just an incredibly selfish man who thinks of himself above his wife and children. Hopefully karma will catch up with him one day. I find on my worst days I still feel numb and in disbelief...other days I am full of anger. My best days are the ones when I realise that he is just not worth my feelings any more.

Seeing other families is difficult at times as it reinforces that there are decent, caring men out there and makes me realise that I thought I was in a relationship with one of them. How wrong could I have been!! Here's to 2013, hopefully it will be kinder to us all.