Terrible guilt after escape from bad marriage; please tell me it will pass

[tiredofwaitingforitalltochange]

Separated recently after 15 years together, 13 married, dd 12 and 10.

After an awful year (four property transactions, none straightforward, months under the same roof after deciding to separate, recession-linked money worries blah blah) dh and I are now living in our own houses bought from proceeds of fh.

I am so, so much happier since we separated. I've reclaimed my relationship with my kids after years of feeling marginalised thanks to his micro-management of their lives and a demanding Uni course I am doing. They seem happier without tension at home. My elder one has been really loving and cuddly lately.

I have a lovely house that is completely 'me' - big, old and rambling - and I've put my heart and soul into making it beautiful.

I've got some cash to get me through until I qualify as a doctor in 2014 and until I start earning decent money which will be a few years later (despite what the Daily Mail says, doctors earn relatively shit money, I've met top cardiac surgeons who are on less than 90K after 18 years of training, compare that with wankers bankers). It's going to be tight, but I can do it.

But I feel so, so guilty about dh and it's killing me and ruining my new life.

He's bought a nasty little modern house and I feel awful about it (though I've gifted him our second home - it's a dream cottage - and we've divided our assets in a normal way).

His business is suffering really badly in the recession and professionally his future is very uncertain.

I'm not exactly a spring chicken (41) but he's 14 years older and I feel awful leaving him high and dry at this stage in his life.

Our kids are going to be with him every other w/end and 2 nights during the week, so close to 50:50 but I still feel really awful about it, that they won't always be there for him.

FWIW he was a classic EA. I realised this after coming on MN, in my misery. I stuck it out for years.

I'm feeling terrible because I haven't had a single Xmas card from his big family. They think I'm the villain and I am so not. I'm doing Christmas at my house and my parents/brother are coming and I've invited dh too, so he doesn't miss Xmas day with the girls. My family have been lovely to him.

As I said I feel so so much happier. It would be great if it weren't for the guilt. Please someone who's been here tell me it's going to get better :(

You have nothing to feel guilty about. You've removed yourself and your DC from a toxic environment. If he wants to play the martyr and live in a nasty box, that's his choice.

Boohoo an 'awful' new house??! How offensive. I'm sure he may be glad to be rid of that kind of attitude. Sounds like he's got plenty of people round him to support him.

The guilt will fade for you, but work on it.

It was his choice to buy that type of house and it was his choice to abuse you that caused you to split.

Actually having re-read this..... Is this a joke thread? 90K? Gifting a house?

Yeah that 'nasty little modern house' bit is horrible and snobby.

You're not coming across particularly well here OP

Hmm I agree

Did you post that it was an awful new house because that's how ex describes it?

Guilt is a hard habit to break, and he's probably piling it on because it's another way of still controlling you. Are you having counselling?

Leaving details about relative prices of houses to one side, why are your family still being 'lovely to him' if he made your life so miserable? Does that mean you haven't told anyone what went on? Often happens in EA cases that the victim feels embarrassed about admitting the depth of the problem, often continues to blame themselves, doesn't think others will see what happened as a valid reason for ending the relationship, still has some loyalty towards the ex (or the children's image of the ex) and therefore believes they have to keep quiet. All that does is protect the guilty party.

You can't expect his side of the family to respond any differently to the way they are currently doing - blood is thicker than water and he will have wasted no making himself out to be the injured party - but you may feel less guilty if you acknowledge just how bad it was and share the truth about his behaviour with your family & friends.

I agree it doesn't always work but, if you'd kept quiet about the abuse TisI, your man-obsessed sister would have had even more of excuse to paint you as the bad-guy.

(At the risk of derailing the derailing I'm sure DM has got them nicely simmering already...... ... the vitamin K will be long gone)

What BookieMonster said. It was your happiness (and that of your DCs) or his. You tried to let him have his over many years, now it's your turn. And by the sounds of it, you and the DCs are indeed happier right now :).

I also agree with Cog that you are not being helped out of your guilt by the fact that your own family are sympathetic towards him. I recall from previous posts (I have name changed but have been here a while) that your DM has shown quite narc behaviour towards you. I'd suggest this is the real source of your guilt - she has never let you believe that you are entitled to happiness on your own terms. She is wrong.

This is a crap time of year to be a newly separated family - I'm there too - but in another 10 days or so we can all look forward to a better, brighter year. Stay strong.

OP, of course you feel guilty.

You've hurt someone who you loved and who loved you.You'll both have hurt the kids too.

The point is that you've now done what you believe to be the 'best' option of those available.

It doesn't make it a 'good' option, but it does mean it was the best you could do.

I'm not divorced but have been the one to end serious relationships. People often don't realise that you feel much of the same pain as the other partner PLUS the guilt.

It does fade though. Not fast, but it does.

Ages don't seem to make a lot of sense...
He's 41, you're 27 (as he's 14 years older) and you've been together 15 years? Since you were 12??!

Misread, thanks.
Seems a little bitter towards bankers, not sure why they are in this thread. 90k for anyone is a lot of money to earn.

tired it all sounds so familiar except that my XH is fantastically successful and has a new woman to adore him and supply all the ego boosting I got tired of. I am the one in the smaller house (not nasty though). And yet I still feel guilty and worry about him. I think it is partly because I chose to end our EA marriage against his wishes, and partly because I am such a people pleaser I hate seeing anyone unhappy or being disapproved off by his family.

We need to toughen up! The reason we left was their behaviour and that was a choice they made. Now they are dealing with the consequences of that. Tugging at your conscience with his Woe is Me attitude is just another form of EA and should be robustly ignored. It IS all about you and the DC now. Don't let him manipulate you again.
A pat on the back for all your progress in 2012 and Happy Christmas!

When you are in a bad relationship for a long time you adapt your behaviour to cope.

When you come out of it things are bound to feel odd for a long time - it will take a while to get your land legs back.

If you and your children are happier now then you have made the right decision.

It is not your fault that your ex husbands business is struggling. He has somewhere to live and there is no problem about seeing the children - there is nothing more you need to do.

Did you post that it was an awful new house because that's how ex describes it?

Yes, his words not mine. He says it's 'gruesome'. FWIW I don't think modern houses are 'nasty' but this one was built in the 70s and is ugly and in need of updating. I think most people on here, including the ones who said I'm not coming across well wouldn't think it was nice. It's got dirty carpets, Mr Whippy ceilings and a horrible kitchen. I begged him to buy somewhere he liked more but I think he's depressed and has kind of 'given up'. And given the way I know he operates (I won't go into details but he is EA) I think he's almost making things as bad as possible for himself to make me feel guilty as hell for leaving him. And it is working :(

One of my kids went to see him at the new house last week (he's only just got the keys so they're not living there yet) and she came home and was distraught about the fact that there are boxes everywhere, that his oven didn't work properly, that it was all dirty and he was 'all on his own'. She said he didn't seem like his normal self. He is acting very 'woe is me'.

My house is lovely, but a lot of that is because I have made it lovely - when I got the keys three months ago it was really dirty inside but I have cleaned and cleaned and decorated most of the rooms myself. The previous owners had stripped it, there weren't even any curtain poles. I've had to do everything myself - hours of graft - and have had a lot less support than he has - because it was 'my choice' (sure, I really wanted the heartbreak of my marriage failing and my family breaking up).

you may feel less guilty if you acknowledge just how bad it was and share the truth about his behaviour with your family & friends

I haven't done this. Partly because I don't think it's fair on the children to go slagging their dad off to everyone, but also because like a lot of EA men everyone else thinks he's lovely and I don't think they'd believe me anyway. He comes across as Mr Nice Guy to the rest of the world, including my family. And I don't want to give him another stick to beat me with.

My mum is toxic, I've read all the books on narc mums and that is her all over. She can't bear that I've left him when she's stuck it out with my dad not being very happy for years. She thinks I 'don't deserve' a home paid for with 'his' money (never mind that I was at home looking after his kids for years).

Doctors don't earn a huge amount for what they do. When I start working I will have spent five years doing a gruelling course at my own expense (I will have big debts, like all the medical students apart from a few little rich kids). I'll get 23K a year - the same as a newly qualified teacher who has had generous grants for their training - for massively more hours and very little leave. If I make a mistake or an omission someone might die.

I'm not doing it for the money and I don't think anyone would. Still you wouldn't want your doctor to be 'in it for the money' would you?

And even the very best cardiac surgeon (something I could never do even if I wanted to) will have a couple of patients die on the table every year just because they do high risk surgery on people who are already very sick. It puts a bad day at the office into perspective. For less than 90K. Of course it's a high salary in general terms, but not for what they do. Hugh Laurie gets 3x that per episode that he pretends to be a doctor.

As for bankers, it was the greed of the banking industry and taxpayers having to bail out the banks that gave us the recession which is making everyday life such a struggle for so many of us. And the City bonuses are still ridiculous (many of them getting 10x what a cardiac surgeon earns in a year).

I've had a crap time and it made me cry that people think my thread is a 'joke'.

silver I'm really sorry you are newly separated at Christmas too, it's really hard, isn't it?

Thanks very much to everyone who's been kind and Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas tired

I left an abusive husband and it took a while for the guilt to leave. It does get better, honest.

My life is so much better and full of possibility again. I'm at uni (aged 41) studying a subject I love, and have a supportive husband.

Good luck with your studies!

"I don't think it's fair on the children to go slagging their dad off to everyone,"

Telling the truth isn't 'slagging off', it's telling the truth. Everyone will continue to be mystified by the split and buy the image he's presenting of the 'woe is me' essentially decent guy that was let down so badly by you, the terrible, ungrateful woman ... until they know something of the real story. That is going to include your children incidentally. They may choose not to believe you but at least you've had your say. You don't have to be malicious about it.

But Cog so much of it was so subtle it's hard to explain to anyone...

He was really passive aggressive. Would be cold and distant, I'd know I'd 'done something wrong' and would beg him to tell me. He'd say nothing was wrong, that I was imagining it. Then after four days of anxiety, begging, in tears with worry he would say something like 'well I was pissed off when I got home and there were a load of dirty dishes on the worktop'. This when I had two toddlers at home.

Or coming home and hardly speaking to me but just silently restacking the dishwasher because I hadn't done it right.

Sniping and criticism, all low level, but constant. 'Joking' that I was untidy, or a crap cook, or a bad driver etc. I don't think I'm any of these things.

Generally not being loving to me while he lavished affection on the children. That was the worst, it was really painful.

And putting everyone else first - his family, our friends, the neighbours, as if they were all better/more important than I was.

He still won't accept that he did this. And if I ever tried to complain about it at the time he gaslighted me.

I spent my whole time trying to please him or maybe just not piss him off.

Most of 'my' friends know all this. They're pleased I got out. But none of 'our' friends, his friends, his family think I'm anything other than a crazy witch.

A lot of them have ostracised me and I know he likes this as he thinks it's my just punishment for leaving him and 'destroying our family'. And if they think this, it confirms his own belief that it's all my fault.

I can't win and I'm a people pleaser and I mind so much being misunderstood.

I guess I just have to let it roll off me.

Thanks for your help anyway, and Happy Christmas :)