Struggling to stay positive...

[heron1000]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, and I'm sorry about the length, but here goes...

I was with my ex partner for 2 1/2 years. I am 43 and infertile, need IVF with egg donor to conceive. We had a wonderful relationship, both thought we'd had eventually found the right person. We decided to try for a child and in the last 6 months did two rounds of IVF with egg donor. Both failed.

We got the results of the last one the Wednesday before Xmas. We were both devastated. From that day onwards my partner just went totally distant and we hardly spoke to 2/3 days. To cut a very long story short he then, completely out of the blue and completely out of character announced that, actually he didn't feel the same and our relationship was over! This was 2 days before Xmas. He turned into the most cold, callous person ever. As you can imagine, Xmas/New Year etc was the worst time of my life. I thought I was just dealing with the IVF failing so to have all this on top was almost too much to bear.

I know many of you will be thinking it is just an extreme reaction to the IVF etc but it isn't. He admits it was a reaction at the time but he stands by it. He said it made him think about us, what we had/didn't have and decided that it was best to end it now as he didn't feel the same anymore.

There was absolutely no warning. Up until this he had been as loving/supportive as ever, we were talking/planning our future etc etc.

To anyone that meets him he is the perfect gentleman. The ultimate nice, decent guy.

I personlly think what he did was hideous. I know I'm biased but I don't think a 'normal' person would have done that. I can understand if the relationship had been deteriorating but it hadn't, in any way.

We don't have any contact now, that is what he does, goes totally cold. As soon as he can, he will up and move away, possibly to another country.

Don't get me wrong, even though I love him more than I can say (well I love the person he was before he did this) I would never take him back (not that that is an option) because, hard as it would be, I have more respect for myself than that.

It is just I am struggling to stay positive. Feel like I am dealing with several big things all at once - the sudden inexplicable break down of the relationship with who I thought I was with for life, the IVF failing, dealing with the fact that I will never now conceive a child (would not want to IVF on my own etc and even if I met someone down the line would not do it at that age), have nowhere to live (sold my house to move in with him. We were doing a big old house up together, I invested lots of money (which he is not now being very pleasant about sorting), and months and months of labour on renovating it. Basically put my heart and soul into it. My stuff is in storage and am staying with my sister. So will have to start again from scratch buying a house etc, the thought of which makes me feel ill at the moment.

Not sure what response I'm after really, just somewhere else to air my feelings I suppose! I have a handful of very good friends, one in particular who has been a tower of strength and supportive.

I keep having good talks to myself, I know there are far worse things that happen to people and none of what I have been through is life threatening etc. I know deep down I am a strong person, and ultimately I will not let this eperience define me or ruin my life. Just struggling a bit at the moment to stay positive. I look to the future and see....nothing. Can't see the point sometimes. You try to be a decent person and then just get s**t on.

xx

No great advice but I empathize, have seen people seemingly change personality. It takes a long time to recover. But you will. I suppose he must have had a twatty side from the start, noone shows their shitty self straight away. He's obviously not such a great person in reality

thanks for replying joblot.

It's OK, I know there's nothing anyone can say really. And I know he's turned out to be not that nice a person, just hard to reconcile that with what he was before and all the memories I have.

time is the only healer

xx

Time and distractions. And I find gin and tonic quite helpful too.

Maybe some counseling would be useful especially given the children issue, I imagine thats a big part of your grief

Good to have friends but sometimes a neutral person and/or forum can assist particularly with the stuff that's hard to admit to- could be guilty of transference here, just know I find these things helpful at horrible times

I wonder if he is having an affair - this seems to be the usual reason for a man suddenly falling out of love, becoming cold and distant.

Other red flags include being possessive with his phone/laptop and picking petty arguments to make you look bad (to justify his cheating).

Hi MadAboutHotChoc

Thanks for your reply.

The one (and only!) thing I am certain about is that there is no-one else involved. It's hard to explain on here how I am so certain but there is no doubt that noone else is involved.

He is a strange character. Like I said, on the surface he is the perfect gent, full of manners etc but underneath he has this really cold callous side.

My father actually sent him a letter, not nastily worded or anything, but telling him what he thought of his behavioue etc. He replied to my dad saying things like 'have you never loved anyone so much you would do anything for them? But we lost everything, the IVF had become to define us and we stopped living. I fell out of love with us.'

We'd only done two cycles of IVF, during the last 6 months and yes, it does take over your life a bit but I think normal, mature adults accept that, realise it is hard but that it won't last forever (we had said we would try it 3 times max). I suppose I have to look at it differently and maybe think lucky escape - if 'stopping living through doing IVF' made him fall out of love then what the hell would he have been like if a baby had come along and consumed all our time?!

Still very difficult though. Am trying to think about the negative things about him rather than the nice memories before this happened

x

If I were you, I think I would sort out the practicalities, ie the house issue. If you don't have a solicitor already, get one.

This will help you to move on in a practical sense, and will also give you something to focus on.

Also, perhaps some counselling would help? You have had a lot of horrible things happen, in a short space of time. Perhaps someone to help you work through them would be useful?

Thanks Sanity

I have thought about counselling and I certainly wouldn't rule it out. Feel like I'm steadily improving without it at the moment. I am a strong person and have a couple of friends who I speak to all the time, they are very bright people with their heads on straight and are full of brilliant advice. But I wouldn't hesitate to go to counselling if I felt I was at that stage.

Hearing what people on here have to say is very helpful too, hence why I posted.

There is about £6k oustanding to me now, which should (I hope) be repaid when his house has sold.

Have done the typical pulling myself to pieces and thinking 'If I'd done this/that, hadn't done this etc etc' things might have been different. Logically I know that is daft, but when you're emotionally involved it's hard not to analyse yoruself to death and find fault isn't it.

Thanks for your post.

xx

That thing about the IVF defining you is a sound bite, a convenient excuse.

To be blunt he sounds like a cold hearted, horrible man and my immediate thought on reading your OP was narcissistic traits. Narcissists find it very easy to switch off from relationships when things go wrong as they were never fully engaged in the first place. The reluctance to sort the house and money side of things indicates this too, he has simply switched off.

I suspect that the more you think about him now you are finished the more unpleasant personality traits you will be able to come up with.

I think you have been crapped on from a great height, I sympathise with the starting over with nothing, I have been there. I still don't have much but I am happier than I was. Things do get better.

Thanks for taking the time to reply akaemmafrost, it really does help to hear other people's thoughts.

I relate to, and agree with, what you have said. That is exactly what he does, switch off. When things go wrong he (in his own words) 'shuts down and completely changes his life' which will include moving away.

And you are right, I have been able to come up with some traits I don't like in him, but accepted at the time. Nothing major, he wasn't abusive or anything, just little traits - mainly the cold, callous side when it came out.

Other things - he is 40 years old and whilst has had a few previous relationships, I am the first one that has got to anything like this level. Most of the rest have lasted a matter of months and I think he finished most of them (maybe all) for various reasons thet they weren't quite right. Perhaps that says something about him too??

I know things will get better in time, just fed up with going tthrough the time it takes to get there (again! have been through crap a few times).

but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger hey?! And as my dear old mum says 'what's meant to be never passes you by.'

thanks for your message

xxx

Oh Heron. I am so sorry that you have gone through this. Without projecting and telling too much of my story (I've posted at legnth in the past) my ex-DH left me in the middle of IVF after 6 years together - to me - out of the blue (turned out in his case was OW but I did not find out about this for many months although suspected) and like your DP blamed the IVF (non-traumatic) and previous pregnancy losses on pulling us apart.

I am extremely fortunate in that we had a DS (then 2.5) but I remember very well (and 2 years later still sometimes feel it) the feeling of your life imploding and having to get your head around the fact that the plans that you had for your life have been definitively de-railed. In my case it was to come to terms with only having one child (lucky I know to have one), being compelled to stay in a different country away from family and friends after just 2 years here, plus the money issues you talk about as similarly I had sold my own house and put everything into our joint life.

It sounds like you are doing incredibly well and that you are indeed a strong woman. I think I am too but I'm not ashamed to say that for a while I was entirely on the floor.

What I would say is that whilst it is great to be strong and focused - and you sound like you have exactly the right attitude to get through this and go onto amazing things - please don't feel like you are being 'weak' if you have moments when things get too much. I personally found it helpful to 'allocate' myself periods of time (shortened over time) when I 'allowed' myself to feel as dreadful as I liked before pulling myself together. To some degree there is merit in feeling what you feel till you don't feel it at all. Similarly, I did the same thing - again rightly so - in terms of counting all my blessings as of course many people are in worse situations as you point out but you are allowed to feel sorry/bad for yourself as this is your life and you have had a shitty hand dealt to you and if it takes time it take time.

My ex DH sounds scarily like yours. I had not joined the dots put post break I can see that he just walks away from his friends/life/country when things are less than perfect, starts again and - no doubt - will set himself up to fail again. It has been very confronting though to deal with the fact that someone that I essentially bet my life on wasn't the person I thought he was. As a reasonably intelligent woman this was very very hard to process - in fact it sometimes still hits me although in my situation I think the recovery has been a bit longer as I was isolated from family, friends and previous career etc.

Another thing I found helpful in terms of getting over things and him is - without sounding maudlin - write down the quite dreadful things he did and said post split (he was actually fairly lovely when we were married in terms of how he was with me - he then appeared to transform into this monstrously cold, callous and nasty human being overnight in manner of very badly written soap opera that I would previously have written off as far fetched and purely fictional and file away so that when I had the 'oh I miss him' moments I could remind myself what a callous prick he turned out to be.

I have no doubt that you will be fabulous again Heron but give yourself a break and don't discount the counselling. I went a few times but felt I was strong enough to deal with on my own but with the benefit of hindsight I think I might have benefitted from further sessions....everyone is different though.

Good luck my love.

Thanks so much for your detailed reply downunderdolly (am assuming Oz?!) - your name struck a chord, a couple of my friends and I call each dolly, term of affection!

Yes your ex sounds very similar and so I can totally empathise and am so, so sorry that you too have been through this, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I too was absolutely on the floor, I didn't eat for days, tried to eat some xmas dinner at my sisters (for the sake of my parents) but nearly choked on it - one of the things I hate him for most is that my elderley parents have had to see me in the state I was in.

I agree totally with you, whilst I am feeling stronger at times, I also allow myself to wallow and throw little pity parties every now and then! I think you have to allow yourself to feel rotten and go through the various stages of grief (as that is what it is) to recover - if you skip a step it will come back and bite you on the bum later on!

I have a couple of great friends who, in effect, counsel me. They talk through it over and over with me and it helps me massivley, I genuinly do not know where I would be without them. and this makes me think it must have been SO hard for you to be isolated. Do you have a life for yourself there now? Friends etc?

I would never rule out counselling and, if I feel the need, will definately go.

How funny (not quite the right word but you know what I mean!) you mention a soap opera. When my sister went back to work after xmas, one of her friends asked if she'd had a good Xmas. She told him what had happened, she said his mouth dropped to the floor and he said 'I asked if you'd had a nice Xmas, not what horrific soap opera you've been watching!'

Thanks so much for replying

xx