Marriage ended after 27 years. This is "My Death".

[mrsmciver]

My husband left 4 weeks ago after I found some dubious e-mails to another woman he works with. I have posted about this on another thread, but still need the support from all you lovely ladies out there.
I asked him to go to his mum's after I went mad screaming and shouting and both of us crying. He went to his mum's, then round to my parents explaining himself and accepting all the blame.
I still let him in the house later that night and we both sat talking and crying about how we would get over this, then he collected some things and went back to his mothers.
I phoned him the next morning demanding the ow mob number but he would not give it to me as he said i would jeapardise his job if she went to his boss. We were both still crying and he asked what to get for his breakfast as his mum only has fried food and he likes to keep fit and eat well so he went to shop to buy that and washing powder for his clothes.
He also came up later that afternoon and we both talked some more. He said he had been very flattered by the attentions of this high powered business woman and had got carried away, swore there was nothing physical.
He told me he would give me her mob number once I had calmed down and to be careful what to say to her as it would cost him his job. he said he would give it to me the next morning whilst on the train as he was away for a few days on a business meeting.
Next morning he phoned and gave me her number, I put it in the drawer as after all the trauma I could not face calling her, was in no state to do so. later that evening after another sleepless night, he phoned sounding like his normal self, and I told him I had not contacted her, but he probably knew that as she would have phoned him if I had.
I then asked him when he was coming home and he said he wasn't. he said it was so out of character for him to do that and that the blinkers had been taken off his eyes and that he must have been very unhappy to have done it in the first place.
I got very upset, begged him to come home, but he won't. He is staying at his mum's. I ended up in hospital after trying to end it all. Can't imagine life without him. And now he wants to settle all our financial affairs and divorce. Am distraught. We have two daughters, one is sitting her Higher exams right now and the other is expecting a baby. They have been so wonderful, they are so strong, told me I am better without him. He had been treating me badly weeks before and I knew something was "off", that was why I had looked at his phone.
He has said he can't forgive me for looking at his phone and have now destroyed all trust. And that I would make his life hell as I would now be paranoid and forever questioning what he is doing.
He says he has no energy left, nothing to give, and that my health problems have drained him. I have anxiety and stress. But it is not as if he was a carer, I did most things for him! He doesn't know what he wants, but he knows he does not want "this.
I am devastated, cannot do this anymore. Have been a mess, shaking stuttering, he was over Frid night and said he is never coming back and that we will be divorcing.
How do I do this? How can I live without him? We have been married for 27 years, ever since we were 15 years old.
I always had a feeling I would die early, in my forties, and this is it, this is "my death", I will never get over this. It is getting worse.

I'm stronger now that's for sure but I really do understand the feeling of being a failure. I just couldn't understand how I had managed to get into that position. I'd feel sorry for myself and think why me? Then I'd feel guilty that I'd put the DC's in this mess with me and then I'd feel bloody angry. Looking back I only ever got anything done when I felt angry .

I kept hoping that he would 'do the right thing' but he never did, he just told everybody that he did. Pillock! I put them right though and still do if I ever get the chance . What's the phrase - Hell hath no fury .....

Mrs. M - No Solost didn't post straight away after her husband left. In the early days he treated her like shit, just like yours is doing. She first posted a few months after the initial crisis.

I feel like an absolute pathetic failure today

..... time to go and look at the post-it note which you stuck on the fridge yesterday!
The whole reason for writing down "today I was awesome" was to get you through the days when you feel absolutely rubbish.

Its OK.
One day this week you will be awesome again. The more weeks that go by, the better the ratio becomes.

I know this must all sound so trite, but truly it is the process that you go through. Don't beat yourself up for feeling low. You have a right to feel awful, and panic attacks are not surprising. All we can do is to hold up a light at the end of the tunnel, and say that ....as with all of us who have posted here ....you WILL get through this, you will be a stronger person after the journey.
I suspect several posters here would agree that they actually became happier people, too ..... however unlikely that may now seem to you.

Not a good day either, feeling that I can't go on, what did I do? Cannot go through my life like this, can't be here, can't live like this. Am bereft.

Am so so scared, how can I do this alone. Miss him so much, there is a gaping hole. Please God help me. Do not want to do this anymore.

mrsm you can do this - I am 2 yrs post divorce (24 yrs married) and know with absolute certainty that I am Mia happier than I ever would have been with him.

Imagine a low level toothache that is not so bad you feel the need to take the tooth out - it just flares up every now and then, but you learn to live with it. Then it gets taken out and once you're over the pain of the extraction you realise how great life is without that contant niggling pain.

I now feel sorry for my ex - he has lost his dcs respect and will never have the kind of relationship with them that I now have - yes I am not as financially secure as I was, I will have to carry on working and at some point downsize from the house I thought I was in for life - but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Right now it looks like my 60's are going to be the best decade yet .

It's all new and raw for you - there are plenty of us who can promise you that it does get better. You will be more thn fine.

Cat, how do you get over that ache for him, miss him so much, terrified of living this life without him. don't know what to do. what do i do? Am sitting here howling, cannot even cry quietly now, it is huge big wails, i have never cried before like that in all my life, didn't know i could make these noises. The pain is unbelievable.

Mrs M
you need to call the GP and ask for an emergency appointment today. Many of us will have had a little help from meds, at this stage.

To help a little ...when your mind screams "how can I live without him", you need to ask yourself "how could I live with him without knowing what
a b he really was" ......"how could he do this to my children"

Its a 'needing to find your anger' sort of a day.

Agree with Mumgran, keep thinking about the things he's done the lies the deceit the letting you and your daughters down . This will help you keep the anger levels up.
I read somewhere about a CBT trick of putting an elastic band on your wrist and when you start to think about then or feel the waves of sadness building ping it. It REALLY hurts!!! But it does distract you from the thoughts , at first I was doing it 100+ times a day , last week I forgot to out it on.!! Btw a hairband is gentler and looks less odd.(:
As someone else said up thread being nasty to you is all part of the script ( to be honest I found it easier than the Mr Nice Guy that will emerge too. The Jekyll / Hyde act )
Keep telling yourself this is the start of chapter 2 ( I'm 45 and 19 years married too , but have 2 good friends who were in the same situation and both soooo much happier now)

Mrs M Sorry you're having such a bad time today, when you're down its really hard isn't it, but MumnGran is right speak with your GP, take all the help you can, your daughters might be grown up but they still need their Mum to be ok.
I guess the reason its so hard, is because you loved your ex so much, now its over you've got to take the time to grieve for the marriage and future you thought you had.
The tip about an elastic band might not sound very sensible but it works, know from experience, as does just get throught each minute, one step at at a time. When you've done one minute, get through the next, and so on.
Sending hugs, wish we could all be together in RL to go through this, lifes hard, but take heart from everyone whose already gone through this, and come out the outher side, with a new happy life :) xx

Thank you all so much. Do not know what I would do without your support. Am on meds now, but still feel my life is over. I remember years ago my sister had a "reading" and the psychic said that her sister would be "bitter". This is it, this is what I am bitter about. There will never be anyone else for me, and it is going to haunt me for the rest of my life now. I will die when i see him with someone else.

Oh Mrs M i know what you mean about never be anyone else for me, i feel the same, except about the husband i knew for nearly 30 years, not the nasty agressive lying man he became in the last few months he lived with us. I thought we were soulmates and together for life, we'd been through the best and worst of times together, but he decided another woman was the way forward for him.

If you've started meds today, they won't be working for a few weeks, so give it time. I've been on them for a while, keep thinking i'll be able to cope without them, so my GP reduces the dose, then i get panic attacks again and feel so down, so i have my dose upped, so i know they are helping me cope, so give it time, sure yours will work for you too. Things are still as bad, but if you can sleep you can cope better the next day, then the more you cope with, the better you cope the next time, You still have down times, but the more you do the better you cope the next time,and can remind yourself that you can cope again.

I've yet to see my ex with his new gf, will its been 18 months that i've known about her, so not so new now, Seems he moved in with her three weeks ago, but thats only from other people, hes not thought to mention it to me or our two youngest sons. Not sure how i'll cope either seeing him with someone else, but i'm determined i'll not spend the rest of my life being bitter over him, think in the beginning you're going to feel like that, it only becomes a problem if you're still like it a few years down the line. I believe totally that you can't build happiness on other peoples's unhappiness, so our ex's will never be totally happy, only time will tell when they miss out on so much whether they will regret ending their marriages and destroying their families.

Sending hugs, you'v made a massive step asking for help and taking the meds, you're on your way to a new life. It might not be the life you'd have chosen, but you'll make the most of it, and do lots of new and different things, with and without your daughters and your new grandchild. x

Joy, wish you lived near me! I can't even imagine 18 months down the line. Am on diazepam but think that is for short term only. My friend took me out for lunch, then another friend came round in the afternoon and we sat in the garden for a little while, then another friend phoned twice then another friend from further away phoned, and family have been phoning too. I really do have people who care. I am now telling everyone that I care about how much I love them and what they mean to me as they are all so brilliant.
I want them to feel valued, maybe that is why he left because he didn't?

Joy5, think you are amazing for getting this far and still coming across as a lovely, warm person, not bitter at all, and after all you and your boys have been through.
Sending you many hugs too. xxx

MrsM, I had to go onto anti D's, after sitting every day and crying and shaking, not eating. I couldn't carry on like that for DD's sake. I thought that I would die of a broken heart. I'm welling up just thinking about it. BUT 12 months on I am still here. I survived. I am still surviving.

I didn't see how I would ever cope without him. I loved him so much. He was my soulmate, my one true love. In reality he has turned out to be a user, a loser and a waste of space.

I still mourn the future that I thought I had but life goes on. It has to when you have a child.

Just go easy on yourself, everything you are feeling is grief and totally normal. You are stringer than you know and you will slowly get through this.

Skye ... you are so right in saying you always mourn the future you expected to have. You mourn for your present, which is certainly not the place you wanted to be, and you also mourn the past which turned out to be a fiction and not what you thought it was at all.
The one upside of "losing it all" is that you can start with a fresh page. It becomes your life again, to live as you will. Yes, usually with iffy finances ....but that was the case when we were just starting out.

People will say, as with any mourning, "this too will pass" ....actually, you just learn not to pick the scab. I buried a son many years ago. The pain of that also never leaves you but the pain does cease to be quite so raw, and you do learn not to pick away at the memory. That won't happen today, this week, or this year. It takes time, but ..... IT DOES HAPPEN! the shock of losing a long term relationship, which you believed to be permanent, is just as shattering.

There is nothing at all wrong with anti-d's. Mrs M ... but they do usually take 4-6 weeks to kick in. You will start by having the odd good day. Then more frequent good days, and you will still be able to function on the bad ones. Then one morning..... a few months down the line .....you realise you haven't taken the tablets for a week and you still feel OK. There can never be an instant fix, but the meds will help your mind to recover. It is shattered......and if it was your arm, you would be having people sign the plaster!

Your daughters will be your strength. Mine certainly were. Suddenly they come into their own as real adults (even the youngest ...mine was only just 18) and all the love and care you have poured out to them over the years is returned 10 fold. Bask in it. You need it right now. Let yourself be loved by them, and if they want to protect you ...let them do that to. Actually, my advice is to involve them with your decision processes from the start. If your choices are an open book to them, as you move through the divorce process, then your AH can never tell them you were "in the wrong" or doing him down. I don't advocate letting them have all your mental overspill (I actually recommend using your counsellor for that) because they don't need to know how badly Mum feels she is falling apart .....but knowing the facts helps, it doesn't harm.

Have you seen a solicitor yet? (I may have missed that on the thread). It really is very important. Its difficult, and I know it sort of "sets the seal" on what is happening, but you have got to protect yourself at this stage. It is absolutely vital that you don't accept anything your AH tells you about finance.....because they lie. All of them! I have not heard of one divorce where the man has not tried to wriggle of responsibility at some stage. Don't listen to the "we can sort this between ourselves and save lots of solicitors fees". You need an expert fighting in your corner!! ....and to make sure he pays for your pain!!

Today is going to be a good day Mrs M ...... and I am starting it off with

Mrs M, I hope today is going to be a better day for you. There is nothing wrong with medication to help you through this, it also sounds as if you have lovely friends around you to love and support you, which is so lucky.

On your question about whether he left because you didn't make him feel valued, please try not to tie yourself in knots thinking about what you could have done differently because the answer is probably absolutely nothing. He hasn't left because of you (how could he, you sound so lovely), but because of him, how he changed, how he wanted something else. Please don't take the blame for this on yourself.

Forgive me if this sounds trite, but it has helped me through a very bad break up - I truly believe that in relationships, fundamentally people will do what they want to do. You can rail against it, fight it, argue, turn yourself into the person you think they want, but people will still do what they want and what feels right for them and there is precious little you can do to influence it. The only thing you can can control is how you react and how you look after yourself and how you recover.

Hold onto your friends and family, hold onto the good days and hold on to your sense of self and you will get through this, it will get easier.

Please have my first ever

Skye and Mumn, could feel myself welling up again reading your posts, thank you so much for that. I am so sorry.
I feel like I am going to die of a broken heart too. So so terrified of the future, nobody to really love me like that anymore. In five weeks my life has fallen apart, am now getting divorced, he wouldn't go for counselling, just do not understand this. And for this to happen at this time in our lives. He has spoilt my eldest daughters pregnancy and my youngest daughters exams.(he will not take the blame for this, he will blame all of this on my hysteria).
And yes he wants to sort out the finances between ourselves to save on solicitors fees, but cannot do that as just don't trust anything he says now, solicitor says not to talk to him as he just wants to control and intimidate.
I really am never going to get over this, I will always be that bitter old woman and he will be away making a new life for himself.

You wil only be a bitter old woman if you choose to be.
He can't blame it on your hysteria if you stop being hysterical.
He can't control and intimidate if you take your solicitors advice.
He doesn't care if you are falling apart, being hysterical, bitter - all those reactions will do to him are to convince him he has made the right decision to leave a needy and insecure woman.

However, if you take control of YOUR life, show him you don't need him to make any decisions for you, show him a strong independent woman, then he might sit up and take notice of what he has lost.

You won't be bitter, you don't sound bitter.

If it helps, to me you sound like someone who has had a terrible shock, who is finding her way through it, slowly and with setbacks, but getting the fundamentals very, very right (seeing a solicitor, reaching out and nurturing relationships with your daughters and friends, seeking medical help when you need it) and you should be proud of what you have achieved in the middle of this.

Of course your DH wants to blame you, make out you are hysterical. It's probably the only way he can face what he has done. But you must not accept the blame and I am sure your daughters know who is to blame.

Please don't let it spoil your grandchild being born, I don't think you really mean that. You will be there with your daughter and he will be on the outside to some extent.

Following on from Penelope's post, an earlier poster said that you need to pretend to be that together, strong, independent woman who is in control until you are. Fake it till you make it.

Lastly, please, please listen to your solicitor. He is right.

Just need to add, 46 is not an old woman, you can't see it now, but look at all the examples on this thread (including mine), let alone the rest of mumsnet, it will be you making a new life for yourself.

Ok Mrs M .... its time for tough love. If you keep writing, and saying that you are never going to get over this, then that may be how it will work out for you. You have to fake it for a while!!!!!

Obviously it feels that way! and obviously you can't help thinking that way some of the time, but what is really important is that you start to say I am going to get over this and start to write I can find a way forward
It is very early days, but you must start training yourself to handle the situation, or you will be walked all over. Each time you say a negative out loud, it reinforces it. Equally, if you can say something positive often enough ....it morphs into reality.
Your mantra now needs to be: I will be OK, because I will damn well show him what I am made of

I am glad your solicitor agrees with what we have all said ... your AH is manipulating things, and you need legal representation. It is part of changing your AH's power over you. And that is the thing you have yet to break in your own mind.

He will never be able to "blame you" ....to anyone who matters. Because the people who matter to you watched what actually happened. That is why I said you should keep your children apprised of decisions as they happen. ALL MEN WHO DO THIS BLAME THEIR WIVES. It is something you just have to live with. It doesn't make it true. It just means that they can't face up to the fact that they do it because they are selfish to the core.

I really don't mean to sound hard Mrs M. But I do, almost, want to annoy you .... because you need to find anger today, and fan the flames of it. It is your salvation right now.

Go find that dignity blanket.....and re-read the note on the fridge!
x

Mrs M please please start accepting that he has been having a full affair for some time.

Once you do that, everything makes sense. But this denial is patently holding you back, especially when it leads to you wondering whether he left because you didn't 'value him enough'.

He left because he had someone else and it really is that simple. You could have done sweet FA to stop that happening - it was his choice to start an affair and leave for another woman. Nothing you did or didn't do could have prevented that.

Stop engaging with him, take your solicitor's very wise advice and start concentrating on the divorce and getting a good one-off settlement so that you can start again. Once you get your own property, he will have no control over it and can stick his demands for garages being built up his arse. It will be both of your responsibilities if you individually decide that your separate homes will have a room available to your daughter and soon-to-be-born grandchild. But don't leave yourself in a position where he still has a stake in your home and can make any demands about what you do to it.

You've got good friends because you are clearly a loveable person who in the past has given a lot to those friends, who are now paying it forward. You've clearly done a great mothering job too.

Don't let one very ordinary weak and selfish man who doesn't possess any of those qualities define who you are or what your life will become.

MrsM - I could have written your posts last year and probably did. I still struggle to accept what has happened, 12 months later, but at the same time, I AM so much better than I was this time last year. You cannot see it now, I couldn't then, but believe me, it will get better.

I have been in utter despair, how could he, why did he.. all the terrible things he said about me, the many many reasons that he gave for leaving. when in reality there was only really one.... the fact that he was infatuated with OW. This woman is married to his best mate of over 30 years. This is what some people are capable of. Complete and utter betrayal of their loved ones.

12 months on, I have my house, my business, my DD and there were times last year when I thought that I would lose everything, including my mind. My anti D's actually started to work quite quickly and I started to feel better. I divorced my XH ASAp because of his history of debt.

12 months on for XH, he is £20K in debt, borrowing money from OW, still betraying his best friend and having to move into a onebed flat as he cant afford his rented house any more.

I have no doubt that I am in the better position, both morally and financially. This will be you in 12 months time.

I did go downhill again after the divorce, a month before Christmas, but I dragged myself up again. I do not want to be bitter and twisted. I am not going to be.

i have had people on here be quite nasty to me because I dont conform to their timeline and their ideas of how long it should take to get over something, but I don't care. i am getting through it in my own way, in my own time.

AND SO WILL YOU. It may not seem like it now, but you will. Read the posts on here from those of us who have been through it. read some of our threads and see how far we have come.

nobody wants to be mean to you, but we KNOW that you WILL be ok. Keep posting, PM me if you want to, but please know that you will be ok in time

God .... I hope I didn't sound 'nasty'
It wasn't meant that way.

We absolutely do all have different recovery timelines - sadly much allied to finance and partner behaviours.
I was just trying to say that half the problem is having nothing left to believe in, so you have to find some way to start believing in yourself - and that finding the facade at MrsM's stage its really important ....because its the point when we are still very much able to be manipulated by the ex, and can end up losing out in a big way.