Best advice for getting over it when your DH leaves you?

[HeatherinSeptember]

My DH left me just before Christmas and I am still pining for him.

I know he isn't coming back, he was a great DH but his method of leaving and the way he treated me when he wanted to end the marriage was appalling. I know I must get over this and move on but I am not sure how.

What I want to know is how to stop loving him and missing him. I get angry at myself for missing and loving someone who was so disloyal and didn't care about how I felt but it won't go away.

We have been no contact (on my request) for a couple of months now but this also hasn't made it better.

I'm fairly young still, we didn't have kids together, I have a good job and I know I am free to make a new life but my heart has a mind of it's own.

Sadly, I was the kind of person who believed deeply that marriage is a commitment for life and I have a deep psychological barrier to "letting go" or to believing I can love someone again the same sort of way. I feel a very deep sense of grief and loss than seems endless!

Are there any tips, tricks, words of wisdom or personal stories anyone can hare to help me get out of this rut I would love to hear them.

Christmas is coming back around and I am only weeks from it being a year since the world crashed down around me and I just want to feel like I am ready for the future and to let go of the past.

How do you do this?

Hello,

I have a post on here about getting over a broken engagement and I had fantastic advice on there. I have ordered some books on Amazon which were suggested on that link about healing and getting over the EA (he was a psycho/narcissist). It was such a huge shock for me, I'd relocated for him. It was like post traumatic stress syndrome. It just takes time and distance to come to terms with.

Posting here has helped so much as well!

The NC thing can make it harder for a time but in the end it will be quicker to heal that way so you're doing the right thing.

I think it will take me at least a year to be fully ok so you're doing fine!

Sounds cheesy as well but try and focus on all the good things you have even list them: job, family, health
And remember, everyone on facebook is NOT having the time of their lives - no-one knows what goes on behind closed doors. Except those of us that read mumsnet!

Would divorcing him help maybe?

Thanks Kirsten123, I'll read both those threads and see what I can take from the advice on those. Sorry to hear about your broken engagement :(

I am in the process of divorcing him or he is me. It was a particularly brutal departure on his behalf. I thought we had a great marriage until the minute he blurted out very calmly after sex on the living room carpet one night that he didn't love me any more and was leaving. I know the shock factor adds to the length of time required to adjust but I suppose no one can believe I am still grieving for someone who treated me like such a heap of shite. I avoid seeing friends and family actually and don't answer the phone.

I just want to be able to be like the strong women on here who say "screw him" (which I know is how I should feel.

Time is one of the biggest factors, you have to have all the firsts without him birthday, holiday and Christmas. You need to make new traditions for yourself.
I found making some new friends who hadn't known me with DH helped too, I joined a choir made new friends and had a regular outing too.

When this happened to me many years ago, I found getting over one man was best achieved by getting under another (or quite a few others in my case)

It's not for everyone but certainly helped me to move on!

Be honest but kind to yourself. The honest truth is your ex wasn't suited to you. He did the decent thing IMO and told you so. He could have had children and cheated on you but he didn't. It just wasn't working for him and you understand that if a relationship is making someone unhappy they should go, right?

It wasn't that you were awful or bad but you just weren't right.

Now be kind to yourself.

You deserve to be in a relationship where the feelings are mutual, you deserve to get back out there on the dating scene and try out some new men! You deserve a future with someone who adores you.

You don't deserve a future with someone who is with you because he is afraid to leave noooooo so try to be happy that you are now free to find the real love if your life!

My 'D'P of 10 years ended our relationship in a similar manner the New Year before last.

The things that helped me:
Going totally, absolutely NC.

• Joining things - gym, choir, Ramblers, music group, learning to dance.
• Volunteering for a charity that means something to me.
• Keeping busy, physically and mentally.

I also did some OD as I knew I could cope with it and wouldn't get involved with muppets. Met up with loads of men for first dates. No one was ever suitable as I wasn't, and still aren't ready for another relationship. But it showed me there are men available to me should I want them.

And keep doing things. Changes and relationships don't happen immediately. The contacts I made doing volunteering, last year, are now paying dividends. Someone I met there invited me to get involved in another activuty that I'm absolutely loving.

It takes time.

Sickoffrozen Thanks, I have seen other people but it was too soon. I was taking out anger at DH onto them and behaving in a way I felt was "nuts" and I just didn't feel ready. Funnily there was one guy I would have really, really liked if the timing had been diferrent. I stayed friends with him and my best friend is encouraging me to give it sic months and revisit that because she thinks there is something special about him. It did give me a sliver of hope I could feel whole again, but the timing was all wrong. I'd quite like to be divorced and healthy as an individual before investing into someone else.

Quitelikely I do know and agree completely with all that, logically that I want to be with someone who wants to be with me. The trouble really is that until that moment on the carpet I thought DH did adore me. He'd only married me a couple of years earlier. He said he was happy. Frequently! When someone blurts something out like that in a way that doesn't add up with any of their words of actions previously it's very hard to accept what they are saying is true, although I know it is. He'd already seen a solicitor before he even told me he was feeling that way.

As for the other stuff, I was motivated at first to do all these things and took up new hobbies and went around doing adventurous things I'd always wanted to do but I think it was some sort of hysterical reaction if that makes sense. I couldn't sit still. When reality set it, this complete sense of inertia hit me of not wanting to do anything or go anywhere. I think people are starting to worry about me.

If time is all it is, and you just have to go through it then I'll have patience and persevere. I'll try and force myself to get up at the weekends and go and see people. I keep hiding away. I know it doesn't help.

I have 2 failed ltr. My marriage of 8 years (we've been divorced 8 yrs now) and more recently my 6 yr relationship with my (ex)partner - who I truly loved. He was a bit of a control freak and not nice to my kids. I ended it last December, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done!

I joined the gym/went to exercise classes, went out with friends whenever I could, joined my local Meetup group and also did a bit of OLD. I'm enjoying my own company, keep busy and am quite happy.

I went NC (although we still own a property together) as I feel its the best way!

It's his 50th birthday today and I knew I'd moved on when it was lunchtime before I'd remembered!

Time heals!

Time & no contact are key - NC has really worked for me though I didn't want to do it for the longest time...
The thing about being busy all the time is you still have to process it all sometime which I guess is what you are doing
It WILL be better :)

Hi Heather,

You're welcome.

Don't worry about not being the "screw him" strong woman. You will be, in time. You will help someone else in the future!

Yours sounds a very cruel and shocking end. You have been bruised and traumatised. You probably don't really understand what happened (I didn't with mine) and that makes it harder to come to terms with. But you just have to accept that some things, you will never understand.

On one of my other threads, someone told me that "you are trying to reconcile the wonderful man he was at the start with the psycho he turned out to be ... and that is impossible".

I too am slightly dreading the dark nights, Christmas, etc. I'm looking forward to the Spring already!

Try and make yourself the best version of yourself you can be to get your confidence up.

You are taking a while to get over him because you loved him, that says lots about you. If you were over him in 5 minutes that would be shallow!

I think I will be more cautious next time too. But that's ok! That will give your new partner (in time!) the chance to prove himself.

A lot of us on here are older, sadder and wiser than we were last year.