2little - ditto. our circumstances differ but this really stood out:
It's about me, my life, will I regret putting my babies first - nope, will I regret being the bigger person throughout this - nope
YES.
My regrets revolve round asking myself WHY did I stay as long as I did? Why did I believe the words he said when his actions never lived up to them? Why did we have to go through the same shit (gambling, lies, financial bullying, basically) again again again and again? But do I regret calling time? No. Do I regret enforcing the destruction of the family? No. How can I when I lived with someone who clearly despised me, and didn't hold back from his feelings when with our children?
what example would I be setting to say to them that it's ok when someone treats you that way or it's ok to treat someone else that way because you just get to carry on as normal?
I hated that part of what our life together was like. The absolutely awful example of relationships that we both were setting. I felt guilty, out of control, powerless, angry. The children could see that and it just made me hate myself and the whole thing more and more. In the end, the gambling killed the marriage but one of the final straws was hearing my 5 year old son speak to me in the same vile, disrespectful manner, using the same abusive words, as his father had to me.
Someone at work today asked: do you think you can patch it up? I laughed like a drain. NEVER. I don't want to. I couldn't. Because for all the stress, pain, difficulty, uncertainty of the last 5 and a half months, at least now we're not living in deception. We aren't lying. We aren't trying to convince ourselves, or each other, that it's ok, that we can cope, we can tolerate it, we do want to be together... no, we don't, we can't, we haven't been, and at least now we both have a chance. Not that I care tuppence for his chances, save for how his life and happiness affects our children, but for my chance.
I'm in limbo right now, and I am not coping with the stress of it one bit. I'm being pretty self-destructive, but in the midst of intolerable pain I don't know what else to do. The issue is not my stbx-husband, he's moved out, and his girlfriend has dumped him, so I don't even have the anxiety over that to contend with. It's my own living circumstances. The sale of the former marital home completes on Monday, so I've been packing boxes like a maniac. Stbx cherry-picked what little bits and bobs he wanted, and left me with everything else. All the children's things. The responsibility of getting rid of stuff neither of us wants. Settees. Washing machine. The responsibility of closing accounts for everything. It's been a massive job, I'm exhausted, alone, resenting having to do it all alone yet feeling a perverse satisfaction in having done it all alone. I'm in the process of buying (a share of) a flat for my boys and me but it's happening extremely slowly, and I've been almost insane with the terror that it's going to fall through. We are having to move in with my parents on Monday, for god knows how long, so there'll be 3 adults, 2 small boys and a 17 year old blind cat in a 2-bed retirement flat... the thought does not fill me with glad tidings of joy.
I just feel so on the edge that the smallest disappointment or stress tips me right over and I over-react horribly. I can't seem to talk myself down from the edge. I've been seeing my GP, and have an appt for an assessment a week on Monday, I have to do something because the anxiety is corroding my soul.
rozalia - this also stood out to me today:
I realised that nobody else was going to look after me so I had better do a good job of it. Make your own priorities and don't let anyone else decide them
I'm trying so hard! But so excruciatingly aware that although the outside world sees me coping and strong, when I'm alone I fall apart. I have one friend who knows 95% of what I feel, and he's been amazing, but even he can't grasp the agony. Which is frustrating, and adds to my distress. I actually think I could look after myself - but in the moment, I go nuts. Carving out a happy, fulfilling existence is going to be a big task, it's something I've not done all my life, and the stress of divorce and the loss of that relationship serves to highlight my own lack of foundations. So while I am so happy to be moving on and away from him and everything (except the children) that went with him, I am left, starkly, with myself and my own - inadequate, ie completely crappy, coping methods.