Meeting someone else after a difficult divorce - is it too late for me?

[thisishard2]

Divorcing my very difficult - stonewalling - controlling husband. We could have settled before Xmas but he is uncooperative and verbally intimidating. We are estranged but in the same house for the time being. He spends some nights away every week.

I am in the middle of the most awful grief and anxiety. He was my first and only boyfriend and we have been together 22 years.

To make matters worse, after trying to get me not to go ahead with the divorce in around October - not by dealing with any of the issues but by saying mostly manipulative things like he will be dead soon and everything will be mine - since at least Xmas, he has been making long and intimate sounding phone calls very late at night. So I take it that he has met someone else or they have been around for ages but now he can be open about it, which makes me feel like shit. Hearing the sounds of his conversations.

I cannot imagine being with anyone else. In any case I am 49 now - is it all over for me? I really do not know what to do with myself - I just feel ashamed, humiliated and not good enough. Really I wanted things to work out with my husband and cannot imagine being with anyone else. Maybe I am too old in any case and need to focus on other stuff?

I am still fantasising that he is going to say sorry about some of his awful past behaviour, and then try to properly repair things . But he never wanted to relate to me as an equal, he called the shots - so why would any of that change?

His nice side is/was very nice, and that is what I feel so sad about .

Also, since this whole divorce thing started he has gone back to some of the behaviour I am divorcing him for in the first place - including shouting at me and calling me names - including stupid bitch, stupid cow, thick, stupid in general, fucking lazy bum, vindictive - so you'd think that would cure some of my grief, but it hasn't .

FWIW his is a very common line of defence. Apparently supporting XHs career, relocating to another part of the country for his career, supporting him changing jobs right after said relocation, taking total responsibility for raising children, home and all that entails, so he can have his big career and model family, counted for nothing.
Ignore his words. Do not enter into a dialogue about it. Mediation or solicitors.

I found that setting firm boundaries was the single most important thing I did. (It’s where the counselling helped enormously.)
Do not engage. Do not discuss. He will, I am sure, make demands, when they don’t work will play on your empathy and try to charm you into submission, and when that doesn’t work, aggression can be the next step.

Keep modelling sensible, adult behaviour for the sake of your children. There will be times you feel he has broken you. He hasn’t, you are just gathering your strength.

Be the parent who is consistent and measured. Be calm but be firm. It’s incredibly hard, but you will move forward.

Whilst he’s speaking about money have you got your affairs in order? Bank statements and assets? Pensions? Might be worth having someone take a look at the pension situation. Women pensioners who are divorced often live in poverty after the break down of a marriage because they haven’t been able to secure pension funds, whilst the H has been accruing throughout his career.

So things were fine if I didn't question anything and accepted a life with no affection. For many years I thought he would be more affectionate if I was better at housekeeping. That is kind of what he had lead me to believe, but I think it was a red herring

He sounds bloody awful. The problem here is that he was your first boyfriend, and you have no experience of other men and relationships. This is NOT what a good relationship looks like.

At 49 you have many, many years ahead of you, and you should not be settling for a relationship like this one.

I left a 20 year relationship (first boyfriend also), when I was 38. I met someone else shortly thereafter, and we are now married and very happy. He's a much nicer person than my first H. If I hadn't had the courage to leave my first H, then I would never have been free to meet my lovely DH, and what a tragedy that would be.

I know someone who has found love again recently, aged 68. And my neighbour who is 75, has just found love again.

The thing is, you are never going to experience the true kind of love and a fantastic relationship with someone new, if you stay stagnant in this relationship with an abusive arsehole.

Things will be so much easier when you have your own place, and can shut him out.

Oh and btw, my first H totally re-invented the past when I left him. I think that's pretty common. You literally couldn't make up some of the shit he pulled. He was angry hat I had the audacity to leave him. I suspect your H is the same. How dare you leave him?

At some point in the future, you really will not care what he thinks of you; what he says and has said will not matter. Because really, of all the people in the world, why should you care about his opinion?

That's a long way from where you are now, though, and it's difficult when you're still sharing a house. The best thing to do now is firstly to avoid listening to his opinions of you if at all possible. And secondly, start thinking about what you like about yourself. Write it down, add to it when you want to.

I found it really difficult to stop thinking about my H, what he thought of me, what his reasons were for everything, what had made him like that in the first place, what mood he was in today and so on. It had been my MO for so long, it took a while to adjust.

Five years after leaving him, I really have no interest at all in what he thinks of me. But five years is a long time!

I was in a similar situation

I married my first boyfriend, we had four children together and I told him I wanted a divorce

We shared the same house for almost two and a half years after I told him I wanted to end things

The last 9 months of it were hell

I got my own house last November and the divorce came through at the beginning of January

At the moment I don’t want to date as I need to work on my self esteem

Divorce is very damaging even when it’s you that walked away