Hi all, I am an occasional poster on the Relationship board, but I NCed for this post as I am worried it might be outing for people who know me in real life.
My husband and I separated 10 months ago, after 18 years together (12 years married) and two DC under the age of 10 whose custody we now share 50/50. We are both 44. The relationship had been difficult for over 3 years and we mutually agreed to split up. We both knew it was the right decision. Everything was fairly amicable, but of course still quite painful. We started co-parenting and things were going pretty well, all considered.
I thought I was recovering relatively well from the split, I signed up for clubs and activities, went out with friends, went on a couple of short childfree breaks. I felt quite positive about the future, albeit emotionally bruised from the upheaval of course.
Then three weeks ago, my husband told me out of the blue that he has been seeing a woman for a couple of months. I feel like I am not just emotionally back to square one, but actually feeling way worse than I did when we split.
I know her vaguely as a distant acquaintance. We live in a relatively small city and we have a lot of mutual acquaintances, so I think he was worried someone might see him out with her and tell me. So he told me “out of respect” I suppose. No plans to introduce her to DC at the moment.
She is 15 years younger than us, very attractive, wears fashionable clothes, no children (hence great body), cool job, the whole fucking gamut. Since he told me I have been driving myself mad and completely obsessing over this woman. I can’t help but checking her social media profiles several times a day and I feel terribly jealous. This feeling of jealousy is consuming all my days and nights and it is driving me mental. I feel old, fat and hopeless by comparison. I wonder how I will ever find anyone to move on with.
I have been trying my best to hide my feelings from my husband and “play it cool”, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to be as friendly with him as I was before and we have already had a couple of nasty arguments since he told me about her. I am worried my feelings of jealousy will ruin the good balance we managed to achieve for the sake of our DC.
I don’t want to be this bitter, old woman who can’t accept her marriage is over and move on. I don’t want to feel jealous of my husband’s new gorgeous girlfriend. I don’t want to give a damn!! How do I switch off these feelings? Why has this hit me so badly after I seemingly did well for many months after the separation?
Please help with some words of wisdom!!