“He says OW was just lovely to be around and cheerful and kind every day. Not like me apparently.”
But SHE also only got the best of him! She didn’t get his sour moods, have to wash his skiddies, put up with his snoring etc
Very easy to romanticise a person when you’re only seeing one facet of them.
It’s why even in a normally progressing relationship you understand that living with them is when you really start to get to know them!
I didn’t live with my ex until we married purely as he was in the army and that’s how it happened logistically. I swear that 1st year of living with someone can quite understandably almost lead to murder! I was very used to living alone and doing things my way, he was used to sharing with others to a degree but also used to things being pretty slobby as he was living with other army blokes. It was definitely a learning curve.
There’s also a train of thought that you don’t really know someone till you divorce them! There’s some truth in that too.
“Her dh knows but seems not to care - publicly at least.” That suggests to me this is not her first affair. Also the swearing your dh to secrecy. She seems to have thought ahead on a lot.
“Can I just ask people who have been in similar position (ie newly separated) what they do at weekends?”
When I was in that position dd was little so initially it was doing things with her in the days - parks, swimming, soft play, but also as I was working full time weekends were necessarily taken up with housework, household admin and food shopping though I kept as much of that as possibly to the evenings when she was in bed.
But also in the evenings I would phone and chat to my grans and aunties, sometimes evenings out with friends if I could manage a sitter, nothing too wild just meals out, Cinema, theatre, Live shoes and comedy, even bingo nights.
As dd got older I had more and more freedom to do things without her if I chose but certainly when she hit teens she didn’t really want to be hanging with mum anyway of course! So then I started doing more in daytimes at weekends. I wasn’t working by this point due to ill health, but I still was able some of the time to do the things previously mentioned. I’d also get some exercise - walking with friends, swimming. I joined some meet-up groups, had a book group at one point, I’ve been in choirs, quiz groups etc.
My health has meant at times I’m restricted, currently I’m housebound as a result which is far from ideal yet even now there’s a certain level of contentment in being able to please myself with what and when I eat, what I watch, I can play games on my phone, mn as much as I want.
You don’t have to be doing things with other people to be doing something enjoyable for you.
I also enjoy things like reading, knitting, cross stitch, puzzle books...
At various points I’ve also dated but it’s not necessarily been serious, some well meaning friends and family tried to “encourage” me into dating soon after the split but I wasn’t ready for a few years, it took me a while, some less judgmental friends & family and a few disastrous dates where I all but escaped out a window to realise that it was actually ok that I wasn’t ready.
Helped to discuss such things with other friends I met at this time who were also recently separated, some were happy to dive right back into dating and others took varying amounts of time to be ready. Everyone’s different.