Good morning everyone,
Having never had the need to think, let alone write about things of this nature before I'm hoping that there are some pearls of wisdom out there that could help me with my situation.
Having been married for 30 years, together for 34, my wife decided to just get up and leave shortly after the lockdown started, which came as a total surprise to not only me, but also my two girls, who were 17, 22.
Hopefully, without it sounding like malice, she has always been a bit cold-hearted, which I recognised early on and we accepted, as the years went on this grew into constant accusations of infidelity and worse, but I stayed accepting that I would have to trade off being in love, but never being loved, sad? Maybe, but I'm a realist and accepted that she was who she was and I made a promise.
In any case, as the years went on, she because almost disconnected, but not cruel in the true sense, but certainly violect to me under certain circumstances, broken ribs, broken nose, dislocatec fingers etc.
You know, looking back, and writing it now, maybe I should, could've, would've left had she not have made it clear that she would have said and done anything to make sure I was kept from the kids.
So. there we were, sitting in the house last year wondering what the bloody hell was going on, not contact, no explanation, apart from some dire email about although she's not with us we still live under the same sky! really? We would've preferred the same roof but haho.
Not knowing where she went, we did the usual thing, contact family, the kids tried to call to talk to her, but they were left unanswered apart from the odd text to say she was fine, but not saying where she was, of course there waso only one conclusion wasn't there, another guy, gal, or other on the scene.
Eventually she emailed me to say that there was no one else and that she needed me to deal with whatever, in other words being given the brush off, but still we didn't know for sure where she was.
This was the time my two girls started to push family to find out more, the youngest reached out to the part of the family where she thought she'd be hiding out, not to her mums sister but the cousin who she had grown up around, yet she was just told that they weren’t allowed to say where she was.
This was quite unsettling given that we all came away thinking that she must be in fear of something, me maybe? Not likely, I was heartbroken but still not mad enough to cause her any harm, and up until that point I had been the punch bag not the sparing partner.
Not getting stuck around the detail, as it gets worse, the kids eventually start having some contact after six months of no contact, the eldest being a tad more forgiving, yet the younger not so much.
Suffice to say that the relationship was strained, and all through my grieving process I had to step up and be the parent, which I muddled through with and we’re okay, not happy or over the shock, but okay.
My main concern now is the youngster, she’s been left with a lot of residual issues to do with her mum leaving, I should say that she lives with me and happy to continue doing so. But between her and her mum, it’s challenging. Whenever they talk on the phone it normally ends with her being very upset after saying I just want my mum, again heart-breaking. The mums reply, you want the person I was, not the person I am? WTH/WTF?
You have your child crying on the phone and you say something like that, personally I can’t think of a single situation whereby the needs of a parent outweigh the needs of one’s child, but because of the upset that the poor kid is faced with I spend a vast amount of time trying to reason out why she shouldn’t give up, also finding that I’m trying to cover, explain and excuse the wife’s behaviour, which I accept is something I should do, after all we’re taught a girl needs her mum, but it seems the mum doesn’t needing the girl.
Obviously setting my own feelings aside, I can’t seem to think of what advice to give her beyond keep typing, but she’s getting the point of where she’s saying I don’t want to, and if she can’t be bothered then neither can I.
I’m at a total loss, and as for having to stuck up for the wife, I think it’s a bit perverse, but for the same of the kids, I’ll keep it going, I’ll hold off dealing with my anguish until I know that they’re okay and I can try to reason it, and the ex out of my life.