I just can't piece it all together

[cleanbreak2022]

All of you were wonderful on my last threads about my DP who left and presented a mental health crisis, turns out he had moved in with another woman.

I'm struggling, really struggling. I can't make sense of it all. So many questions going around my mind.

When did he fall out of love with me?
When did he decide this new life was better than the one we built over 15yrs?
How can you live with someone after 3 months of knowing them?
From her point, how can you move in with someone you have only known 3 months and never met their friends or family?

I want him to regret it, to ask me back, just so I can say no and hurt him the way he has done me.

I gave him some of my best years, he wasn't a great partner, but I always felt he loved me. That I could have depended on.

I can't listen to my kids laugh and play without crying.

When does it all stop. I haven't had any contact since Wednesday last week and a part of my wants to pick an argument just to see what he's doing.

I had no idea how much my family 'unit' meant to me. I see posts thinking about divorce and separation and I just want to post 'don't do it!'

I don't know if I can pick myself up, I just want to go back 6 months ago, before this nightmare started, and tell him I love him but I can't and I'll never do it again

I am so sorry you are going through this. You can get through this and its normal to go over and over and over in your mind of the what, why's and where's. It will exhaust you. Finding out that it wasn't a mental crisis but him just being in the throws of an affair and trying to get out of the marriage sends them like this. I suspect the relationship has been going on for a lot longer but that is of no significance now. Many of us have been in your shoes and you must take one step at a time. You will recover, you will become strong again and I know you wont believe it but you will lead a better life again. So, for now, one day at a time, try and get some individual counselling to deal with all your thoughts and try and book something, even if its once a month, just for you, so you have something to look forward to. You are still a family unit. Just that its you and the children now. Good luck OP.

@litterbird thank you. It's definitely 3 months, they met in October and it tallies with his change in behaviour.

When all I said and done I loved us. My beautiful little family. That's been destroyed. My darling baby won't know what it is to have a family and my beautiful boy knows what it feels to loose one.

I would have never done this. I just want my life as I knew it, the good. The bad and the ugly. I want my stability, I want Christmas Day and Easter.

I just want it all back

OP

You are hurting because he let you down. You are in pain right now.
In a while you won't be in pain so much as angry and by then the answers to your questions will not matter at all.

What is important right now is that you take each day as it comes. Do not beat yourself up over a situation you have no control over and cannot change.

He has lied and cheated on the person who loves him. That love does not die the moment you find out what he has done, but you will realise eventually that he is not worth it and you will emerge stronger than before.
In the meantime. try and focus on your children. I am sorry this has happened to you. better it happens now than say in ten/twenty years time when you have less chance of moving on/meeting someone better.

I know this ireally hard, but you are imaging scenarios that don't exist... Your children still have a family. I was a single parent for several years and I didn't feel any less 'family' than when I was married. Single parents provide just as much 'family' as 2 parents do.

Also, Christmas and Easter will still happen!

Your children will be absolutely fine. They will follow your cues, so unless you tell them that their life is somehow 'less' it won't dawn on them to think that.

You can make a lovely life with your DCs. For now you have the hurt of a relationship break-up to deal with, and that is awful for you. But believe me - there is no reason why your family life post break up can't be just as happy. (Mine got better!)

I'm not sure I agree with the pp about scenarios that don't exist. I do still feel sad on Xmas morning when its just me and the kids and their dad is miles away with his other family. However, she is right that there is life and light after this kind of bombshell - it just takes a lot of time and there's no real skipping over that. OP I am so sorry, but try not to frame it in terms of why is she better than me / us / the family. Its not about that. Its about what she represents - a time in his life when he was an available, attractive, footloose bloke who could come and go as he pleased. Married, family life has many wonderful things to recommend it but it is also boring, relentless and selfless, if you're doing it right and some people just give in to the opportunity to skip out, if it presents itself. It will take time to work out how involved he is going to be and what contact will look like but over time it will sort itself out. Allow yourself to grieve, be cool and detached, no begging, as far as he is concerned and don't be surprised if the person speaking to you from your husband's mouth is a total stranger - they do a total 180 at times like this. Hang in there, get lots of real life support.

This was me 3.5 years ago. Id say the last 18 months I have really felt truly happy and relieved it actually ended. Before that I was going through the motions and had all the same questions. Karma bit my ex right in the arse after a while too, that did help with the healing process

Its a long road but you will get there.

Closure comes not with getting answers to these questions, but in being ok with never knowing.

You can't ever understand why he did what he did, because there's nothing that would make you do the same thing. It's unintelligible to you, and that's a good thing, because it shows how different you are from him.

Closure comes with 'I'll never understand how anybody could do what he did, it's too horrible for my realm of understanding.'

Things get destroyed all the time, but nature dictates that new things come in their place. You are in charge of what comes in place of your beautiful little family. You can have a tortured few years of wondering 'WHY WHY WHY' or you can start to build something else beautiful instead. You're the boss. Many of your best years are still to come, but only if you choose them to be.