After all these years, I cannot get over the fact that he ended our marriage.

[greencandycane]

I've NC. I'm embarrassed to admit (I would never admit to friends and family) that I still cannot get over (6 years on) the fact that my husband suddenly,out of the blue, decided he wasn't happy in our 20 marriage, had and affair, and within a few days, was gone.
He never once expressed that he was unhappy.
I wake up every day just praying I won't think about him and his new life. Of course, I do.

Is anyone else in a similar situation whereby they are still crushed/confused/heart broken by the end of their relationship?

Sorry to hear this. I haven't been in this situation but you are certainly not alone and I have many friends colleagues and acquaintances this has happened to and they have been absolutely blindsided and their husband had never mentioned any issues of unhappiness
They are just cowards and spineless and I don't know any who haven't left only when they've found someone else to jump ship to
Please do not see this as a personal failing that your husband was another spineless shit

How much do you think about it? Does it interfere with you getting on with your life and intrude into your thoughts a lot, or is it just something you come back to in quiet moments?

It must have been a huge shock if it was so sudden and you had no inkling.

It might be worth doing some counselling or therapy to move yourself on.

I'm so sorry for what happened to you. You are literally suffering from PTSD. I second therapy. To have someone impartial who you can talk to, cry it out. Do you have children with this man?

It happened to me 28 years ago. I’m still staggered and blindsided by it. It felt like an act of violence.

Totally get this. I don't think about it every day now (around 6 years) but it haunts me.

Mine did exactly the same OP and like you after 20 years. We had everything, the house in the country, large garden, people would laugh about how perfect we were, we had tons of interests we shared and hobbies. Life was never boring.
Then he just dumped me divorce papers in the post. They were nasty blaming me for this znd that. Nobody else involved.
People were shocked to the core. Nobody could believe it.
Anyway I found out much much later he'd had his head turned. He's living with her in some dump up north rented, doesn't have a job and a friend showed me a picture, she certainly is no looker.
Apparently he regrets it and wants his life back but I cant forgive him for the chaos he caused in my life, luckily I kept my house. I owned it before we got .arrived.
We had everything and he ditched it for an affair and now he has nothing. I just can't understand it. I really loved him. I dont any more. But I cant trust anyone again. I completely trusted him and he shit on me. I feel your pain OP.

Yes this.

Honestly I’d seek therapy. My friends mum was like this, the bitterness consumed her life and she never moved on, it was terribly sad. I think we all know someone like this.

id get help so uou can try to heal and move on, living like this must be miserable

My husband (together 20 years) left too out of the blue - ended it over messenger. Left whilst I was out with our young children. In many ways I was "over it" very quickly as having young children has kept me busy but at the same time I don't think I'll ever get over it. I think there will always be feelings of that I, the children weren't enough - or too much - I don't know. I worry about him but at the same time feel nothing, I feel sad but also happy it's all very confusing and complicated

Mind fucked occ in September after 28 years together, 24 years of marriage, abs 6 weeks after our DS completed chemotherapy. Apparently has been unhappy for the past ten years (sometimes he claims to have been miserable and used for as many as fifteen years.

So off he fucked, to the spare room at his mummy abs daddy’s at the age of 54.

Despite him having worked away for much of the past 15 years, I ran a chaotic house and took no responsibility for anything etc.

The rewriting of history by him has been nothing short of incredible.

I sometimes think that the trauma of our DS cancer was too much for him to cope with but in all reality he is probably just a spineless selfish loser riding on the wave of mod life crisis.

We had a lovely life, brilliant kids, everything really but for whatever reason he’s thrown it all away.

Sorry you too are in this position, it is completely traumatic to see the person you had every belief that you would grow old with turn into a complete stranger.

@Fullsomefrenchie - I'm not sure the Op said she is bitter. I suspect it is more akin to ptsd or deep sadness (similar to bereavement).

You can change your thought patterns OP. It takes effort, but it’s possible.
So when you find yourself thinking about him and him leaving suddenly, take a deep breath, allow yourself to finish the thought - yes, that was a hard thing to live through - yes, he treated you badly. Deep breath. Then force yourself to think about something else. Anything else. What’s for dinner? Work? What have the kids got on this weekend with you? Where are you going to take your next holiday? Should you get those shoes you saw?

@Fullsomefrenchie I’m not bitter though. But it destroyed my life, my home, my health and my job, to stay nothing of my children.

Even though it was 28 years ago, I’ll never forget the feeling of it being an act of violence.

Im not bitter or destroyed by it though.

This is vile on so many levels :(

You didn’t even know the man you were with, really - not for him to pull that on you. (I’ve also dealt with a cheater once, grim and total shock)

He didn’t even communicate with you before the exit.. you’re sort of just left there with the shock, and told by him to accept it.

Cheaters are just so scummy for putting your mental (and physical) health at risk. And your family’s happiness!

Any breakup can totally change your life’s expectations and goals. I hope you did well in the divorce to at least not have to see this man, do you still co-parent at a close range?

You have to keep going forward (there’s no other option) but you’re not wrong to feel so upset. You’re grappling with understanding the man who left, and he seems to have given you nothing to go on :( Would recommend therapy if possible, and sending a handhold from here 💐

And by “moving forward”…. do you at least now not think of him all day? Does it come more in flashes? I.e. is it at least better than when things ended at least?

Your poor brain is still working out all the angles of how awful the event was. Be kind to yourself! You really ARE better off without him

I know I'm better off without him, but I look at his life now (as I'm sure does he!) and think 'did you seriously give up a family who adored you... for THIS??'.
I think I am bitter. I pretend to friends and family that it's no big deal and I'm WELL over it. After all, it's been six years! I'm not.
I've been to 2 counsellors but have never really healed. Although I've dated lots and got intimate with several men, I just push them away.

Have you ever dug down into your anger in counselling?

I'm similarly struggling to move on from a relationship (only 1 year ago, but it was a lot shorter than your marriage).

Things that are helping me at the moment are:

• reading about trauma, and complex grief. Although it's not a bereavement, there are similarities. This article was helpful www.comebacktothesource.com/articles/understanding-grief
• therapy
• exercise
• writing terrible poetry about my feelings 😅

Try again with that link

www.comebacktothesource.com/articles/understanding-grief

@ManchesterGirl2 thank you

It sounds a lot like rumination and ruminative thinking can be symptomatic of depression. How are you feeling in yourself?

I am 11 years on from an out of the blue announcement after 10 years together after XH met "she's just a friend". I understand how you feel. I was in a state of shock and grief for a long time afterwards.

It doesn't consume me any more but it did for several years afterwards and I had a lot of counselling to come to terms with it all. A PP mentioned PTSD and it is very like that, reliving it over and over, trapped in circular thinking ,if only, what if, and reliving moments over and over and so on and so on. I deeply mourned the loss of our family and our future together that I thought we would have. I had been on my own for a while before meeting XH and when I met him I fell hard and it seemed that he did too and he seemed so kind and loving and a decent man, that I just really thought that was it for ever and ever, so the loss hit me very hard.

Counselling was the only thing that helped me and I had a lot of it over 2-3 years before I could finally let go of the hurt and the dreams and move on. I have let go of most of it, although there is still a small part of me that is hurt, it's boxed away now and I don't let it out very often.

I didn't want to carry the hurt with me for the rest of my life , I had to let it go.

I do not communicate with XH on any level at all now. He is married to the "she's just a friend" and has a patchy relationship with DD as he moved away and doesn't see her very often.

You will move on and I recommend counselling even if you have had some already , pyschotherapy really helped me in the end as she helped me to view everything from a different angle, helping me to face up to reality and look to the future.

It has changed me forever though, I will never be the person that I was before, I lost the happy go lucky me and that still makes me want to cry even now.

It happened to me 11 years ago. Again after 20 years together. Two children together.

I still can't get over it either. It's like a bereavement in that you don't get over it, you just get used to it.

I have friends who say they are glad it happened to them in hindsight - but I would never say that. The trauma me and my children went through can never be undone. Yes - we got on with life, but it's a sore that has never healed.

My MIL was like this, even though she remarried and 30 years passed. She used to talk about what he’d done to her all the time and kept hold of the anger, grief and hurt. Eventually she did huge amounts of therapy (maybe 3 or 4 years) which went into her childhood in depth as well as the marriage, betrayal etc. And now she seems more at peace. I think there was a LOT to unpick.
I would investigate further therapy so that you can make the most of your life asap.