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?

From a slightly different angle I wish I had been offered counselling after my parents split up I was 14 and to this day I play back the day I came downstairs to the bin bags in the hallway and my mum saying dad has met someone else he doesn’t love us anymore.

ironically my parents remarried eachother 8 years later after dads but if fluff got bored breaks my heart as I don’t think either are happy and mum doesn’t trust him.

So many posts I want to quote, all so relatable. Thank you for starting this thread OP, it's made me feel so much better knowing that I'm not the only one.

I wish we could all form an IRL support group!

Thank you for this thread. I thought it was only me who felt like this. Friends & family who haven't gone through it don't understand.
And watching the person who betrayed you and wrecked your life skip off into the sunset with someone else (much younger of course!) and basically "get away with it" is one of the hardest things to live with. And, no, online bloody dating is not the answer (lost count of the number of times that's been suggested to me!)

Not me but my mum. My mum and dad had been married 26 years when he left my mum for one of their friends. My mum was 46 at the time. My dad went on to marry the woman but eventually they divorced and he married someone else who was a few years younger than me.

My mum never recovered from this and she is now 83 and never had another relationship. I never spoke to the bastard again.

I just wanted to say my bil left my dsis after 27 years of marriage. It was a shock. My dsis found another dp within a year or two. Her ex is still with the dp he left her for, a decade later. He:s still quite bitter. Even tho it was his choice to leave, he is happy with his dp. I don't think it's ever really clear cut. Please try and heal x

I wonder how you all feel about Mumsnet founder, Justine Roberts who fell in love after 30 years of marriage and four children and left her husband. There was a whole thread on it and marriage break down.

So why is Justine Robert's divorce front page of the Daily Fail today? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4716618-so-why-is-justine-roberts-divorce-front-page-of-the-daily-fail-today

Mine too left after a 20 year marriage, for another woman. I remember it felt like a bereavement, and everything he did afterwards was like another kick in the stomach - moving in with her, the children meeting her for the first time. I had counselling but still struggled every day. I remember a year after he had gone, sitting outside my doctors surgery, clutching my newly prescribed anti depressants, and sobbing because I thought I was weak and had so wanted to be strong for my children. Six years later he got in touch with me, cried that he had made a terrible mistake, etc etc. And I took him back. We’re still together now 4 years on, but I’m still on the antidepressants, and still haven’t got over what happened. I’m a different person to what I was before we broke up.

My ex left suddenly after 20 years of what I thought was a happy marriage. Our children were 6 and 10. I never had an explanation and seeing the man I loved change overnight to somebody I found absolutely unrecognisable was a real shock. He was so unreachable and hurtful to me, I couldn’t process it at all. He was 50 when he left our very nice life and he has had a string of failed relationships and is now someone’s fourth husband. I still struggle to accept that he appears to have changed so much and that he says and does things that seem so out of character from the man I knew for twenty years. It took about 7 years for the hurt to pass and the grieving to end.. it really, really hurt. I had lots of counselling and trained as a counsellor myself. It has been such a strange experience and still is bewildering . My children don’t recognise him either. Having minimal contact has been the best way for us. Now, I am very happily single. I have a great relationship with my children unencumbered by a needy narcissist and life is great. I’m actually grateful it happened because I feel so free.

I know someone who’s husband announced one night he was leaving after 30 years of marriage., she thought he was joking. This was about two years ago and she is still totally stunned and furious he did this to her. I honestly think he should have left 15 years ago, why he dragged it out for so long is a mystery. A total waste of both their lives. I think her idea of what a good relationship should be like is totally skewed. I feel sad that she was in a marriage for so long that from the outside, to me looked miserable. She’s now wasted 2 more years being stuck in a fit of anger. I understand that there is a grieving process but if you’re still struggling after 6 years some counselling might help.

I would say the key to processing what's happened is the following three things;

Accept that the shitty thing has happened

Look for the positives (however small) and it can be helpful to think of three things at the end of the day that you're grateful for

Is what you are doing (looking at SM, photos, ruminating etc) helping you or harming you? If it's the latter then do something that helps (talk to a friend, go out for a walk etc)

💐

I discovered my ex husband's affair 5 years ago and he left that day. Married 13 years, together over 20. No mention or signs of unhappiness (which, after the affair was discovered he told me he had been, of course).

Am I over it? I'll probably never be 'over it' because what he did changed me. But I forced myself to move on, had counselling, started dating again, bought him out of the house and have been with my dp for 3.5 years now. He has had 2 relationships that haven't worked out since (including the affair partner) and rents a house.

It's not about who has done best but that the grass obviously wasn't as green as he thought it was.

I still feel very sad that our marriage ended but we get on well now and co-parent our teens well and that's what matters now.

Some relationships just aren't meant to be forever but it doesn't mean they weren't worth having in the first place.

I am glad you started this thread OP as I sometimes think I am alone in feeling like this. In my case it’s been even longer but I still think about it. I do actually think I suffer from PTSD because after he announced he was leaving there was a long period of me doing the “pick me dance” and him saying and doing lots of things that really traumatised me.

Interesting the idea of circular thinking and being trapped in that… if anyone has had therapy, are there any tricks to get out of that?

It would be so good to set up a support group about this!!

l think the reason you have not let this go is you have not let this out - speak to a trusted friend you need to process your emotions and move on. Its likely you are still in shock since it was out of the blue

See l had loads of therapy and counselling, but it still knocked me sideways. 28 years ago and l think about him every day, even though I’m remarried. My ds is a carbon copy of him and that’s quite hard too.

This is such a wonderful thread.

Maybe it will help us all knowing there are so many women this has happened to
It is one of those things that you think will happen to you until it does
and actually it’s surprisingly common

*never think

Thanks for all these wonderful, albeit sad stories.
I have to admit to having an addiction to looking at the OW's social media. I ponder regularly about whether Karma will come and bite her on the arse as she was just as bad as the ex through our divorce. I often wonder what I'd say if I met her in person.....

Oh, I've found my people.
I also think I've got PTSD in some form from years of my emotionally and financially abusive marriage.
Serial adultery, including finding out about one woman because I found a video he'd made and kept. So I actually saw my husband having sex with someone else. We are divorcing now and he continues to act as though my reactions to his behaviour are unreasonable. He doesn't know the meaning of respect.
Betrayal trauma runs deep. I agree that it all feels like an act of emotional violence.

This happened to my sister over twenty years ago.

The despicable man is still haunting her life. She just can’t let go of him even though she has remarried to a lovely chap.

She often looks up her first husband on social media.
Whenever she gets chance she wants to talk about him and what happened.

I don’t know what to do for the best, to listen to her or close her down.
I am sure her obsession with the past is unhealthy.

It’s helpful, though sad to read all these other posts. I wish I could help her, but I’m at a loss.

Random rant…

The thread is quite helpful in a way as when the cheating happened to me I automatically, without realising, went “ah yes, I’m worthless”. Like he had assigned value to me and how could I have not seen I was worthless, obviously I was and now I knew my place in the order of things. And I kept myself as a minuscule sort of grey person all through my 20s and early 30s. Very small and not wanting to offend people/ intrude on them. Like I was a hassle or a disgusting beast from a swamp!

The thing about reading other people’s experiences is it makes me go “oh god how awful, what a total loser that cheater was”. And makes me realise more, well duh same with my cheater. (My cheater gaslighted me for a year, had some friends help him cover for him, also
tried to clear me out financially, and he ruined our common friendships and became known as the cool fun guy and went on to date a lot and marry a great woman, she has money so he just bums around, all worked out for him)

There was no way at all of knowing someone will pull that on you, you’d never go on a second date if you knew what they’d do (never mind marry them). They were lying to you and everyone about who they are, it’s so creepy in a way.

One thing that helps… I irrationally think of him and hate what he did, the injustice of it is awful. But do I want to spend today with him, if I could? No… I sort of want some cosmic justice, but it’s not in my control.. I can only push myself forward. Would be interested to know how to get out of circular thinking though, in case I ever slip back to being down on myself etc

Watch 'Stutz' on Netflix, OP.
It's Jonah Hill doing a film about his therapist, Phil Stutz. And yes, it's flawed but it's very human and there are really good things you can take away from it.

I've been in therapy for some time now and for me, this documentary was very emotional and good and reminding me that we can quiet the noise and dampen the war within us and crucially, have peace in our day.
I think if you can get to a place where you no longer even seek justice, where you feel nothing but love in your heart, you've won at life (it is self love, believe me- not forgiveness of the person who hurt you but just an insistence on living in a loving space, accepting all of who and what you are, and just not really giving much energy to that pain or to them. And crucially, not making you, yourself, about the pain they once, in the past (!), inflicted).

Live a life with meaning. Find your meaning, OP. I know everything I've written sounds annoyingly trite, but I've really had to learn this after my marriage ended for excrutiating reasons that I will never come to terms with; my ex husband sexually abused our daughter for 5 years. I've spent the last year dealing with criminal proceedings, my brother died, I'd been recovering from a heart attack/cardiac arrest caused by my artery tearing while simply out walking the dog. And when I learned what my then-husband had done to our daughter, and what and who he was as a person, well, I can't emphasise how painful that was. I won't try to go there right now. My point is NOT 'pity me'. My point is, life throws you violently off the plank. It is faith catches and carries you back to the bow of your ship, your most forward point (that's my own made up psych-babble! ). And you can navigate its waters again, with courage, with hope, with more ability than before.
I really like this quote by Seneca, the Stoic philosopher:
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

Sorry about my typos!