Long-time viewer – never posted, but I need your words of wisdom or just a hand-hold. I’m going to try and keep this short, but apologies if it gets too long.
Married for 13 years, no kids (me 57, him 45). Neither of us married before.
Three years ago, my husband decided he needed space. To say he pulled the rug is an understatement. It was the end of Covid. We both work in the same school, and being both in education and having to provide on-line learning was so, so hard, and I guess I almost broke. I’m a teacher, he was an LSA. I am 12 years older than him. I thought we had a great marriage. I loved him so, so much and I thought the feeling was mutual. It was so brutal and shocking, I could barely put one foot in front of the other when he left. I literally survived minute by minute.
He moved out July 2021. I thought he was going through some kind of mental crises and all I wanted to do was support him emotionally. I carried on paying all our mortgage; he took out the money of our shared account to pay for a course for a teacher qualification, and money from our shared account for an apartment. Money was never an issue between us. We put both out our salaries together and I was fine with the arrangement. We were married. Money was shared.
He is now a teacher at the same school (I also paid for his degree). He kept his stuff at our house for a year. When he decided it was time for him to move it out, when he came to collect it, he lied about where he was living. I caught him out. Long shot is, he was having an affair with a mother from our school and was moving into her place with her children (who I teach). Strange the things we remember: when he was collecting his stuff, he counted the forks and realising his share was 6 of them, went through our dirty dishwasher to make sure he had all six.
I have tried to keep my dignity throughout the utter heartbreak and let him go. But coming into school every day, even now, opens the wound. We recently had our summer fair, and to see him with his new partner and her kids playing “happy families” kills me. To see him bringing the kids to school and taking them home is so fucking hard (we weren’t able to have children together).
Since and during the divorce, we didn’t communicate. He just cut me out of his life and left me to pick up the pieces of abandonment.
No-one needs to stay in a relationship if they want out. I get that. I wish he’d shared his thoughts before just fucking off without so much of a conversation, but I guess that’s on him. I just wish it didn’t affect me as much as it does, but it still does. Three years on.
We’d (I had) spent years and tons of money making the run-down house we bought into the house of our dreams. House prices where we live sky-rocketed and so the equity rose considerably. In divorce. he was able to have 50% despite putting in next to nothing. To buy him out, I I gave him all our savings, my pension and I had to take out another mortgage to buy him out of what I already had, before he decided he wanted out. I understand that in divorce, both parties need to be on an equal footing, but he was already living with his new partner and had many years to pay for a mortgage. But I didn’t want to let go of the house that I’d spent so much emotionally and financially on.
I don’t know what I’m asking for here. Maybe just someone to say, “yep, that’s shit… he’s a cunt… you deserve better… he abused you financially…”
I realise it seems I'm making it all about the finances. Maybe that's the only way I can get my anger out.
We had our end of year celebration a few days ago. When I arrived at the restaurant, the only place left for me to sit was next to him. I couldn’t do it.
Three years on, I still miss him. Even now. And I couldn’t even sit next to him.