Do they ever come back? Devastated. Following on. Endless winter.

[Pleasenotme]

Do they ever come back? Devastated.
1000 replies

Pleasenotme · 17/09/2024 16:25
Long time lurker, occasional poster, nc'd for this. DH has told me he wants a divorce. I can barely write this as I am so devastated and struggling to keep things together. Been together 35 years, DC. I thought we had everything. Says he hasn't been happy for a while, wants to sell our house, have a new start. I know men rarely leave without having someone in the wings. He was adamant that there was no one, but youngest DD saw him meeting up with a woman not far from the house. It was pure fluke she saw them as her nursing shifts mean she is not normally around at that time and I was in Scotland visiting my DM. DD told me about this only after DH had told her that he is divorcing me as she had been worried about it but didn't want to say anything in case it was innocent. He denies an OW. Of course. I know this woman on a casual basis and have socialised with her as part of a larger group. She is married with two young DC. My DD babysits for her occasionally.
I feel like an explosion has gone off in our lives. I can't believe this is happening. He is like an ice man with me, a stranger. He has said the most cruel things. Our marriage has had the inevitable turmoils and ups and downs but he is my soul mate. I thought we would be together forever. I can't stop crying, I can't work - thankfully my boss has been very kind - I had to ring Samaritans last night as I was so very bleak and was having panic attacks and I didn't want to be here, I just wanted it all to go away. I know that sounds foolish and selfish. He has moved out and is staying with his sister locally. We are not close so there is no point talking to her about it.
I love him so much. I can't imagine life without him, I just can't. Is there anyone on here who has had experience of their DH doing this to them AND coming back? I am grimly aware of the number of men who dump their DWs during the mid years of their lives. I suspect I am clutching at straws but this is like an earthquake. I am totally desperate for this not to be happening. Thank you for reading.

Agree with PP thinking of you @Pleasenotme

Hello @Pleasenotme I hope you're okay. I've been thinking of you.

Hi Pleasenotime still thinking of you and hoping you have been able to get through the last week coping a bit better. Look after yourself. X

Just another one checking in and wishing you well x

Usually through experience, I find the individual who finds posts like this boring, are those who have no deep understanding of the trauma it causes to the family left behind when a partner leaves. I contemplated suicide and taking my children with me to escape the pain it caused to us. It's Bern a lifetime of it. I am no shrinking wallflower either. I came from a poor family of 10. I raised my 2 sons from babies when he left. 1 of my children were left brain damaged and profoundly deaf from birth trauma. My second child was left traumatised from it all and has only settled down on his 30's when he found his partner and had his own family. We are not weak, in fact those left behind holding the babies, living on very low financial means, with mental health issues, with no emotional support, are the salt of the earth. We give it all to our children. Sometimes to our own detriment, as eventually it takes its toll on our mental or physical health . The single mums I know who were dumped and left behind and abandoned, ended up with several different medical conditions shortly after such a devastating experience. Don't knock others until you've been there yourself. We don't want pity. Just understanding. To all those knockers, up yours. What comes around go's around. You may one day find yourselves in our shoes.

These moments of despair and anguish will pass.
You are still in the shock and denial stage.

You will get angry and hate him soon.

Then you will move on.
Slowly and surely.
These feelings will pass they are not static. Like day follows night.
Be strong.

Ps. Your ex will feel despair in years to come. He just will.

Hope you are okay @Pleasenotme - I think it is perfectly, utterly, heartbreakingly normal to be affected as profoundly as you have by what has happened to your life and marriage. And I also think it is totally normal to not be able to suddenly summon intense anger and rage at your husband and to wish desperately to want him around and back and want things as they were. Or even to be intensely angry and raging but simultaneously want him back, I think that’s how I might feel in your situation! Many PPs have said this as well but I do feel that the wanting him back is not just bound up on former love but fear (very understandable fear) of change and that will take time to adjust to and overcome but you WILL overcome it, you will get through this and you will most definitely find peace with your situation and be happy again. You just need to take good care of yourself in the meantime and maybe part of that taking good care of yourself should be considering taking steps to minimise all contact with him, maybe a lot of it should be just indulging yourself in calming, peaceful activities and with that passing time you will find, I’m sure, that the devastation eases and a new path opens. Really rooting for you, in reading your posts you just sound so raw from it all my heart goes out to you.

Hi @Pleasenotme

I understand this is a painful situation, and it’s natural to feel hurt and disoriented by your husband leaving. But it’s time to pick yourself up. Dwelling on this day after day isn’t going to change what happened, and you’re worth so much more than staying stuck in this place.
Your friends, family, colleagues, and especially your children are all here for you, but they can’t lift you up forever. It’s not their job to keep you going. At a certain point, it’s on you to decide how you want to live from here on out. Life isn’t waiting around for you to make that choice, and neither will the people around you.
You are strong, and you have plenty to be thankful for—your health, your children, and a future that’s ready for you to embrace it. Life is precious, and wasting it in self-pity won’t bring you any closer to healing. Take a good look around you, appreciate what you have, and decide to step forward.
Starting today, draw a line under this chapter and focus on building a new life. Don’t let this situation define you. You have the strength to take that first step toward something better—so take it.

I would recommend you have a read of a lady called Gingerloaf’s wonderful threads. They give me inspo as there is so much more discussed on their from infidelity, the identity of the woman in a marriage, self care.
It inspires me although I am in a relationship it gives my head a wobble. Or reach out to her by DM. She’s lovely and intelligent just like you x

I read both threads. Both lovely ladies! X

The case is, just keep going on Poster. No shutting down , this will be the worst.

Hi OP

I've been where you are and totally get it. I was so anxious I couldn't feel my arms and legs. It was like nothing else I've ever experienced. Propranolol really helped me.

I'm so sorry to think of other women going through this.

It does get easier but it's a long road - or it was for me at least. I felt suicidal too. My closest friends were my saviour.

It's brilliant that you're able to work.

It took me a long time to approach the OWs ex - once I did I wished I'd done it sooner.

If you want to pm me, please do.

I love your writing style by the way and wonder if you are writing outside of this thread as either a release or an escape?

Some people lack emotional imagination so if they've not been through this they just won't get it. It's hurtful but try not to take it personally.

Please take care and try to have faith that one day you'll be through this. I remember the agony of just getting through those early days and not knowing how to bear it.

@Pleasenotme big hug from me. You sound so brave and show such integrity. I would be so happy to be your friend in real life. It is such a shit situation to be in and you have every right to feel devastated.

I have read through your posts but not all of the replies so I am sorry if I am repeating what others have said. Please be very kind to yourself and do what feels right for you. I agree with you you should not tell the other woman’s husband. You need to protect yourself and telling him would probably create drama that you don’t need right now. I think you should be proud of yourself for keeping going. I was cheering you on when I read about your work meeting and how you got on with your job.

I am a bit further along than you in this journey nearly two years for me since my soon to be ex started the disengage. However he had been emotionally abusive so I got the relief of not having him there and walking on eggshells all the time. For someone who had been in what they thought was a happy marriage it must add additional heartache. I still remember though the first few months of that totally bleak disbelief at what was happening and that my marriage was over. All I could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other. My mantra each morning was “courage mon brave”.

Keep keeping on OP you are brave and resilient. Lots of love on this difficult journey.💐💐💐

This is the second thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/5186498-no-longer-blindsided-by-h?page=1

How are you doing @Pleasenotme ?

Hello everyone, I'm still here and still just about functioning. Thank you again for all your extraordinary and heartfelt messages which have deeply touched me. When I am just one of the multi billions of people on this planet, so utterly inconsequential really in the big scheme of things, then for busy people to trouble to think of me is astounding and makes me appreciate just how much we are all a part of something far greater than ourselves.

Life goes on but seemingly relentlessly colourlessly, not helped by the grim greyness of the weather. I am seeing friends a little more but have to make a concerted effort to do so or else I just end up retreating to bed earlier and earlier. I went to the pub last night with a wonderfully amusing former colleague who was spectacularly rude about my H who she has known a long time both personally and professionally. She used to think he was OK, now not so much. But she made me laugh, even if it felt like a guilty pleasure and somehow disrespectful and disloyal. She was marvellously dismissive of the OW too who apparently she has reserved a special place in hell for, as she has gone against the sisterhood code. Anyone listening in would doubtless have concluded we were a pair of sad, middle-aged has-beens but it made me feel temporarily better and above all gave me a taste of an alternative perspective.

I haven't been able to hold out in respect of the house as the financial pressure exerted on me by H was becoming so stressful that it was all I could think about. It is being valued tomorrow, damn him, I keep walking around it, touching the walls and remembering all the lovely family times we have shared in it. I simply can't bear the thought of moving out and closing the door behind me for the last time. The DC are profoundly upset by it and I heard them discussing how they could possibly get together and raise the money to buy their F out. They can't do that and nor would I expect it even if they could, but to hear their desperation felt like someone was ripping my heart out of my chest. To those who may jump to the conclusion that I have in anyway fostered this upset on their part, I can assure you that I haven't, it is solely caused by my H and his brutal assertions that he wishes to 'move on'. He genuinely does not seem to have considered the implications for the DC or their feelings in all this.

Work is OK, I'm doing more and yesterday presented again, this time in front of the most senior person in our organisation. I was very nervous but managed, although was relieved when it was over. He complimented me in front of the team about all my work to date on that specific project which gave me a sugar-boost.

My hair is still falling out despite my trying the various remedies suggested by a number of PPs. I've had more blood tests but I think the next step is a trichologist as the sight of my shiny scalp through my increasingly sparse hair is having a huge impact on my self-confidence. I'm off the anti-depressants completely, not because I don't think that they could, longer-term, have helped me but I've been reflecting on all my incredibly resilient female ancestors who had lives far tougher than I could ever comprehend - for instance my great grandmother lost five daughters in a week to Spanish Flu after the First World War and my great-aunt's husband died in a Japanese POW camp, and by comparison, I'm pretty darned fortunate so need to keep buggering on as the great man said.

H is very cold with me if he has to speak to me. As I have said before, it is as if I am a complete stranger to him. I heard that song 'Somebody That I Used To Know' on the radio when I was driving to the dreaded Tesco recently and it really summed up my new status of 'non person' to him. I think he is still living with his DSis but I can only imagine that she must be getting a little fed up with that now. I assume he is still seeing the OW but if I even try to establish what he does on a daily and weekly basis, he becomes so rude and faux outraged that I have the cheek to ask that I quickly retreat.

And yes, I still love him. I long for him and for what he has been to me, for our lovely life to be restored. He is in there somewhere, behind this cold, vile, contemptuous facade. But it is clear that I am now absolutely nothing to him and it seems like that my whole married life has been washed away as if it was just chalk on a pavement.

Typical behaviour OP. Blanking a previous life including the marriage partner is their way of managing their guilt at having caused it. I still believe he has issues you will never be party to as that's the way he wants it. We will all have our thoughts according to your posts and how we interpret them.

Stay strong & you will come out of this a far more resilient & happy individual. As far as still loving him that's understandable. As far as him loving you, in his own way he probably still does but he has finally proved to himself its not enough for him. Make sure you have plenty of support around you because he without a doubt will be surrounded by it.💐

Hi@Pleasenotme i I have been where you are and as painful as this is , trust me when I say the sooner you sell up and take charge the better you will feel.
The bottom dropped out my world when my ex husband left me for the cliche woman he worked with. He too became cold and distant, treated me like something he stepped in- I cried, begged him not to leave etc all the totally normal reactions.
I found my power and my strength by accepting the marriage was over, there was no coming back from the act and the trust had gone. After accepting the inevitable I took charge, I filled for divorce, I got the house valued, I looked after me.
The best advice I have for you is to write down what needs to be down and work through it, go out for walks , get your hair done, meet friends for coffee etc - start forging a new normal. Two years later my life is so good and yours will be too.

You just have to keep saying to your self, my life will be better, over and over again, have been where you are, felt suicidal for weeks, with the help of true friends and family came out the other side, I have a great life now, his, omg he did me a huge favour! Keep putting one foot in front of the other, you will be alright!

Have you thought about seeing a therapist? Mine has been brilliant, albeit for different reasons but in the process I realised something my h did was not okay and we are now divorced. Never thought I'd leave and certainly never thought I'd thrive as I have.

I've read your last post again and I can relate so much.

Don't not take the ADs because of what has gone before. That's daft if you need them and they can help.

It is really bloody hard when your man moves on as if you marriage and years together meant nothing. But that's on him. It's not a failing in you. Men are pathetic creatures. They can't manage alone. They as a gender move on to the next woman a lot quicker than the woman does with a new man.

Leaving the house and living somewhere that is just yours will help massively. You will be okay but you have to be open to the opportunities and possibility.

The majority of times if men don't stay with the woman they've cheated with they will move on to other women. It's wrong to assume all men who suddenly leave their marriage & family move on to new relationships with women. I know a woman this happened to & there was no other woman involved although she assumed he was having an affair. She thought her marriage was perfect. This is why I am now suspicious when it happens & I would urge women to look at all possible scenarios if the behaviour is seriously out of character.

I don't get the point of you quoting my post at all @Forwhatitsworth18 .

He wasn't having an affair but has met someone new since.

@Pleasenotme I understand all that you said but you do what you do to get by.
He can't force you out of the house so you can refuse any offers that you get. I think you need to adopt a stronger attitude with regard to the house.

I quoted it birthday rainbow because you mentioned men as a gender go on to other women easily. It's a fact they don't all go on to relationships with women as was the case with the woman I know. He still dumped his wife & family who were apparently very happy to live a different life.