# basically a newbie - hurting, angry, need to vent



## 'CuseGal (Feb 5, 2015)

I've started a couple of other threads, but I'm basically a newbie here. I'm a divorced middle aged woman, a preschool teacher, I work in my family's antique store on weekends. I'm working - slowly - toward my master's degree in education so that I can work in a public school and get decent benefits. I share my home with my sister, she works part time in a factory. Our folks are retired and watch the kids outside of school hours to allow us to do what needs to be done to pay the bills. They also allow us to live in their tenant house rent free which is a HUGE help financially. We have 5 kids between us, 2 girls, 3 boys, between the ages of 9 and 15. She is recently widowed which was what brought me here more than my divorce did since that was 10 years ago. Somehow the discovery at her husband's funeral that he had a whole other life with another woman my sister didn't know about (OW didn't know about sis and the kids either) - it reopened my scars from my marriage and my ex-husband's serial cheating. So I guess that's why I ended up here. The rage I feel over what my sister and her kids are going through is tearing me apart inside far more than my husband's betrayals ever did. I think because by the time we finally split up, he was already dead to me after so many affairs and treating me badly in other ways as well. Now I find myself processing my betrayals and hers as well. While she is (outwardly) handling things calmly, the same way I did my divorce when it originally happened. Of course her kids are older now than mine were at the time of my divorce, so they're having a much harder time with the discovery that their father was a total *ssh*le. Not that we didn't already know that, they hadn't been living together for a while and I think on some level she knew he was cheating, but she had no idea how far he had gone down the road to a whole second life without her. Even his co-workers at his job didn't know that he was married or had kids! Let me tell you - the scene at his funeral was about the ugliest thing I've ever seen. Especially since it happened in front of his children and the girls are definitely old enough to understand what it was all about. Their mother is a saint who put up with his sh*tty behavior for years and never bad-mouthed him to his kids. Well, they got an earful at the funeral that told them exactly what kind of person he was and honestly I'd rather they hadn't found out the way they did.

Thing is, she needs to be able to talk to me about what she is feeling, but I'm sure not going to dump on her in return! Especially since on top of all this, we just lost our baby brother (only 27) in a car wreck 8 months ago and we're really not close to having processed that loss yet. So a lot of being here is just needing to vent to people that from what I have seen probably understand a lot of what we are dealing with right now.

If some of my posts end up seeming rather negative where guys are concerned, please feel free to call me out on it. I KNOW all guys aren't like the two sis and I ended up with. My dad is great. My late father-in-law was great and if he hadn't died I doubt he would ever have let his son treat his wife and kids the way he did. Most of the men in my extended family are good guys with a few exceptions. I will say it's mostly the ones in my parents' generation - the ones in my generation haven't turned out so great I'm afraid. Then again a lot of the women haven't turned out that great either.  It terrifies me when I think about how the next generation will turn out if things continue this way.


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## BlueWoman (Jan 8, 2015)

I don't have any advice. Just reading.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

I have read that when we experience a loss in our lives, we relive and re-process every other loss we have ever had in the past along with it. The outcome is that every one of them in put into a new prospective.

I've experienced this. It sounds like you are also experiencing it in a big way right now. I'm sure that it's overwhelming. While your sister seems to be holding it together, she will at some point work through it all too.

One of the reasons that you might have held it to together so well during your divorce and yet are not do as well now is necessity. Back then you had no choice. You had to hold it together. I've been there too. 

Now you that you are so removed from the divorce it's just safer to do some falling apart. So this new trauma comes along and your subconscious now feels like it's safe for you to handle it.

You might also be subconsciously using your sister's issues and loses as a surrogate for your own. It's so much easier to deal with someone else's issues.

The only way to get through this kind of trauma is to go right through the middle of it and deal with it. Not fun, I know.

Counseling helps if you can find a low or no cost counselor.

Forums like this one help a lot. Just post away.

Another way that I work on things is to write. I do it on the computer because I can type pretty fast and thus keep up with my thoughts better. I sit at the computer and just type stream of consciousness. Pages and pages sometimes. By the time I'm done with a writing session I have usually settled a lot of the issues that are bouncing around in my head. often I end up deleteing what I write because by the time I get to the end I realize that I sound like a whinny baby and don't want to ever read that nonsnee. but once it's out of my head I feel so much better.

Don't know if that helps.. but its my 2 cents.


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## lonelyhusband321 (Feb 18, 2014)

EleGirl said:


> I have read that when we experience a loss in our lives, we relive and re-process every other loss we have ever had in the past along with it. The outcome is that every one of them in put into a new prospective.
> 
> I've experienced this. It sounds like you are also experiencing it in a big way right now. I'm sure that it's overwhelming. While your sister seems to be holding it together, she will at some point work through it all too.
> 
> ...


Truth!

You have to just take it head on. Kind of like a traffic jam - you just have to endure the pain in the butt.

Writing it down, re-reading it and then deleting it is a GREAT way...


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## EnjoliWoman (Jul 2, 2012)

I'm sorry that you and your sister are having a difficult time and that's great you want to be there for her. I really think counseling would be a good way for you to process all of this and help her, too, or recommend she go as well.

United Family Services is a division of United Way and they offer counseling on a sliding scale based on income. And if you have insurance, they accept that, too. Might be a less expensive option for you both. I'm sure adding another appointment to the calendar isn't easy to do but even a few sessions might be really helpful - you would have your own time to process your 'stuff' so you can be free to help your sis.

But we amateurs are here, too.


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