# New to the site



## LisasJourney (Jan 30, 2013)

I am new to the site and I've read several of the other threads and it appears I'm actually not alone... I sure felt like I was. 
My husband, soon to be ex-husband told me back at the end of May that he was finished. We were sitting at the dinner table eating dinner so I assumed he meant eating so when I got up to take his plate he told me he meant with our marriage. I had no idea. We have been married since October of 1997 and there have been plenty of very rough patches but the last couple of years had been relatively quiet, we had taken one of our dream vacations to Alaska and another to the Puget Sound to go kayaking the kids had grown up and moved out (mine from a previous marriage) and we had been doing what I thought was our own thing. Then, he broke his leg while at work and was unable to do a lot he was off work for 10 months which meant a lot of sitting around doing nothing and spending a lot of time thinking and conjuring up images in your head of what you thought or think you should have been doing. So without any warning at all that was it, he was finished. He made one very minuscule attempt at marriage counseling (he went to one session) and said he was going to try which lasted less than two weeks but we stayed in the same house for months. Finally after a lot of anguish I decided I would move out of our house in November and get an apartment. It is the first time in my life that I've lived on my own as I was a very young mother who married right out of high school to my high school sweet heart and then had the kids with me after that. Now my soon to be ex is moving on and dating, we are civil and he calls to check in on me to see how I am, he keeps me updated on how things are going with the sale of the house (a short sale of course) and everything I thought was going to be in my future is now not. I feel lost and confused and I'm not sure how to move on from here. I don't know how to meet new people or make new friends. I have an offer to move to Costa Rica and be a nanny for my brother and his children which on the surface sounds great but realistically there is no future in that and I've invested almost 16 years into my county job (that I hate). I feel like I've lost myself along the way and yet he says he was living my life that all of the things we did over the last 15 years were the things I wanted, not the things he wanted. He didn't want the boat on the ocean, the diving, the whale watching and the trip to Alaska. He always helped plan the trips he participated in them but says now that he only did it because the thought of losing me was scarier than telling me he wasn't really into those things. So our whole marriage was a lie. I feel like my entire life here in California was a lie and all of the photos that I cherished of the adventures that I loved are fake. 
How do you accept and move on from that? It's like I've been living a lie or living with someone who was a fraud and yet I still feel like I love him. Hearing that he is out dating and meeting new people kills me but I just pretend that it doesn't because I don't want him to know that it still hurts. He says he held me back from doing so many things, which is true, I would have done so many more things that he did say no to but it doesn't give him the right to take away what I was supposed to have, the things we were going to do but now we won't. 
The few close friends I do have, which happen to all be male say he is an idiot and I am better off without him, which may be true but it doesn't make it feel better and it doesn't help the hurt go away. He was the one person I could always count on when I needed him. No matter what it was, if it was a flat tire, a broken water pipe a health issue he was there... no one else has ever been there like that. 
How do you move on from here? I have done all of the physical moving, on the outside everything looks great, new furniture, new apartment, I've done a bit of traveling, but on the inside I'm still stuck.


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## BFGuru (Jan 28, 2013)

I'm sorry you are hurting right now. This isn't easy. Mine dropped the bomb a week and a day ago, so this is all very fresh to me. I just wanted to respond and give you a cyber hug, even if I don't have all the answers.


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## LisasJourney (Jan 30, 2013)

Thank you, I appreciate that. It does get easier than it was a week after the fact if that helps? It doesn't make any more sense but you can at least breath without feeling like you might vomit (most days)... I hope that you are okay and that we can all get through this.


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## BFGuru (Jan 28, 2013)

I'm ok in this very moment. Not sure about five minutes from now. I've been a bit bipolar emotionally with it all. Honestly I felt like I could finally breathe when he told me. Three days later I got gut wrenchingly depressed, cried my eyes out all night. Didn't sleep a wink and made my first post here. Then I got pissed. And now I'm just...eh. But earlier I almost burst into tears in front of a potential land lord over realizing my piano would never make it up the stairs to the second story apartment. I'm a bit crazy about it all lol. I am just working through each emotion as they come and doing what needs to be done to find an apartment I can afford for me and the kids.

You are making, what appears to novice me, as an excellent start. Replacing things and what not. It can't be easy, but you sound like you are sad, but making it. Stay strong.


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## angelpixie (Mar 2, 2012)

Lisa, what your H is doing is known as changing history and blameshifting. It's a common tactic that a walk-away spouse uses to justify leaving. It's doubtful that he was that unhappy and doing those things only for you all those years.

Does it mean anything when it comes to your current situation? Unfortunately, it probably doesn't. He has checked out. He is able to move on so easily because he'd already started that checking-out process long before he actually told you his decision. You haven't had time to catch up. Plus, it's also easier for him because he _was_ the one to make the actual decision, he has that power behind him. 

You've been together a long time. It's going to take time to recover from this. Are you seeing an individual counselor of any kind? It can be helpful to learn some coping strategies, and to also learn ways to hasten your own detachment process. 

But don't try to stuff the feelings down. Feel them, express them, but be careful that they don't take you over. Journalling your feelings helps a lot. 

Make sure you take good care of yourself physically -- eat well, exercise, get out of the house and do things. 

A divorce is every bit as stressful as the death of a spouse -- more so in some ways, as the spouse is choosing to leave, so there are extra things to deal with. But there is a grieving process just the same. 

Love yourself, and respect yourself -- those are Commandments #s 1 and 2.


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## LisasJourney (Jan 30, 2013)

angelpixie said:


> Lisa, what your H is doing is known as changing history and blameshifting. It's a common tactic that a walk-away spouse uses to justify leaving. It's doubtful that he was that unhappy and doing those things only for you all those years.
> 
> Does it mean anything when it comes to your current situation? Unfortunately, it probably doesn't. He has checked out. He is able to move on so easily because he'd already started that checking-out process long before he actually told you his decision. You haven't had time to catch up. Plus, it's also easier for him because he _was_ the one to make the actual decision, he has that power behind him.
> 
> ...


_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## LisasJourney (Jan 30, 2013)

I was seeing an MFT / Psychologist but it didn't seem to help. I went for 7 months and I felt like I was providing her education and counseling ( hazards of working in my field) I've had similar experiences in the past with other therapists as well. That's why I though I would try this instead.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## angelpixie (Mar 2, 2012)

Well, there are a lot of us here who are happy to help. I've gotten loads of help from the people on TAM.


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