OutofHisCloset wrote:

Rob,
 I thought about you today when I was at the bank, because I remembered that you'd said you'd cried when opening your own individual account.  I cried, too, afterwards.  

Oohc,

Hey...you were stronger than me.   I couldn't hold back the tears in the bank.. I recall the bank lady was very understanding...I told her why i was crying..(not about TGT good god) but how my then wife was cheating on me ..how after all those years where I gave every dime to the family I had to be ready take some for myself...necessary but so foreign and not like me...like I was stealing.   

Crying is ok.  We love, we feel. We are authentic and genuine.  There would be something wrong with us if we did not feel the loss of what we thought was so true and absolute. 

Small steps that I can look back on now as so necessary, right, moral, and important. These spouses forced us to do what was so foreign and hard for us. I found strength in knowing it was for my kids and me.

Really proud of you ..

Last edited by Rob (March 13, 2018 5:45 pm)

On Tuesday, the first day of Spring, I moved from a seven week stint of house/cat sitting for colleagues into my own apartment instead of returning to our house, which I left twelve days after declaring I could no longer stay in the marriage to my in-the-closet autogynephilic husband.
    I am having a very hard time thinking of my new place as "home": my "home" is still "our house."  I have spent several months a year in one long stretch away from "our house/home" each year for the past dozen years (in various places), but every time those times away came to an end I returned to my home.  My husband and my home were my anchors.  Now, living in an apartment that I have no intention to stay in beyond a year or two or three, and without a partner, I must be my own anchor. 
   At the end of the day yesterday when I thought of going "home" it was jarring to me to realize that my apartment, not yet fully moved into, with just the basics in it, is "home."  It feel instead like a temporary place, and my "home" is still across town.
  It was my choice to move out; I made the decision to sell my half of our house to my stbx (he offered the choice; I buy him out, or he buys me out.)  But it's hard, nonetheless.  We lived there together for 25 years; raised our son there; I made a garden, and otherwise labored to make it a home.  The way light enters the rooms, at what time, the views of the sky and yard from the windows, these are all second nature to me, and they grounded me in that place.  I miss it, and myself as I was there.  
   It didn't help that on the morning of the day I was to spend my first night in the apartment, four days after signing the lease, I got news of a test result for cancer that was given to me in such a way as it led me to believe I'd tested positive for cancer.  I spent a day and a half until I could see my doctor in a panic, thinking I would have to undergo cancer treatment alone, while in an unfamiliar place.  Voluntarily giving up the expectation of help in times of sickness, was a real concern of mine going into a divorce at 64 years old, and I had used the fact that I healthy and vital and strong to counter my concern.  After that phone call with the bad news my fear that I wasn't going to have a future affected the way I saw the place I was moving into: what use was it in thinking of settling in and making the place mine?
   I'm now trying to regain my initial resolve to look forward with hope and my initial optimism about a single life free from my stbx's disorder. 
     But I am finding that like every other stop on the trans train, this one, too, is coming with its own pain. I hope that as time goes by and I am able to manage my life alone my anxieties over finances will ease.  I know once I settle in I will learn new rhythms, and I will be able to appreciate more completely the lack of the constant tension I felt in "our house" over the unspoken of but always present matter of his sexuality.  
   

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (March 23, 2018 6:46 am)

It’s such a traumatic time for you OOHC, I do hope you are soon more settled and that this phase passes as peacefully as possible. Gradually you will start to notice that tension abating, in time.

Count of Monte Cristo wrote:

Haven't been on here in a bit. Highs and lows.  Out hiking and hitting the gym.  I am honestly still really sad about it all.  In disbelief a bit too.  She is slowly moving things out of the house and we are only contacting each other via text or emails.  She is in my dreams almost everynight.  I am hanging out with my family and have the kids about 50% of the time.  Doing ok.  I would say I am in the 5/10 range for doing ok.  I don't think I will ever forgive her, but that being said I am glad she did this now and not in 10 years.  It has really hurt a lot of people and has changed a lot of lives.  My heart is still torn and trying to recover.  Amazing that can happen as the person it bleeds for never truly loved me.  Sad.  I won't let her destroy me. 

I know how you feel about those dreams!

I remember when it was first happening I would dream about her and my family and it was happy, then I would wake up and remember that my life was shattering and it was horrible.  Now i have an occasional dream about her and it's miserable.. then I wake up and realize I'm a new person with a new life and I'm happy.  

You'll get there in time. 

Vee!!!  That's such an awesome update!  Thank you so much for coming back to share with us.