Hello everyone!

I haven't checked in here in ages, and I feel a bit guilty about that as this site helped me so much. For those who are new and don't recognise me, my ex-wife came out in September 2015. We tried briefly to make it work, until we split and eventually the divorce came through. 

I am doing really well. I have now been with my girlfriend for nearly a year and a half, and she moved in with me about two months ago and things are going swimmingly. She's a wonderful woman, and it's been a real eye-opener to have a healthy relationship after years where things weren't right. 

I'll be honest - I was nervous about sharing my home again, especially as it's the same house I shared with my ex-wife. The funny thing is though, that it isn't the same house anymore. I lived there on my own for a year, in which I strategically redecorated and refurnished, to get things how I wanted them. Now my GF has moved in, we've made changes for it to be her home too and it's really good for my soul to see the artifacts of our life together around the place. 

I have no contact with the ex. My feelings remain the same as they were - I wish her well in her new life, and carry very little bitterness about the past - on my past decisions I look back and think "I did what I thought was best, with the information I had" so I can't beat myself about what I did. 

Funnily enough I ran into her recently. I gave her a slightly awkward smile, she gave what I felt to be a very unimpressed look in return which I took to mean she still doesn't want to have anything to do with me. Fine by me. I do find it odd though that she is bitter, and I'm not - there's definitely some schadenfreude there!! I guess it's true that living well is the best revenge... haha!

Anyway. I want to send some love out to all those who I've spoken to on here before, and again my endless thanks for your support during what was the hardest time of my life. For those of you who are at the start of this jo

I found I didn't follow the stages of grief in any kind of order - I definitely experienced every stage, multiple times, but the order they occurred in was random. 

Brief back story - GXW came out, 2 weeks of trying to make it work, decided it wouldn't, 3 weeks of sorting house, then we split and I've barely seen her since. That was almost exactly a year ago. 

I had some anger in those 5 weeks, but I most vividly remember getting really angry for the first time shortly after we split. At that time, my parents were visiting my sister (who lives abroad). They knew the whole situation, and when we finally split I flew out to see them. I had a good weekend - difficult, but my sister lives on a vineyard so there was work I could be doing - in fact I spent most of the time stripping paint off of a bridge with a heat gun, which was surprisingly therapeutic! 

Back to the anger story. When my parents were taking me back to the airport, I started to feel it build. At that time I'd mainly been depressed and upset, trying to put a brave face on things. During that car ride, I don't know why, I started to feel anger start to bubble. I said to my folks as we pulled into the airport that I was 'feeling a bit miffed' and it was actually clearing my head. My Mum told me to keep feeling that way, as 'you should be more that a bit miffed!'. 

By the time I got on the plane, I was raging. The anger built and built, and just exploded in my head. From the outside, you'd have no idea I was in such a fury, as I sat calmly on the plane. 

The reason I tell this story is that first time of furious anger, was the first time in the process that my sadness had lifted. I could see how I was going to move on and live an awesome life, because god damn no one is ever going to get in my way again. I felt righteous, and powerful and the master of my own destiny for the first time in over a decade. It was an incredibly liberating experience.

When I got home, I poured that anger into everythin

Lostdad I hadn't seen this thread before - I just wanted to say quickly that I think you're doing brilliantly. As other said your early posts took me right back to my first postings on the old forum - I remember the feelings well. I am really, really pleased to see your more recent posts which have a practical, forward looking outlook. 

I don't mean to be patronising, but I am really proud of you! Day by day things will get better. I can already see you taking hold of your life with both hands - you will continue to get through this, you are going to be stronger than you can possibly realise. You have made me feel really good today, as you have reminded me firstly of the pain of the start, but then more importantly the grim determination to get on. It reminded me that we all have that determination, to knuckle down and do things we couldn't believe we could do. I was having a bit of a crappy day, small day-to-day things getting to me, but now I can remember that feeling, and I can push through this trivial stuff I'm facing today. 

I'm now going to go out and make the most of today - I hope you all do too :D

(a newly determined) Bob 

You're welcome - those words hide some sins for me, which I'm not proud of. Nothing terrible - I'm not violent or anything like that - mainly things I could have said better, things I shouldn't have said, situations I could have handled better and so on. 

Thing is though, I'm human and so are you - we are emotional creatures and you have been badly hurt! It's OK to blow up at your husband, and it was OK for me to be an arse because that's a natural reaction. The difference is that it is not done in spite - you're not actively trying to hurt the other person, you're not being malicious, you're just hurt and that can mean you lash out. 

From what you've written you are keeping your kids at the front of your mind, which is good. I was lucky (in a way) that I don't have any kids so was able to be quite selfish. It must be terribly hard to work to maintain their routine while trying to go through this trauma - there are others who will give much better advice on this forum about doing this with kids than I can so I won't try, I'll just say you have my respect for such a difficult job.

You will have peaks and troughs through this - but you will get through. Try not to kick yourself too much for your flareup - I know that's hard to do, but you should forgive yourself when things are tough. As time goes on, the peaks and troughs will get further apart, and level out. 

Funnily enough I felt a bit of low a few days ago when I realised it had been a year since my ex came out to me, and I was cross with myself that it got me down on what was a lovely sunny day. Fortunately I had a day off, so I said to my girlfriend I was going to take it easy, I put my feet up and read my book all morning and lost myself in the story. When I stopped reading I'd forgotten I'd felt low in the morning, and actually had a really great afternoon. When I went to bed I realised with a bit of a jolt that I'd forgotten about the low mood all day, and gave myself a little pat on the back for hand

Hello Spencer, welcome to SSN - I'm really pleased you've found us.

My situation is almost identical to yours. When I first posted here (almost a year ago to the day!), I was 31, I'd been with my ex-wife (spoiler alert?) for 12 years (we got together at 19, she was my first girlfriend) and married for 5. No kids, but we did have a pet together. 

In my situation we tried for a few weeks to see if we could make things work - we spoke for hours and hours, not only trying to find compromises which we could both be happy with, but also excising demons and taboo subjects that had grow up in our time together. Sadly, we couldn't reach compromises we could both be happy with. This was on both sides - she was entering the 'gay adolescence' (the period immediately after coming out when the person experiences almost a re-birth - life becomes exciting as they are happy with themselves for the first time in possibly decades. It's almost like being a teenager again). I however in the uncertainty of the situation held firm to what I knew I wanted in my life - I wanted to start a family, I wanted to be a Dad. Obviously there was much more to it than just that, but those ideas were incompatible and so we decided we had to split. 

I don't know if how we handled things would suit you - every situation is different. I will set it out below, in the hope it gives you some support. I must stress this is just how I did handled the situation - I don't claim it to be the right way to do things, it's just how I did it. I really don't want you to take away from this that I think you should do what I did - you need to do what is right for you and you alone!!

OK - after that rather chunky disclaimer... 

We planned how our separation would go. We agreed that we would need to start new lives, and at first we could not be in each other's lives - at least at first. We were quite codependent, which we recognised as unhealthy, and so we agreed the best way for us both to start again was to go