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1 of 1- chaddyo87
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Will he always be so different?
Hi,
My ex and I broke up 4 months ago. I'm doing okay and have worked through a lot of despair and rage. I'm taking care of myself and doing a pretty good job of moving on, but doing it slowly.
The thing that is really getting me down the past weeks though is how much he's changed. Just like the person I used to know seems to have completely disappeared. We don't have any contact, but we have some overlapping friends who share stories or pictures of him with me. Wow - he just is so different. My hope is one day he'll settle down a bit (I think he's really just feeling overwhelmed, insecure, and doesn't know how to behave), but I also am trying to accept the fact that maybe he was a total different person (hate to say it, but a total 'fraud') when he was with me. If this is the 'real' person he is, fine, I'll have to accept that, but damn, I really miss the old guy. I don't expect the old version to come back completely, he's being honest with himself for the first time and letting sides of him out that were hidden for a long time, but I'm struggling with the total disappearance of the person I loved for 10 years. We both would like to be friends again one day in the future...
Anyone else experience this? Did your ex eventually settle into an identity that was some sort of combination of the 'old' and 'new' them? Or did they disappear forever into a different person?
- lily
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Re: Will he always be so different?
Maybe one way to gauge the realities of them is by how others see them. I have been told by old friends that he is just the same as ever. And I believe them because it is clear he still has that way of appearing to be such a nice guy, the charm has completely sealed over.
I know he's not a nice man. I say to them it's different if you're living with him than just having him as a friend.
TGT was profoundly shocking but the scariest part was as I came to see that he wasn't just hiding something, he was hiding the whole of him. 'Talk to the hand' is the phrase that comes up in my head - I had been having an entire decades long marriage with someone who was interacting with me in a manipulative way rather than a personal one.
Your partners have come out of the closet. To me that is just part of who they are.
People change over a lifetime, of course we do, we were babies once. It's a trajectory and for many people in the closet when the clock ticks to mid life that is when they come out of the closet. That is when the bisexual says I am gay.
Coming out of the closet isn't coming out of hiding.
There's a Zsa Zsa Gabor quote - "Darleenk, you don't know the man you married until you divorce him."
And I think those of us here who have lived through the process of their partner coming out of the closet can add - you don't know the partner you married until he comes out of the closet. I see it as a vulnerable moment, like a hermit crab having to move into a bigger shell, where you get to see what they really look like.
- StraightSpouse1979
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Re: Will he always be so different?
I am still married and living with him and we have a five year old daughter. The looking different is a constant daily reminder so I get that. I have taken down every photo of us together, wedding photos included, because I just cannot look at the old him versus the current new him. Every day I worry what the future will hold as far as will he push the envelope any further or is what he is now the extent of his changes.
- MJM017
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Re: Will he always be so different?
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Last edited by MJM017 (July 12, 2021 1:32 pm)
No - It's not too late. It's not hopeless. Even there, there's something I can do. I just have to find the will. Ikiru (1952), film directed by Akira Kurosawa