I appreciate reading your updates, and can identify with all of them. This isn't an easy process. It helps so much to know I am not alone or I am not the only one. I need to work on those boundaries with My GXH, and I need to stop being in the caretaker role. After 44 years, it's hard to stop my behavior in now what I see was such a toxic relationship. I still keep questioning, "what kind of love was it?" Looking back I feel like I was my GXH's mother not his wife.........I can now see I was in a platonic relationship, not romantic. I do my best not to focus on him but on me, but it isn't easy.

Love and Hugs to all of you,
Cindy

2naive wrote:

I lost all of 2018, to heavy, dark depression that came with the shock and confusion of this nightmare. I became a recluse. It is still very difficult for me to function in society. Small talk is a struggle.
 

This is me, too.  I filed for divorce over a year ago, wasted one year trying to mediate with a narcissistic psychopath, and now the mediator has quit on us, my husband has changed lawyers, and we're working with a private judge instead.

So it's basically just another year down the drain, but I moved out of the house and into an apartment we've maintained from my husband's bachelor days.

I have developed something called "Trichotillomania" which is when you compulsively pull at your hair.  I wake up with fingernail marks dug into my scalp and forehead.  Now that I understand it has a name, I've been doing a better job of trying to control it.

It's tough being in limbo, but I guess the good thing is that I've gotten distance from the initial shock.  I worry that when the divorce gets going, and I have to deal a lot more with my husband, I'm going to regress.

I am very lonely.  I have tried to contact the SSN contact person here, but didn't get a response.

Well, my ex-spouse came clean about his cross dressing in early August 2014 (about a week before our 19th anniversary). A few months later it became clear he was not merely crossdressing, but was trans. 

We separated late July 2015 after which transitioned went head spinningly fast. After fully transitioning, she tells me, in August 2017, that she wants a divorce because she can't move forward with this marriage hanging over her head. By August 2018, she still hadn't filed, so I did without telling her first. She had stopped fully supporting us (I am a stay at home homeschooling mom) and she wasn't paying spousal or child support, so I really had no choice.

Divorce was final July 2019 - almost 4 years to the date we separated. We sold the marital home and I bought a townhome about 3 weeks after that. 

Now, I am about to start remodeling the new place and make it mine. I also legally went back to my maiden name. I have been driving for all the delivery apps to make ends meet. Now that things are starting settle down though, I think it may be time to find a real job. I am also planning to start a blog sharing my story as a straight spouse and living with trauma.

I have cut away so many ties that still bound me to my ex within the past few months, and with each tie that I cut, I feel lighter and stronger and more like the me of my youth - only better and wiser. The only major tie left is the kids, and I know that tie will always be there. My youngest, however, is 17 and a senior, so that tie will be loosened a bit come next June.

All in all.... I am doing well. I am in a better place than I have been in years. I am a little apprehensive though. as we moved into the fall and the holidays. I have been doing well before, but come November, things change for me. This fall I will see if the therapy and the EMDR really helped and how much.

This has been a real learning experience and I have gotten quite an education. I hope to be able to help others who find themselves in a similar situation because it is such a lonely place and there is almost no help out there for us.
 

In Sept 2014, after 26 years of marriage,  I ask for divorce because as I tell him, “I think you are gay”  It was the only explanation I could have for evidence over the years combined with the general hateful outbursts I felt were so random and unjustified.  The silence and stonewalling and contempt were enough.   He responds with the admission of an affair with a woman 15 years previous.  Confusion and rage as there had been porn, gaydar acct and various other obvious clues, but generally I believed his justifications for many years.  Curiosity and experimentation (chats only mind you! Ha bloody ha!)    Then he moves away for a job in another town.  We separate in July 2015 and divorce final in April 2016.  He admits to 27+ hookups with men throughout the marriage.  He remarries a woman in May 2017.  I am not surprised, he needed a new beard.

So how am I?  I feel my personal narrative is not believable.   That NYTimes article is so on point.  I am trying to rewrite my life story.  And it makes me feel sad to think myself such a pawn in someone else’s life.  And that makes me feel angry at all the years he was out of the marriage really, betraying me when we had young children and making me feel like it was me.  The typical straight spouse story really. 

My three sons and family generally just think I need to move on and get over it.  Duh, of course, they are right, but it is affecting me on so many levels still.  I am full of rage at times, esp. as I feel I lost my future and my ex is still in the closet.  I am gripped by the urge to hire a personal detective to follow him to get my proof and then send it to all and sundry.  But he admitted being bi as if it was just a short experimental stage when it was decades of betrayals - yet I am the one who is still feeling the repercussions.  I step away from the crazy and try to move on. 

It is all rather raw mainly because I just broke up with a man I was dating partly because I have a low ability to trust.  I get triggered by what to others seem normal relationship issues. I’m ready to walk at the slightest hint of someone blaming me for their issues. I can’t bear people who say they are happily divorced.  I just wish my ex would be vaguely kind, but with the recent death of my MIL and the total exclusion I felt, I just feel so sad.  The grief is fresh again.  And tomorrow is my GIDX’s birthday, so it is a date that underlines all the efforts and energy I put into his life. 

I feel unfit for life on so many levels at times.  Today I feel a terrible mother as I had my youngest son over and trash talked his dad.  It is below me.  But I’m just so angry at his gay in denial shit.  I just told my son - your father is gay in denial.  Of course he doesn’t want to know.  I have relied on him too much when I have felt low and he is sympathetic, but it isn’t healthy for either of us to talk about the situation.   I don’t want to be that sort of person either.  But I’ve no family in this country except him. 

So atm I’m feeling pretty low.  I have the tools to heal, but I feel sometimes I just can’t or don’t pick them up.  I downloaded some of the songs from the SS earworms thread last night and that was great.  I am so glad to have this resource and you all have been so kind.  It is a circular path though and I guess I am better.  I’m not crying so often.  But this latest breakup has been hard.  I had hope and yet I can’t trust.  I am on a hair trigger.  I feel discouraged by my wounded-ness.  I don't’ want to be a victim.  I am a strong woman really, but atm it is just a low.  I have to just ride it out.  I will rise again.  It will pass.  I feel the healing is a spiral and it does get better.  Sometimes though we get knocked down a couple rungs.... I just bumped down a few this last week.

Yea, I know it doesn't help.  His being in the closet just makes me feel so crazy with it at times!  I feel that just prompts me to want to say stuff to my son when my GIDX's new wife is mentioned.  He will be cheating on her soon enough. He is bi, but couldn't resist men for decades, so I can't imagine he will last too long.  Maybe they have an open relationship?  Anyway not my business really.  Not my monkey, not my circus anymore.  I need to care less what happens, but it feels such a slap in the face him remarrying so fast.  ARrrgghhhh....   

But absolutely a good rule to live by - no contact!  No thoughts. no words, nothing.  I really want that Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind treatment!  Stat.