I feel you. I hate my "new" life. I'm miserable, exhausted and broke. 

I keep having horrific, tortuous nightmares and flashes during the day. One I was sick and dying in a hospital bed. And he came in with his new "love of his life" and was telling me all about how amazing he was, how he finally found true love, and all the ways he was better than me, and talking about how he has finally had great sex and doesn't know why he wasted so long with me. I woke up crying.

I'm depressed as hell and can barely function. Most of the time I just wish I wasn't alive anymore. I honestly don't know what to do with myself. So I just get up and continue my miserable existence. 

So, if you need to commiserate, I'm hear to listen. Right now I'm just sick of everyone telling me it gets better, or that I'll be better off, and there's something better out there for you *eye roll*

Thanks for the support Closet.

Not gonna lie, I really wish it was that easy. I have had chronic depression for over a decade. This is a whole new level though.

Sadly, I carry the burden daily....despite a psychologist, psychiatrist, medication, all kinds of therapy. It never ends. They are all aware of my current state but unfortunately nothing helps. 

I am stuck in a state of not being suicidal, but just being so depressed I don't want to live my life. I try to tell myself it is what it is....and just keep getting up in the morning. I get up every morning because my pets need me, and I go through the motions. I have always struggled to work full time. Every time I have ever worked full time I get worn down, exhausted, more depressed, can't eat. The usual.

Now of course I am stuck in a situation where I have to work more than full time (I'm trying to not go higher than 50 hours a week but it's tough) and I'm hanging by a thread. But it's what needs to be done to pay the bills. I struggle with the fact that there honestly isn't an end in sight either....because it is literally what I have to do to be able to afford to be alive. 

Just another step in the mind fuck. It feels like salt in the wounds to see that he's so happy with his new life as well. I am working very hard to not be bitter....because ironically, the only one that suffers is me. The joy of all this is I get left behind with all the baggage, and if I don't somehow overcome it...I'm the one that suffers.

I am hanging on though. And I really hope it starts to get better from the depression aspect at least sometime here. But, I truly am miserable. Depression sucks. Add on top of that a devastating life change and you get....this

 

Oliviap, I feel your pain *virtual hugs*. 

I agree. I feel so rejected. And it's so painful. I feel like no one has ever truly loved me. I struggle with believing any of my marriage was real and just feel so very much unloved. And the sad thing is, I'm still in love with him. It's hard to turn that sh*t off. It just all happened so fast, I haven't even had a chance to process what the hell happened.

Honestly, that man was/is the love of my life and I gave everything I had to the marriage. I actually loved being married. I loved everything about it. I have never so much as looked at another man. I was 100% good to go to be married for 60+ years. Apparently what I got in return was for him to tell me he saw me as just a friend, not a romantic partner, and he wanted to find true love. He also wanted to have an actual intimate relationship. And that he had been attracted and noticed men for awhile and wanted to date and have sex and actually have fun.

So.....I guess I really did get rejected. You know, he told me that at the end he was so confused about our relationship that he looked up what love was. Like....thanks for that? I gave him pretty damn near unconditional love for 18 years and you have to google the definition of what love is....

Anon,
   I also suffer from chronic depression, mostly low level ("dysthymia" in the jargon), but punctuated by bouts of more serious episodes, triggered by situations mostly out of my control (like my husband's trans bomb drop, or the most recent revelation that he's seeing another woman, and lying to her about his gender dysphoria, cross dressing, ideas of himself as a lesbian, how long he's felt this, etc etc).  

 But one thing I've noticed since I moved out and have now lived on my own for four + years, is that a lot of the low level depression I suffered when I was living with my now ex was the result of the stressful life I was living with a closeted man.  Yes, I have long have tendencies to depression.  But living in a household governed by his moods, his manipulations, his blaming me for his unhappiness, and my accustoming myself--internalizing his unhappiness and his "unhappiness as my fault"--to those things, was implicated in my depression.  

Right now your low mood, your depression, is situational; or, at least, your depression is worsened by this situation.  It's happening "so fast" and you need time and space to process, while the necessity of work doesn't leave you space/time to do that.   So no wonder you are feeling low.  Lower than usual.  Lower than low.  That's an understandable reaction.  If the best you can do is get up every morning and get through the day however, that's a victory.  That's progress.  

 I don't know if you use "reframing" techniques, or stop to deliberately confront your own negative self talk, but I find it helps me.  I don't want to give you--or sell you--false hope, but as the days, weeks, months pass, and you cope, even if all you are doing is coping, you might find yourself feeling that your coping is a sign of your strength, and take a little heart from it.  You also might also find that the longer he is gone and no longer infecting the atmosphere of your home, you can begin to see how his behavior elicited (at least some of) your depression.  Maybe your body and mind knew what you didn't recognize cognitively.  At this point, treat yourself in the same way as you did your husband/stbx: love yourself.  Be your own wife.  Be your own husband.  Be your own mother.  Be your own friend.  Treat yourself as you would like to be treated (or as you would have liked to have been treated), and as you treated him.  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (October 23, 2022 8:56 am)

Anon, the recognition that your ex was staring true love in the face and saying that is what he wanted is painfully ironic.  It is entirely normal to be horribly depressed right now.

I tend to avoid threads about depression because my fear is that the meds people take can end up becoming a problem in themselves.  I don't take them.  Never have.  Well I took half a tablet when I was diagnosed with depression and refused to take any more - said it was my depression and I'd get over it in my time.  Fortunately for me my counsellor supported me.

That said, I am writing because there's nothing can make you more depressed than love is there - though I am forever sad for not having children, it is romantic love that is the wellspring.

One thing has changed for you - he has moved out.  This is an improvement.  He is not right there beside you playing you day in day out.  You can relax.  Everything you do is a little bit of self regained.  More hugs.