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Sooooo, I traveled to my LW's family's home for the holiday weekend. It's been a month since she told me she wants a divorce to pursue her new life after 30 years together. Being there, among my in-laws, whom I love as my own parents, while hiding from them & my teen children the double-secret ambush that will befall them all in the new year made me feel so miserable, deceitful, & a party to her impending ambush. I pretended to be the happy father/husband/son-in-law/brother-in-law, even as I inwardly struggled to keep it together. Church was a particularly trying experience, knowing also that she's shedding the faith that has been her foundation since childhood. I know many of you have been through all of this already, but I just feel tainted by her charade. To make matters worse, she wrote a cryptic message in my Christmas card that gave me a stupid feeling of hope, which I foolishly snapped up, hook, line, & sinker, only to learn later, she meant absolutely nothing by it--couldn't even remember what she was trying to say. Our last family holiday together, & it's another horrible memory to add to a pretty lengthy list. I pray, & I seek counsel from God, but I'm feeling only pain, confusion, & loss.
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That must've been tough. I think we all (straights) become adept at putting on the mask 😷 and pretending everything's okay, while secretly wishing we could burst out! at an opportune time to shoot "No look! this is what he/she has done. To me!"
It's part of what we have to go through to get where were going. The fact we're not sure where that is keeps us in that "I can't tell this to anybody yet" space.
Wouldn't we be in a big hole if we didn't have us to come here and rant and rage to! 🙂
Elle
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Feel for you. My last Christmas married was like that..a charade.
Your faith comment was the same for me..to put on the charade in church at christmas told me all I needed to know about my wedding decades earlier in a church.
Know that Christmases in the future will be genuine and a authentic.
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Rob wrote:
Know that Christmases in the future will be genuine and a authentic.
I do hope that will be true, Rob! I want something akin to normalcy, especially in my faith. God has indeed sustained me throughout this ordeal, but it's dominated my relationship with Him. I've prayed for her. I've prayed for my children. I've prayed for myself. I've prayed for miracles. Now, I simply pray for endurance. I long for the day none of this will invade my prayer life anymore.