It has taken me all of 2 weeks to go from feeling like I would have a heart attack 3x/day to waking up & relieved i didn't have to feel so horribly about my life. I'm still scared shitless about my future financially & physically, but I know I'm making progress so it is at least hopeful. 

It actually feels the same as when I quit smoking. You get past the initial panic laden first days & then everyday you move further way from that first DDay, you are greatful you don't have to go thru that period again.

the veterans here all proclaim No Contact is the only way to really get on with recovery & I now see why. It really sucked at first & felt so crushingly final but a week later & I started seeing more positives to the split than negatives. 

 

Hi snowquail. 

Welcome to our group.  Glad to have you.  Congrats on getting through the hardest parts.  Discovery and divorce are so challenging.  Now you've separated and you can truly begin to heal. 

There is life on the other side.. count on it.  

Sounds like you are still on the emotional roller-coaster.  That's normal.  Those hard days will always be followed by easier days.  As time goes on the dips won't be so deep and they won't last long and eventually you'll be on a smooth track.  

I also don't understand how my ex was willing to do such awful things to me.  What you are doing is trying to view his actions through your own perspective on love.  You loved deeply and purely and fully.  You put his happiness ahead of yours or at least equal to yours.  In this form of love you could never lie to or cheat on your spouse.  But for a GID (gay in denial) spouse, the perspective of love is different.  There love for us always came second to their need to hide and deny their secret.  It was about them.  They are selfish.  If you were capable to seeing life through the eyes of a selfish person the idea of stealing 38+ years of a person's life aren't so terrible.  You would justify things to yourself and say that you gave them a good life and protected and cared for them.  You were best friends and you had so much fun together.  You would think that you sacrificed so much by denying yourself that you must have been a great spouse.  


So.. what have you done for yourself now that you are separate and free?
Have you remodeled or redecorated the house?  Painted any walls?  Taken over his "man cave" or office and made it a craft and hobby room?  Have you moved the furniture around?  Have you had any parties for your girlfriends?  Have you taken a vacation?  Have you gotten a pet?

Have you found anything he left that you don't want and burned it?   I'm not saying I did that..  but if I had, would be able to tell you that it would have been a very satisfying experience.  

Kel wrote:

I was so relieved when he finally left......how miserable you were until you stopped clinging to the thing that was making you miserable.Kel

I'm using the forum mostly as a 'book to read' at the moment, and taking pertinent passages from posts members have made to add to my store of things that bolster my reserve & strengthen my willpower to not let this crush me. 
It's all helping. 
I told our adult children what their father was doing/had done/wanted to do, so that was a big step for me....but I'm 
still caught in the need to not let this end. 
And this morning I asked "if the counselor asked you today *how committed are you to the r'ship...what would you say?"

He said "100%"

 

The loneliness is hard.  My GIDX moved to a new city and was walking away from the relationship before the divorce happened.  He got a new job, but he was relieved to get away from the tension as I was raging, sad and hurt and everything in between.  And even then I was lonely and he was just so happy to have space away from my pain and angst about his betrayals. 

Now I've been living alone for nearly two years.  And for the first 18 mos. I cried everyday.  I woke up and went to bed crying really.  It was those times when we were together most and I think that was so hard to lose that person I so loved cuddling up to etc.  AND My youngest had left for college just as the shit hit the fan too.  It was just so hard to get used to the fact that he was not coming home, not coming back, and didn't call - he was not making any efforts.  But he had years to get used to this possibility.  And was excited, even said to me, "Everyone should get divorced" enthusiastically which of course was just heartbreaking at a time when was alone and so sad and he was already with another woman.  I was dating, but only because my suitor pursued me tenaciously from afar and was not around much.  I cried.  I howled to him.  Poor guy....

I had had years of unhappiness, but no preparation or thoughts as to a life alone (god I think we must be a group of tenacious believers in marriage this lot!)  That was a source of anger as there were so many times I (WE) made choices that didn't further my chances of a career as I stayed at home rather than we have the expense of childcare would have been close to my income level.  Or the freedoms to do courses I had wanted to do as he refused.  And I felt it was in my children's best interests for me to stay at home. 

But in hindsight, it wasn't in MINE (or probably theirs as I could have been a better example of a career woman had I worked more and it would have kept the misogynistic attitude of their father at bay), and he would have already been messing around at that exact time when I gave up a useful career path....

Anyway being alone was good at a time when I was just barely managing to do basic care and my part time job.  Now I am really feeling like I'm okay, but I have to make a totally new start, job house, city and I'm a bit scared of dating.  Kel gives me hope.  I just need to get out there.  I've dipped my toe in, but get put off too easily.  Nothing is very comfortable yet.  And I still keep hoping this half way BF sorts his life out.  But I think I have to take a page outta Kel's sis-in-laws book.  Leave him to it and leave...which tbh I actually have done and he is now making plans, but still future plans..... I kept hoping my GIDX would somehow sort out his life too.... And we all know that was never gonna happen.....

Advantages of being alone... eating what and when you want.  Sprawling out on the bed and hogging the duvet.  Not cleaning up as much or cleaning up after another person.  Not having anyone tell me horrid things/criticise me anymore.  Not being worried about what the other person is thinking or doing or in any way modulating my behaviour or way of being to suit another person, as that would result in the previous point.

I have done some amazing things I never would have done with him.  I went on holiday at the last minute with a friend who's husband could not go.  I've really been super brave about experimenting in my life as a single and slightly irresponsible adult.  I can whatever I want and no one cares really.  Which has its down side....but it is exciting in a way.  I can be hopeful instead of the dread of coming home to a depressed and unpredictably angry person who took it out on me often. 

It isn't easy and I do get lonely  But it IS GETTING LESS>>>. I value my girlfriends and friends far more now.  I know that my sons are there for me too.  And I see in hindsight how really awful it is.  What he did was awful and I think these days we all hear all this bullshit about both partners having to take responsibility for an affair or whatever and I think no.  Sometimes people make shit decisions and hurt others.  And that is NOT my fault.  And even if it is *who he is* then he should have made the choice to be honest and speak his truth. NOT the lies I ate for meals regularly.  I do feel sorry for him.  I pity his weakness and his unhappiness.  He cannot be happy fully with himself still, the corrosive nature of such a dual life is quite damaging to keep up for so long.  And so he makes it about me and I am no longer there to take the rap unless of course I make the easy mistake of thinking he is the man I knew and loved.  He is not.  That person is....gone.  Actually never existed.  This morass is about a person I don't know, never knew.  A friend said you just have to say  "Not my monkey, not my circus....."

We can do this....and we have Clif and Kel to shine a light on a better future with a new NOT cheating/lying life partner....gaslighting and projecting and all the other shit that GID people do to deny the shame and guilt many of them feel.  Anyways long rant over now....

When they move out, you have to get them out of your head,  really get them to move the fuck out....that's the hardest part really. 

And get on with hope and joy that you are alive and can eat drink and be merry still, though it may be awhile before you really want to (and that is okay....I really wallowed in my misery fully until I got bored with my own craziness because if I explained it to people they were like WTF you still miss HIM?  Thanks to all of you here.... I know I was a hard case.  I thought love wins over all.  I thought he was my best friend.  And no he wasn't.  You don't treat friends like this.  This is not something you do to people you value and love wholeheartedly.  I was loved, but also and in equal measure he felt contempt and hatred and resentment towards me that has only grown with the financial blow the divorce dealt him and the blow of me telling others of his behaviour (why not?! It's not about me....and it is true, he just sooo regrets telling anything which is why so many don't!).  I was Collateral damage in his storyline. 

Now I get to write my own story.  And that is what it is like when they move out.  And it is all down to you.  Don't let THEIR stupid ass story be the story of YOUR life.  I'm not a victim.  I am a survivor.  And it was awful, but I'm going to tell the story of how I did x, y and z in my 50s and how I learned and grew as a person in compassion and wisdom thru my suffering this loss and disappointment.  Caroline Myss said "Don't pass on your suffering, pass on the wisdom you gain from it...". And that is what I want to do now....