drowning wrote:

I want to see better days, but can't get out of this funk.  It feels like PTSD.  Last July I found proof in my ex husbands gym bag confirming that he was involved in a gay relationship.  Turns out he had been in many one nighters, short term and long term relationships with men for the past 40 years of our marriage for sure, and probably from the start. I was so naive.  I had found oddities before but when I confronted him he had a stream of lies that I always bought.  The final proof was the clincher - his greatest fear had come true, that he would be caught with no way out.  His prior "loving" personality changed like a snap of a finger in 2 seconds.  He said I ruined his life because I became disabled.  The lies, the being used, the deceiving, the secret removal of money from joint accounts, his hidden stashes of thousands, his lavish spending on himself and on his lovers.  I am now displaced - I had to leave Arizona and move to Connecticut to live with my daughter.  A drastic change in climate, a different place that I don,t feel I want to be in but have no choice.  My daughter is loving and caring and she offered to take me in.  Being homebound, a vast change in diet, the weather gloominess and cold and lack of sunshine wears me down.  The paperwork in trying to get doctors and prescriptions, endless phone calls to uncaring medical people.  Too rich for assistance but not enough money to make ends meet every month.  Seeing a therapist, she suggested this website since I am totally alone all day.  A city girl living on a goat farm in the middle of nowhere.  Really want to get past this .  Feel like I deserve a life that was taken away from me.  I am 73.  I was promised the world and felt like I had it.  Now its gone.  No friends, no transportation.  How do I dig myself out of this?

 

Fucking men with secrets huh?

Well....the answer to drowning is to start swimming. Even at 73. Great suggestion from your therapist! I haven't read or heard of a therapist/counselor even aware of the Forum. In saying that I'm from New Zealand....small country. It's no doubt different elsewhere. 
Yes,,,I'm sure if I started an argument with the bisexual man I'm separating from that I'd get lots of accusations about how I dragged his life down with my health issues. But along with separating from him...I'm separating myself from digging myself into a hole of misery and blame because even though I'm walking away from a life of ease and privilege I think I'd rather live on the "bones of my arse" than stay. I thought I had the world in my hand too. Retirement years sorted. No, it all dissolved and disappeared with an email.

I'm like you and have a son who has said "come live with me" and while it's not as simple as it sounds, and I'll have a whole new perspective (life!) to get used to....I'm doing it because the next 20 years are going to be mine. 

A loving, caring son/daughter is far preferable to a life with somebody we never really knew right?

Elle




 

It's hard, starting over, with fewer resources and in new circumstances. To be dependent on a daughter is not like relying on a spouse.

I'm so sorry.  

It'll take time for you to come back to yourself and get to the point where you can lift your head and look around yourself and find some pleasure in life again.

I can understand that the change in climate is a huge shift.  Earlier in life I moved from Colorado, where I'd grown up, to rainy, cloudy Ithaca, NY, and it knocked me off my pins for quite some time.  

Are there hobbies you do that might allow you to meet other people, even virtually, in the place you are now?  That could help, if you can bring yourself to make the effort (and I know that's hard).   As for gardening...how about bonsai or an indoor herb garden?  It doesn't have to be big; it just has to be something that grows and that you commit to caring for.  (And no, it's not a substitute for what you lost; it's just something that responds to the care you give it.)

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (March 28, 2023 8:55 pm)