OurPath (formerly SSN) Open Forum / The Forum has been so quiet!

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** April 15, 2023 8:38 pm

The last week or two...so quiet, with few posts made.

How is everybody?

**Posted by straightwifeinNZ** April 16, 2023 1:15 am

Hi Elle.

I'll reply here to bump my post numbers up to 3 so that I can private message you in reply to yours 😅

Last edited by straightwifeinNZ (April 16, 2023 1:39 am)

**Posted by straightwifeinNZ** April 16, 2023 1:16 am

And this will be my third, so that now I can send you a private message haha.

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** April 16, 2023 3:52 am

straightwifeinNZ wrote:
And this will be my third, so that now I can send you a private message haha.

I did not know the was a criteria for messaging! And I've been here a few years

Yeah it's been super quiet and I wondered why. Every time I logged on..... No new posts.
I'm happy to meet another New Zealander

E

**Posted by straightwifeinNZ** April 16, 2023 4:01 am

Yes! I didn’t see the 3 posts criteria until I tried to send you the private message via my laptop instead of my phone, but apparently you can only message admin before you’ve posted 3 times, which is fine, I just couldn’t figure out why my messages weren’t sending haha.

**Posted by Anon2222** April 16, 2023 10:35 am

Things have been the usual ups and downs. I was doing pretty good for awhile, but had a set back yesterday. It was my first birthday "alone". My friend took me out to a dinner theater production. I didn't know what it was about beforehand. She had picked it because it was full of 90's music so she thought it would be fun.

Turns out it was based on a young couple getting married and all about love and growing old together. I managed to hang on until the end but I cried in the car on the drive home. The ending is what did me in, as it was all the love songs about growing old together and true love. Then they had the couples come up who were celebrating anniversaries. There was this older couple who were celebrating 44 years together. I had always had that as a part of my future....

The lows are so bloody annoying. Just when I think I got this, I get dragged back into the darkness. My house is also under construction and basically all I have is my bedroom and it's grown more and more annoying as everything keeps getting delayed and it looks like a bomb went off.

I did not realize just how much being married was a part of my identity. Just how much I loved having one special person in my life. And how adrift I feel. I am doing pretty well from the outside perspective...I work, pay the bills, keep up with everything...but I'm miserable. I want to be a "we". Except now I don't trust anyone and have no idea how I will ever be able to meet anyone.

I have reached 7 months. And still wondering....is this it? Is this life now?

**Posted by Ellexoh_nz** April 16, 2023 1:56 pm

Anon2222 wrote:
......I have reached 7 months. And still wondering....is this it? Is this life now?

Nah Anon.....life gets better. Or at least that's what I'm told, I haven't really experienced the full "it's over, he's gone, I'm here on my own" yet so can't for sure say it will but I do know the fact the man you were married too was the one who sat you down and said "I'm gay" so you're the one who's playing catch-up with your heart. It must have been like a bucket of ice water tipped over you and nobody to hand you a warm towel....if you get my drift.
Whereas I finally admitted to myself 3 years ago that I no longer loved A (after a slow process over years of r'ship disappointment and realisation) so it's been easier to emotionally detach from all the expectations of a great life with A and our "wonderful retirement".

You're still in the emotional storm Anon. It'll hold you back til your head clears and you can see a way forward. And I do believe the best people to get to know are the women who are going through what you're going through, not specifically straightspouses but anyone with the common bond of separation/divorce.
In New Zealand where I live we have Women's Centre's in every city that encourage, advise, have classes and counselors....only women's space!

You need face to face conversation with a women who knows how you feel 'hugs'

Elle

**Posted by walkbymyself** April 17, 2023 8:44 am

I came back to post here because even though I'm two years divorced, and maybe ... 5-1/2 years since the big discovery, I just felt this overwhelming sense of being completely adrift.

Seven months into my journey, I was still making new shocking discoveries. Now, I'm still questioning whether life gets better.

Also having trouble posting because I lost partial use of my right hand. Hopefully that is just temporary.

**Posted by Anon2222** April 17, 2023 9:38 am

I do feel as though it will improve in the sense that I will slowly regain my ability to function, hopefully break down drying less, and the depression will get a bit better. But, at this point, I'm not holding out a ton of hope for me coming out of this as a "better person" or having gained any sort of knowledge, wisdom, or skills that have somehow advanced me in life.

What I have accumulated so far in all this is a lot of deep and traumatic emotional scars. I have lost my ability to trust or love anyone to the same degree. If I do end up in a relationship with someone, I will never be able to love that person to the same degree, intensity or purity that I was once able to do. I have bitterness and anger. I feel so very wronged. And I will no longer trust myself as a judge of character, or trust any other human being.

It is oh so difficult. Being discarded like a piece of trash....

**Posted by ashen_314** April 17, 2023 10:31 am

I've been lurking for a while now, trying to find the words to share and figure out what I need. Lots to read and absorb. Honestly, its been a pretty mixed experience, but more than anything it has been comforting to know that I am not alone.

It has been two months now since my wife came out to me and upended my world. The thing I am most struggling with is the lack of communication from her about where she's at in her head: what she wants, where she sees our marriage going; we've been together for 16 years and married for nine: this relationship had literally been half our lives and I don't want to throw all of that away because of pain and hurt. This came completely out of nowhere for both of us, and it is going to take a lot of communication to find some kind of new normal, whatever that ends up looking like.

I still love her more than anything, and it just... hurts so much.