Intro

My first ever posting. Hurt and bemused just about covers it. I focused my entire life on my wife, home, our security and ultimately the kids,for 18 years. There were differences between us, largely worked around, I suppose, but the cause of periodic discontent, particularly for my wife. That said, our marriage seemed to be much more about fun, laughter, affection and warmth than it was about strife. Following the last period of discontent we took to Relate counselling. At the end of that it felt so positive,warm and connected and I truly belived we could make it and come to terms with our differences. But my wife gave up and started a 'cyber affair' 6 weeks or so ago, declaring she loved someone else on the thinnest of contact and commitment. Already, the separation is 'going nuclear'. She has gone so dark and remote I don't recognise her and her view of the many largely happy years we had together seems to be totally distorted. I now appear to be losing most of what I tried to build up - the love of my life, part of my kids, a beautiful home, job and pension security and so on. I feel so hurt and bleak I can hardly breathe. Can anyone talk me up?

Welcome to Wiki

Your situation sounds like a repeat of mine 2 years ago. You say you would like to be talked up, from my experience you have 2 phases to go through. The first is the trying to save your marriage phase, which you may succeed in - I didn't. You then get into the move on with your life phase. Which at the moment despite having been made redundant I feel I am succeeding in, so I do believe this hope!

My wife's affair was not cyber but it resulted in her claiming she loved this guy after a very short period. She also changed drastically. This all happened right after my 40th birthday and I firmly believe it was a mid life crisis for her. Her view of events got so distorted, everything was my fault. It was a horrible time.

I spent 9 months trying to persuade her to give him up. In hindsight it was a total waste of time. She could conjure up so many things that she said she hated about our 20+ years together, she ignored all the good things we had, she could only talk in glowing terms about her new man as he made her laugh.....So much for valuing commitment, sacrifice for your family, etc etc!

In the end she moved out and rented a place so she could 'be me'. Her relationship with the guy continued. I stayed in the marital home, carried on working, looked after the kids 2/3 of the time, and paid her child maintenance - yes I was stupid!!

Now just over a year later, I have looked long and hard back at my marriage and realised it was not as good as I thought. I have also looked honestly at my ex and realised she was not a nice person and that I made a lot of allowances for her. I believe marriage is about compromise so I was happy to do that at the time. I have met a new partner, who makes me very happy and I feel my life is much better.

I do still feel down sometimes, as I have been made redundant and the marital house is now on the market, but I know that the redundancy is not connected with my divorce and is also the chance of a new start too!

All the best

S

Afternoon,

Itgetsbetter has helped enormously with my break-up.

After some 18yrs of happy marriage (I have two boys 13 and 15) my wife decided to leave us in January this year - her decision has literally crushed us and came without warning.

We had a lovely life and family but wife has decided she wants a "new" life. I spent months begging her to stay but she just ignored all my efforts and became cruel and hurtful. It is as if we have been invaded by an alien!

The person we are now dealing with is not the person I married and loved. I have cut-off all contact with my wife which has helped me enormously. She has moved out of the family house and now lives some 50 miles away with her new partner.

It is an awful time but in the last few weeks I have began to
get a small part of my life back. You need to stay strong for
yourself - it seems once they go that is normally it.

Good Luck
Brunswick.