after more than 27 years together.......

Hello Dutchgirl
You and I are in the same place at the moment and my heart goes out to you. Like you my husband left me a week after we had returned from celebrating our 25th anniversary, He had seemed alittle distant over the previous six months, but during that time we had been away and shared lovely moments together.
You feel so alone and betrayed, after all the years you have spent putting your heart and time into your marriage, only for them to have some kind of midlife crisis and decide actually after all those years your not what they wanted after all.
Its not fair and you feel so cheated, Im 46 and like you I dread the thought that I might be alone now for the rest of my life. Its only been 10 weeks for me so Im not coping that great but others on this site have already helped me and they will you too. I just wanted you to know I really know how you feel. I too dont know what the meaning of my life is anymore. But I Do know that at some point in the future when Im feeling stronger I will find it. Because Im special and so are you and they are the losers, because they gave up the best thing they ever had, us.
The days ahead wont be and arent easy, you will go over the same thing over and over again trying to make sense of what has happened. Keep in touch talk to me anytime, your going to make it.

Hi dutch girl,
welcome to wiki,many of us are in the same boat.Life is not going to be as it was or like we planned for but it does not mean it is not going to be good.Once you are out of this nightmare,i am sure you will start enjoying you freedom and wonder why you were so scared.
come in chat when you are lone ,you will soon make friends ,we do meet too so make the most of it if you can,
take care
xxxxxxx

Don't you sometimes wish it would make it easier to know that there are people out there going through the same feelings you are going through ?

It probably doesn't make a difference if this happens after 15 years or after 27 years. The fact that I thought we had a good marriage and suddenly discovering that was not as he was seeing it at all was such a blow.
I told him that I would have preferred he had died, at least then I would have the good memories to help me through the pain and grieve.Now I only have the knowledge that he made our relationship into a lie by saying that maybe he should have never married me and all the good times I remember might not have been good times at all.

Like you I also hope people are right and it will get better. At this moment I am not seeing that as I think you don't as well.It helps me a bit to know though it's not only men who do this so thank you for replying. My thoughts are with you as well and hopefully we each will come out of this much better than we now think we will.

Hi again dutchgirl

as the others have said it will get better. I am further down the road than most of the others who have replied and i can assure u there is light at the end of the tunnel even if it hard to see at the moment.

I think it is impossible to make sense of it all. Like another poster i was really angry that he never talked thru the issues with me and gave me a chance to see if we could remedy the situation. But that needs commitment and sadly that seems lacking when guys hit the mid life crisis. i know there are guys on here who have suffered the same with women but obviously the percentages are very much towards men leaving. But one thing wiki does is show u men who like us have had to go thru the same hurt and betrayal so there are some nice guys out there still even at our age lol.


you are correct bereavement in someways is a lot easier as you no longer need to see the person again which i found so difficult at first when having to see my hubby when he picked up our son. Also i think peeps are not as sympathetic with someone going thru a divorce as a bereavement. But wiki is great and u will meet peeps on here who will help you thru this and who never judge or mind u moaning or being low.

good luck and remember there are peeps who care even if we are virtual ones

big hug to get thru today.

Hi Dutchgirl
I can identify with much of what you are going through as my husband of 23 years told me he hadn't loved me for years, and yes I did feel that made the memories of happy times into a lie, when I thought we were happy and obviously he didn't.

And yes like you I felt it would have been better if he had died. In fact my friend who was widowed young feels sorry for me as she says I have all the things she had to cope with, but with the added feelings of rejection, betrayal and bitterness.

I feel it does help to know you're not the only one going through this, and there are survivors of divorce out there! Like many things it will take time I suppose. I'm 5 months into my nightmare but it doesn't help that he's under the same roof. I would I'm sure be emotionally better off when he's gone.

I've started to see a counsellor and one of the things she said to me was that I was allowing him to have emotional power over me and I needed to stop. Basically he was having his cake and eating it, so I've started to ignore him and only communicate when necessary, (and I must admit it helps to think of all the nasty things he's said and stay a little bit angry for now). Maybe you'll have to find what works for you, but I'm having a better week this week, so hang in there, we all need to support each other. x

What is tough is that if you remember the happy times you grieve that they have gone, and if you question whether they were what you thought they were you are angry that you were deluding yourself.

So just think that if you remembered it as a happy time, it was for you.

Separation and divorce is very difficult because unlike bereavement, there's no public ceremony or established etiquette to help you.

Sometimes people assume that your husband is a pig and say things about him, which you don't want to hear, because if he was that bad you would never have stayed married to him.

And anything sets it off - I sorted out some old boxes the other day and came across photos of him and me taken by my mother-in-law when we first were together, which I've never seen. So not only was I grieving that we were once happy, but also at the loss of my youth, and a huge wave of sadness as I still miss my mother-in-law (she died nearly 15 years ago) and I thought how very sorry she would be that her son had hurt me. And the worst thing is that the only person I could show the photos to who would know what I was on about was - HIM!!!