My entry dated 9/22/11 I've made baby steps

Ok I've been reading post and sorta relating. There are still so many unanswered questions. Not that I'll ever get the answers but it helps to process. We were married 21 years (actually eloped) married at age 23; 2 kids (11 mpnths apart) by age 26. We struggled with my husbands business the entire marriage. I worked here and there but left my career to raise the kids. I worked for the business (was asked to leave to get a reliable paycheck for the family) and eventually found part time work else where as the kids were in high school. I guess the last three years of our marriage we drifted apart and our marriage was consumed by my daughter playing softball. So then my husband gets a great offer to work for this great corporation but we'll have to move about an hour and half away. No biggy. After a year my son graduates high school we'll sell the house and move, but until then my husband lives with my sister and brother-inlaw and commutes on weekends. Here's the catch: my daughter is in a horrible a car accident the summer after high school graduation right before she is to go to college on scholarship to play softball (she's a pitcher) and 3 days after my husbands mother passes away of alzhiemers. My daughter becomes paralyzed and is in the hospital and acute rehab for 6 months. Our marriage falls apart. Many emotional issues I went through during that time (post traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, etc) he wants to go to marriage counseling while my daughter is in hospital. I go but am in no way able to focus on marriage. When my daughter is able to come home my husband found a house by his job and makes modifications meanwhile we lose the house we had to foreclosure. I choose to bring her home and be with my son til he graduates and am able to stay in our house until summer. He takes it all wrong. I finally get help for my issues with a therapist and put on meds but he's gone; had enough of me. He wants a divorce. I say a midlife crisis he says he had a breaking point. At this point we are living two different places and hardly communicating. My daughter and I stay at his house two days a week and he comes home on weekends. At this point he tells me he doesn't love me anymore and hasn't for a while. I am devastated!!! I'm sure a lot of this for him has been processed by he and his four sisters over much wine. Ive begged and pleaded for him not to do this to at least try to work it out and get counseling. Ok to catch up to now a year later: he filed divorce and got it. I moved my daughter and myself from Ohio to Florida so she could go to rehab center there for her injury. My son is in college now close to my now ex-husband and sister. He doesn't talk to me. Says his decision was right. He wasn't happy. He has since been promoted several times and I'm so proud of him. But he threw me under the bus. As if I've died. I don't understand how he can be so emotionally detached and moved on so quickly. I had to deal with all our furniture and household stuff. I had to get my son in college and pick up the pieces. He says he's there for the kids only and loves and misses them. He calls or text my daughter and I'm so jealous. I'm not a part if his new life. I don't know if there's someone else. Everyone tells me there has to be for him to do this. He says there isn't. I wonder all the time - a woman's intuition I suppose. I have never been jealous or insecure in our marriage. I just always knew we loved each other. I feel blindsighted and totally betrayed! I am the sole care taker of my daughter now and I miss him and telling him all about whats going on in rehab. But he says he talks to our daughter. He has no idea what I go through. We don't talk. We would text but it always got bad. He wants to move forward as friends but I told him I can't until we deal with the issues of the divorce. So we're at a stand still. I've decided no contact with him at all. But it kills me inside to hear his voice when he talks to our daughter. I don't understand how he can be so emotionally detatched from me? How he could move on? Doesn't he think about us our family? I thought we'd grow old together. Emotionally it's been hard on everyone. Last summer was the worst for me. I cried constantly and had anxiety attacks all the time total depression. I'm better now that I decided to move but when I return home to stay at my parents (about every four weeks) it's like I go through it all over again. I love him but hate what he did. I don't think I'll ever get over him. It has destroyed our two families. My parents were devestated over this and there's been a total breakdown of family communications. His family doesn't talk to me. It's like I've been abandoned. Everything ended so abruptly. They say they just want us both to be happy. Then I hear time will heal wounds. I don't know how I can ever be friends with him or them again after what was said and done. I still cry but not as much. I'm trying to find another therapist at my new place. But everyday I think of him and more questions come up. He is so self righteous about all this and his indifference is so frustrating and confusing. How do I move on with this man (different from the one I married) now with my two adult children? I really wish I knew the other side of the story. Anyone on the other side want to comment? He tells people we just drifted apart and it's best we aren't together. I hate to prove him right. His father was married for over 50 years and he has two sisters that are divorced. Divorce was never in my family. I don't know how to deal with this now. We are both spiritual people and find him not trying and falling out of love such a cop out excuse. I'm just not happy isn't good enough for me to accept.

Replies

CowgirlKathi
CowgirlKathi

LisaMarie, you wrote \"I\'m just not happy isn\'t good enough for me to accept.\" I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you have no choice but to accept it, because it\'s all you are ever going to get from this man. You are seeking some kind of closure from him - something to help make sense of what has happened.
A lot of us have been exactly where you are -- thought that the divorce process would just somehow bring us to the point where we would understand what happened. But it doesn\'t -- not always.
It\'s important to understand that CLOSURE is something that can only come from WITHIN YOU -- no one can \"give\" it to you; nor can you beat it out of them, pay someone for it or somehow just pull it out of thin air.
If you are interested send me a private message here and I will forward to you a wonderful piece I read and kept on the subject of closure that really helped me.
Hang in there, my dear. You will get through this. The healing takes a lot of time and self-care. You have a lot of wonderful qualities and a bright future ahead of you -- you just have to be gentle with yourself and KNOW that this too, shall pass.
Sending big squeezy hugs to you. xoxox
Lori63
Lori63

I know we don\'t understand, but it is what it is. We just have to accept that. I went through a spell (hope I don\'t again) where I was just FILLED with questions, all of which I will never get an answer to. It stinks!
I know the pain, and it will get better. Give yourself time, and work on YOU. You deserve better