Struggling to find answers
So I am now finding myself on the same journey as many others. I was married for 32 years to a man who I thought would love me and be with me always. Our life together had seemed to be very happy and we were starting to make plans to slow down so we could enjoy more time together. We had a wonderful romantic getaway for our anniversary in early December. The day after Christmas he announced that he was moving out. He has found another woman to share his life and they are planning on being married as soon as their respective divorces become final. Some days the shock of it all still hits me. The depression has been overwhelming. I am finding it very difficult to redefine myself after having been with this man since I was eighteen, basically my entire adult life. We moved to our present home not quite a year ago when my husband took a new job and I have not established a network of friends in this area. My children live in other states but have been an incredible support team for me, frequently calling and texting and visiting when they can. I have been working with a therapist who has been able to show me that this was probably inevitable. She believes that just as he was never satisfied in any one job for very long, he also was probably not satisfied with our long term relationship either. He just didn't love me that deeply, and he couldn't resist when this other woman made herself available to him. It all hurts so much. It would have been easier if he had expressed his dissatisfaction and worked through this honestly rather than pretending that he was a devoted husband. Anyway, I am slowly navigating the divorce process, planning a move to be closer to my parents, and trying to figure out how to go forward. Some days it seems surviving is the best I can do.
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\"Some days it seems that surviving is the best I can do\" I have said this one statement so often that the words are beginning to sound foreign and meaningless from over use. I know how you feel. Distractions help some, therapy can ease the anxiety (as do my depression meds,) but the wound that divorce causes is often a mortal one. And the death does not come swiftly, but like rain water beating down boulders.
The thing that has helped me is to abandon my own life and take up a mantle of hard work and self sacrifice. After the devastation of the death of my marriage began to settle in, I quickly found that (somewhere and at some time in the past, I had become completely disollutioned with the entire marriage process and righftully so.
Please don\'t abandon your own life. There is a new you just waiting to be born. The balance of work, play, spirit, and love and service to others is so important!