What would you do?

You have my sympathy, Camille. I know what you're going through. You are allowed to grieve, just don't get totally overwhelmed by going over & over the same stuff till it drives you crazy. Walking really helped me .. fresh air & exercise & time away from home. Remember, one day at a time ... Things will get better over time, I promise.

Thanks to everyone for the thoughts. I'm just too exhausted and sad to respond right now.

Today is 3 weeks.

A big blow to absorb, Camille. We're here.

Camille: you are in a situation not of your own choosing and beyond your control. Why not wake up tomorrow and make a list of things that you can control and would like to accomplish for yourself....day by day...... like.... Get my hair cut, put on some make-up, go for a long walk, buy the best cup of coffee and the New York Times, smell the roses, listen to the best music.....It sounds like you need to make YOU a priority.....

A friend of mine has marked the occasion of a year since her marriage break-up......Today, totally unexpected, out of the blue, she was asked out for coffee!!!!! One door closes, another opens....... You are a lot stronger than you think!!!!

No, not - not of her own choosing, sorry to argue, shepaints, but it is part of the pain. He was married and she stayed with him for a long time as he left the marriage. (Correct me if I am out of order, Camille.)

Decisions ramify and defences for decisions and explanations for decisions and heartfelt reagreements with decisions............ and of course, various doubts.

This is not to point this out to Camille, but re all of us.
Ah, well, if anyone still listening here has a simple straightforward good life, let me say, waitup, more is to come.

And besides, shepaints, you are right, re a new morning and grabbing it.

Yes, osso & shepaints, I had to learn it the hard way, too: Every day really is a new day.

A very wise friend of mine once told me that Italian race car drivers rip off the rear view mirrors. They say that what's behind them is of no consequence.

Sometimes I have to remind myself of that.

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. jo

....Eva, I have also heard it said that if you look
too much in the rear-view mirror, you are going
to crash! Keep your eyes on the road ahead!

Weekends are the toughest. During the week I know he's teaching, at night school and doing Sunpapers. Weekends I sit and think and wonder where he is, who he's with, what he's doing. I don't understand how he goes off literally overnight after being with someone every single day for 20 years and doesn't hurt, doesn't care.

I am sitting here in tears sobbing. It is so empty, so lonely. I miss him so much. After I saw the forecast with the hail and high winds tonight I got to thinking again how terribly alone I am. I couldn't stand it, I had to let him know that I miss him. I called his service and left another message. Just said- you would think after 3 weeks I would be better but I still keep thinking about him, miss him, love him and hope he's ok. What is wrong with me? Why can't I accept he doesn't want anything to do with me? I don't know how I'm going to do this.

((((Camille))))

As I mentioned before, I do know what you're going through. It is very, very hard, especially in the early days. I was fortunate in finding an excellent counsellor, who helped enormously in keeping me afloat. I do hope you have one, too. It really helps.
But, bit by bit, it will become less painful & you will become stronger, bit by bit .... Of course you'd be feeling very sad & hurt at this early stage!
A few suggestions: Try to do at least one little thing for yourself each day, something that gives you pleasure. If you're feeling reclusive, then cook yourself a good dinner, hire some movies that you've been wanting to see, if you like animals why not get a pet if you don't already have one? Just little things ... Like working in the garden, if you have one. I also found writing a huge help. No one else has to read your words but you & it helps you get some of the hurtful things out of your system. Just try & concentrate on yourself a little more, it helps a great deal to feel you're coping & achieving even small things ....

And don't beat yourself up too much for having contacted him ..... Just try not to make it a habit. It can be very demoralizing & hurtful to be ignored when you're feeling this way. Talk things over with a good, trusted friend, instead.

Good luck!

I agree with all msolga said. Not just words.

Camille--
I don't think you will begin to heal until you make the firm decision to move on. It would have been false and premature to try to do it immediately. Maybe enough time has passed now...

Thoughts of him will continue to come...as long as you dwell on him, you are hurting yourself. It worries me to see that it seems you are still wanting to submit yourself to this man's whims.

I hope you can make your decision--and begin to deflect the memories.

I hate to see you still suffering.

Camille --

Many times, people who are grieving feel that letting go of the pain would mean the same thing as letting go of the loved one (or all you have left of him), so they hold on to the grief and the depression.

You're holding on to your grief very tightly, Camille. It will not bring him back. It will not make things better...it will just prolong the agony. You must face this. Then you can begin to let it go.

Start with half an hour a day. For half an hour, don't allow yourself to give in to your feelings. Pretend the world is a glorious place and do something extravagantly nurturing. Yes, even though you don't feel like it. Allow yourself (force yourself, if need be!) to enjoy it. Then you can return to the grief if you must. Build up to an hour a day, then two hours, then....more and more. Get yourself into the habit of not allowing the grief to take over every single bit of your life.

Soon it will be a small part of your life, then smaller, then eventually you will only think of it occasionally. Those occasions will become farther and farther apart.

And you will have your life back.

Yes, this is difficult. I know that. But it must be done. You're holding on to something that is no longer there. It's gone. Grieving will not bring it back. Let it go.

(((((HUGS)))))


--Eva

I don't know that I am going to stay with my therapist. I really feel betrayed by her. I think she pushed him to make a decision and took any choice out of my hands. I've talked with her about this and all she says is "I know you feel that way" and then goes on to tell me how much better off I am without him. Yeah, being alone after 20 years together and hurting is so much better. For months she's been saying he was moving in the right direction and she thought his therapist was helping him put his past in the past and now all I get from her is "It IS confusing".
Confusing doesn't even begin to describe it.

Can anyone understand that I love this man and am worried about him? He's facing the worst challenges and losses in his life, both kids, and he's lashing out and trying to go back to some idyllic time over 20 years ago when the kids were little, his marriage was good and the future was bright. I know thinking those things are normal, but acting on them is not. I know the months leading up to this and how exhausted he was, how much grief and guilt he was feeling. I know he internalizes everything and if he is feeling anything about us, he's going to try to act like everything is ok. I'm worried he's going to crash and burn. He's not going off to have a happy life. He's gone off to watch his daughter die. How do you just stop caring about someone? I can't do it.

I'm doing what I have to do. Even that is exhausting. I wish I could go to sleep forever. If I didn't have my dogs, I don't know what I would do. They give me something to care for, unconditional love, and they both sense things are wrong. They keep looking for him every time there is a noise out front, waiting for him to turn the key. They miss him too.

My friends really don't know what to say. All of them right away said- He'll be back. Give him a week or so. They are shocked he hasn't even called and don't know what to think, what to say. They don't believe he's done this, and all of them think it's about his daughter and grief and nothing else. But even so, nobody knows what to say to me so many don't contact me anymore. There really isn't anyone local to just spend time with, talking or getting out and keeping busy. I know I need more local friends but I'm just not up to developing them right now and you can't base a new friendship on my misery and heartbreak. But for now, I'm alone, even in a crowd, I feel alone and so very, very sad.

Eva,

I can never have my life back. In 20 years there have been many changes, many losses of family, career, business, finances and now this.
Life will never be what it once was in any area. There is nothing to "go back to". I feel very lost, very scared and very alone and have no idea what to do with my life. I can't go back and there is nothing to go forward with or towards. If I survive this I have to build my entire life again from scratch. I don't know that I have the energy or willingness to do that at this stage of my life.

I am trying so hard to turn this whole thing over to God and let Him handle it. I've never been able to do that with anything. I know it's all out of my control but even so, giving it up to God to handle comes hard. I'm angry with God, I don't trust God at this point (and yes, I know that is weird logic to think God wouldn't know best). I'm afraid of what God will take next. There isn't much left. Yet I don't know how any of us in this situation will survive all this tragic loss and ever have any peace without God's help.

I don't know what to do about anything anymore.

Camille, I didn't say you could have your OLD life back. You can't. None of us can. But we do have today. You're wasting your todays mourning for yesterday. The past is over. You really have no other choice but to move on. We're just trying to help you do that.



Your life is in your hands, no one else's. God gave us free will. He can only give us guidance; we must make our own decisions. There is no reason for you to be angry with God. God did not make the decision for your ex-boyfriend to leave; the man did that himself. It is the man you should be angry with, that you shouldn't trust....not God.

There isn't much left?! Dear Camille.....(shaking head)...forgive me, but...obviously you still have a great deal. You have your health, your intelligence, and more energy than you realize. (You just haven't tapped into it yet.) You are stronger than you think. And you have many years of life left. They can be good years, or they can be bad years. It is up to you.

I am really aware he is not going to any joyful place, but he surely feels he must. Whether or not consellers supported his move to do that, and I gather they did, he has surely decided to do that, and as the doing progressed, got more vehement about it.

Waiting at this point is - sorry - waiting for Godot or something (I never read or could sit through that play). Really, you need to take care of yourself now.

I'd whiff that particular conseller too.

I think you need to package all that love you've had, tuck it away, and step aside and forward.

Among the things that may happen is that you will get very angry, at the consellers first, at him, at the family, at the situation, at, finally, yourself. I have been through a lot of anger after loss, it is part of the frustration.

You need, uh oh, I am being instructional, and don't mean to do that...
saying this from my pov, you need, to zero in on yourself. Not just pride and surface stuff, but that you believe in yourself. We here believe in you... have you noticed that some interesting people respond to your posts? We (not that I am interesting, but just go along with that) put ourselves in your place and do care.

delete

Camille

At this point in time your partner of 20 years has made a decision to go back to his family. It may work for him/them, it may not. But it sounds, from what you've said, that he's responding to grief & maybe guilt, obligation & compassion ... . Whatever, he believes he needs to do this & who knows what will happen as a result? Right now that appears to be where his priorities are. It might or might not be the right decision, but my feeling is that it's what he believes he needs to do. The awful thing for you is that it it means his family must take priority over his relationship with you. That is very hurtful. Will this be permanent? Who knows? But I suspect he might not have the energy to deal with more than he's coping with right now. There is no point in contacting him, he's immersed in the tragic family situation.

My concern is for your wellbeing as all this happens. Yes, he might choose to come back after it's all over, but then, he may not. You cannot put all you hopes into waiting to see what happens. It is so important that you concentrate on yourself - things like eating properly, getting enough sleep & not becoming so distraught that you can't function properly. Really, the best you can do for yourself right now is to continue functioning, living your life & taking the best possible care of yourself. And try & leave him alone, I really believe he is not capable of being receptive to much outside his family commitments right now.

Dear Camille,
I read your last post and you need a WAKE UP CALL (I am saying this in a loving way) Things can get a whole lot worse.

I lost a 10 year old daughter two years ago. I've never cried and mourned over the loss of anything so deeply. I know, (when speaking with others) it's hard to explain this to someone who's never experienced a monumental loss like it first hand. I know people who care about you want to help you but its so hard for them to know how. Its such an extremely personal experience, I understand it, believe me - I do.

I'm posting this especially for YOU - (you see I've only posted 3 times!!!) because I started rebuilding my life the wrong way, and if ANY good can from the deep dark pit of hell I had to climb out of -- thank God.

First of all, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't keep burdening every poor soul who would listen, so I sought therapy.
Then my fabulous highly trained psychiatrist prescribed all kinds of nifty drugs for me to try whilst in therapy of course. This worked for awhile because I was too damn numb to notice I was withdrawing from everyone I loved including my truly loving, supportive husband.
He let me do this for about a year, standing by me as he had always done (I admit I was accustomed to his devotion through my personal adversities) and after 15 years together, he dropped a bombshell on me. He told me I had become a stranger to him. He told me he felt as though he was living alone (he was mourning too) and he wanted to leave. Imagine how I felt??! I experience this H U G E life changing loss, then divorce? I only wish I could accurately articulate what that felt like, but I felt just about as worthless and utterly alone as a human being could feel. No drug my psychiatrist had prescribed could camouflage how I felt then - but it was a major wake up call. IT WAS ALL UP TO ME.

Okay - I had to hit rock bottom to get there but I finally got it. No doctor, no drug, no loving relationship with my husband (meaning our history together through adversities), nothing was going to change my life unless I did it for myself. It was the kind of knowing you have when you talk to yourself. No one around, no one to judge the right or wrong of an issue, I know you must have some idea of what you want, right?

After having my daughter dead for a year, I knew wanting her alive and well wasn't going to happen, so even though I feel this way to this day, I had some perspective.

I KNEW THERE WERE SOME THINGS I COULD CONTROL AND THERE WERE SOME THINGS I COULDN'T.

So I got off the drugs (oh that was fun - I'm not saying drugs are a bad thing, just realize there are some that are highly addictive and if taken over long periods of time become less effective so the dose can be increased, leading to the kind of addiction that you have to be medically UN - addicted from. So my advice if drugs are helping you through this, discuss with your doctor the concern of addiction in advance -- after all your going through I wouldn't want you to have to deal with a medical drug addiction problem too.) and I began to evaluate everything I had in my life and where I wanted to go now. (I know this is MUCH EASIER said than done.)
It is a hard, hard, hard thing to do, especially when your wondering what in the h*ll you did in a past life to deserve so much heartache.
ITS OKAY to feel that Camille, however, the truth is some things that have happened are not your fault. YOUR LIFE at this point is only a failure if you GIVE UP trying to live it. I assume you want to stay with us in the land of the living, right? So remind yourself everyday -- You CANNOT succeed without failing - thats just the way it is. No light without dark, no up without down, no road without bumps.

Its bull***t I know, but hey we are all just struggling our way through this life -- with the same rules for everybody. Nobody gets a free pass, nobody. I also had to own my actions that lead up to my husbands feelings, (I know I had a damn good excuse) but no one made those relationship choices for me, I did that all by myself. Oh, that is a fun one - you reflect on your choices there and realize your marital life is a big mess and you have no one to blame but yourself.
I also had to let him decide to stay or go. (Remember what I said about there are some things we can't control?)
I wanted him to stay, but I knew I couldn't live the rest of my life lying so it was up to him if the woman I was becoming (loss and healing have a way of changing a person) was someone he wanted to be in a loving relationship with. (You have these questions facing you too.)
We have no other children so there was nothing holding him to me that way. It was real love and communication or nothing.
Well -- another year has past and I'm glad to say those dark days are past me. I can laugh again but it wasn't without its price. Today, although I WOULD NEVER EVER EVER wish my experience on another living soul, I can truly say I live today more fully and with more true love in my heart than before.
I was a busy person before, doing what we all do, work, clean, cook, caretake etc. Now, those things all take a back seat to living, loving and laughing. My husband made the choice to stay and we are trying to have another child. Oh thats a SUPER uncomfortable subject with friends and family. But we understand and we know they just want us to be happy.

Well that's my story Camille, and if I could take back my life after all that, I KNOW YOU CAN!!! (But you HAVE to make THAT CHOICE!)
Best, J,
P.S. God and I are on better terms now, but he couldn't change my life for me either. However, it is nice to know he's there to listen.