What would you do?

jacquie, I hear your message. Oddly, I relate in ways I could never express...it sounds...so strange.... that we can find ourselves enriched by such tragedy...but I agree with your assessment.

I hope it helps Camille.

Thanks for posting,

Welcome.

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Beautifully stated, jacquie. There's really no substitute for the words of someone who's been there.

Welcome

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Thank you for sharing your deeply personal experience jacquie. Welcome to A2K! I hope Camille finds peace and hope in your story. I wish you and your husband all the best.

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Wise words, jacquie. I'm glad you made it through. You're right, none of us gets a free pass. None of us.

Remember the old saying...Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you take it.

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Welcome, jacquie, from me too.

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jacquie wrote:

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.

<snip>

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.

<snip>

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.

<snip>

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.

Dear jacquie,

I've waited a while to answer this because I really wanted to think about all that you said. You shared a lot of wisdom in your post, wisdom gained through pain.

I cannot begin to understand what it was like to lose your only child. I have always heard it was the worst possible loss of someone in your life.
I am so sorry that you lost your daughter at such a young age. I have no doubt that it was the most devastating time of your life.

I can understand how loss can impact someone. I've been suffering with major depression on and off since 1997 when I lost my last remaining parent, followed by my career, my business, my financial health and almost lost my home. Most of this was totally out of my control. I hated being on anti-depressants before. They just made me numb, they never took away the pain or made anything any better.

I look back on these things, with the exception of my parents, as things of this life, things that can be replaced and rebuilt. When both of your parents are gone, you start realizing that this life could be over in an instant, that our time could be driving down the interstate today, or 25 years from now, there is no way to know, no way to guarantee anything. People I love became more important to me than ever before in my life.

My job has been totally demeaning since 2001. That is something for a whole other topic. I have been trying to find another job that will allow me to pay my bills since 2001. I have never stopped looking, but so far, nothing. Going there every day and being treated like a child and not worthy of anything of value does something to your psyche. My only relative, my sibling, moved out of state for a job a year ago. There was no way to keep up friendships when you are exhausted, tired and depressed.

Then the tragedy started. First, his daughter's intial bout with cancer and then his son's attempted suicide that left him in PVS. Now, the cancer is back and it's inoperable, terminal. There is no question that I was operating on pure fear for the weeks or month leading up to the breakup.
I was petrified I would lose him, that a family situation would pull him away once again after we had come so far and were so close to finally realizing our hopes and dreams. I know I was whiny, clingy, needy and demanding. I also know it was the worst thing to do. I probably drove him out of here trying to keep him here. I don't know if I can ever live with that. I didn't get a second chance like you did with your husband to work things out with him. Between my actions and his emotions over losing his kids, 20 years, and the man I love, my best friend, gone in an instant. Not from death, but from rejection. Calls to him go unanswered, like I never existed. I needed that wake up call from you two or three months ago. It may have made a difference then.

It's hard to see light when there is so much darkness, not just for me, but for him and both of his kids. It's hard to see light when you are suddenly totally alone for the first time in your life and scared to death about the future with no hopes, no dreams, just destruction all around.
I'm left feeling that life is beyond unfair, it's downright brutal, and everybody in this situation loses. Yes, things happen that are out of our control, but there is no return to some idyllic time before their marriage died 20 years ago and the kids were little. Returning to a marriage for a dying adult daughter and putting on an act for her that mommy and daddy are back together is admirable in some ways, a true act of love, but it's at the expense of his life, his wife's life and my life. Nothing good comes from lies. I doubt your marriage would have survived had one of you been involved with someone else for 20 years and the last 7 years one of you lived apart from the other more than you were together. Your husband didn't leave. He was willing to go through the fire with you and come out the other side.

I know I have to find a way to survive but it may take some major changes in my lifestyle and giving up my home. Right now I'm just trying to function a little so I can eventually get back to work and hopefully find another job where I'm not treated like dirt that is closer to home. Beyond survival, I know I have a lot of work to do on me, to try to feel worth something again. Sometimes I feel at this stage of my life it's not worth doing anything than just surviving. But no matter what happens, I will never forget what my part in this breakdown was and I don't know if I can ever forgive myself. Was it all my fault? No, not at all. He can't see anything but the loss of his kids and wouldn't even try. Is it right he left me the way he did and banished me from his life? No. Would things have been different if I hadn't lost it and operated on pure fear? I don't know. I'll never know. Believe me, I would give anything for a second chance like you got to try to fix things.

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jacquie,

I forgot earlier to wish you and your husband renewed happiness.

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Eva wrote:

You're right, none of us gets a free pass. None of us.

Remember the old saying...Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you take it.

Eva, you're right. None of us gets a free pass, everybody gets a turn no matter what you do. There are people that have much more tragedy in their lives than I. We can't really compare any one person to another unless we live their lives for them.

There is a time to mourn, and that time is different for each person. For me, 4 weeks is not enough after 20 years. I'm sorry I can't just wake up tomorrow and forget it, I doubt I ever will. Crying or Very sad

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ossobuco wrote:

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.

Thanks. Yes, I have noticed that some interesting and very thoughtful, caring people respond. That's why I keep coming back.

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On time, I am still dealing with my husband leaving, from the first hints at about ten years ago.

You will reel from this one way or the other, even if, after some denouement, he realizes he cut off a person who loved him dearly when he did that. Well, he already realizes that and still backs away. But say he reconsiders. Even then, you will both reel from this. You may think now you could weather that reeling... but the reeling will still be twirled with all this guilt. Be careful what you wish for, some have said.

My husband strayed after a few years into our marriage.
I walked out. This was a little dumb as it was late at night and I am night blind. And I forgot my purse, which of course had useful stuff in it. Plus, if I had been thinking smartly, I would have thrown him out, and stayed in the house myself.
But I had to get away, and walked the night away. Went back to get my damn purse around 6 a.m.
Whence followed about three days of gnarly talk where he begged me to stay and I wailed.

I know he never 'strayed' - not the right word - after that, as I was innoculated to the tension of that situation - the discounting I had never seen before from him, the covered hostility as he tried to control the scene. It took me about two years to relax about us after that perhaps decision to stay from me. He relaxed right away, and I know that when he did want to leave a decade later, he spoke up quickly after having the inclination, and was not sneaky. (Listen, I despise sneaky now.)

But.. the decade later, when he did want to leave again, for reasons I still don't know except that I gather my interests are boring and I was at the time about twenty pounds overweight (he had been thirty himself, off and on, within the marriage time), but also that I wasn't enthused enough about his interests (never mind, long story, I supported his interests for years, I was the one with the paying job for a bunch of them).
The point is he switched off, was generally courteous, even thoughtful, but cold. No, not another woman, just a turn off. He eventually told me it was something I said around Christmas time. No, he couldn't remember what it was, but he knew he didn't love me anymore.

So you have all these dramatic reasons and I have a sentence neither of us can remember.

What we have in common is the guy has switched off.

I don't expect you to feel better about all this any time soon.
But I hope you can re-equilibrate in time to having a sense of yourself in life.
If, as I kind of doubt will happen but maybe.. you get back with him, you will surely need to have a sense of who you are by yourself.
And if you are not going to be making a life with him, you need a bit of shoring up, and get to it.
Life is long and full.

As an addendum, I have grown to understand that europeans and much of the rest of the world have a more sanguine view than I about amours within marriage.
I can go there, understand it, but it wasn't part of my view of our marriage. [Yes, I did have an affair with a married european guy when I was single.]

Saying this, I can see that your fellow might have complex feelings about his relationship with you that perhaps were not fully articulated all those years.

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Camille wrote:

Eva wrote:
You're right, none of us gets a free pass. None of us.

Remember the old saying...Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you take it.

Eva, you're right. None of us gets a free pass, everybody gets a turn no matter what you do. There are people that have much more tragedy in their lives than I. We can't really compare any one person to another unless we live their lives for them.

There is a time to mourn, and that time is different for each person. For me, 4 weeks is not enough after 20 years. I'm sorry I can't just wake up tomorrow and forget it, I doubt I ever will.

I never said you should be finished mourning by now, Camille. That would be completely unrealistic. You invested 20 years in this, and even though it didn't work out, you can't just erase 20 years from your memory (dammit, don't you wish we could?!) I just hoped you would be ready to take a few small steps away from it for short time periods. Grieving is exhausting, and you need some self-nurturing time to keep up your strength and to give yourself a sense of hope.

Like I said before, just 15 minutes a day at first to set the mourning aside and force yourself to do something nourishing for your spirit. It could be meditation, it could be watching a favorite TV program, it could be reading inspiring poetry, whatever makes you feel better & stronger. Baby steps....at first. Even if you don't feel like it. It will help. I promise.

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ossobuco wrote:

So you have all these dramatic reasons and I have a sentence neither of us can remember.

What we have in common is the guy has switched off.

I don't expect you to feel better about all this any time soon.
But I hope you can re-equilibrate in time to having a sense of yourself in life.
If, as I kind of doubt will happen but maybe.. you get back with him, you will surely need to have a sense of who you are by yourself.
And if you are not going to be making a life with him, you need a bit of shoring up, and get to it.
Life is long and full.

Another weekend, 4 weeks, and I'm still in disbelief, still hurting so much, still sobbing, still missing him so. I don't know if he's "switched off" or if he's convinced himself it has to be his daughter or me. The end result is the same, he's gone, he hasn't responded to any of the messages I left him, hasn't called.

I worry about him, wonder if he's ok, wonder how he's going to get through the tough times ahead. I guess his parents are overjoyed he's not with me. Funny, his wife at one time said no matter what happened, she didn't want him to wind up with me. Crying or Very sad

What a price she is paying to get her wish. What a price we are all paying... Crying or Very sad

I knew before this happened that I had some work to do on me and finding who I am again and what I want to do with my life after all the other things had happened with my career, my business and not developing many friends. I had already lost so much of my self esteem and self respect. I had said to him a few months back that it wasn't fair of me to expect him to be "everything" to me, nor is it possible for anyone to be "everything". The things that happened were all losses and in some ways rejections of me and I couldn't seem to find a way to rebuild, everything I tried never worked.

I know the depression was coming back before this happened. I can look around my house at the utter mess it is in. I was just too exhausted to care. I keep thinking about how I was running on nothing but fear that I'd lose him too, that he'd get overwhelmed with everything near the holiday and go back again for all the wrong reasons. About two weeks before this happened I told him how scared I was and his answer was he had no intention of going back and the only way he'd be going back there is if I drove him there with my insecurities. I know it wasn't my insecurities alone, but I'm sure they added to his pressures he was under over his kids. I know I made mistakes, I know the depression was taking over, but I never thought he'd just overnight change from I love you, we're going to get through this and we're going to be together to I want out of this relationship.

Part of me hopes he will come back somehow, someday. Part of me wonders if he's really gone forever. If he ever does come back I hope it's with his marriage being officially over, but I don't know that I could turn him away with all the grief he is going through. I just know I love him and always will.

In the meantime, I'm just trying to figure out if I can financially keep the house and how I can keep a roof over my head and buy food for the pups.
You don't get alimony or 1/2 the house buyouts when you aren't married.
I'm on my own, totally on my own.

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Crap.

I hadn't thought of financial repercussions.

Are you working? You know you can't afford the house?

You do need someone very supportive (family?) to sit down with you and help you make decisions...something depressed people are ill-suited to do alone.

I think it is advisable to get yourself in an affordable location--soon--before things get really out of control.

Incidentally, I am going through something with similar stress, though a different scenario, and found a book to help. It reprograms you to think in a beneficial way. "What Do You Say When You Talk To Yourself?" It is really basic, but when someone has taken so many hard knocks, we can easily be like a leaf in a current, and lose the ability to control our own destiny.

It may be a simple start to help you get back in control of your life.

Ahem. Does he owe you any money?

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Author: Dr Shad Helmstettler

A review (to let you know what it's about--)

I work as a therapist in the mental health field and regularly read Self-Help books for myself and to incorporate into treatment programs. Many of these books have interesting theories which don't work or are too tedious to use with individuals seeking quick solutions to problems. This book teaches us that we literally become what we think and tell ourselves. Other books have touched on this concept in the past, but this book teaches us quick and easy methods to stop unwanted thinking/behaviour patterns - to "erase and replace" our negative thoughts with ones which will build our success. Prior to reading this book approximately 10 years ago - this technique required many hours of written assignments and counselling. Individuals now have a simple and effective tool to make permanent positive change in their lives by learning the right things to say to themselves. It reduces the need for prolonged psychotherapy through professionals because it allows to become our own therapist. This book goes beyond positive thinking, it is more than wishful thinking with no concrete instructions on how to achieve happiness. This is a quick and easy method to create any level of change an individual desires -by using specific self-talk words and scripts throughout their day. I give this book to every patient that I believe is serious about making positive change in their life!

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Are you sure you have no have no legal rights after a long relationship? Here, in Oz, you do!

Just worth checking, to see if there is anything that might ease things a little???

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Sofia wrote:

Crap.

I hadn't thought of financial repercussions.

Are you working? You know you can't afford the house?

You do need someone very supportive (family?) to sit down with you and help you make decisions...something depressed people are ill-suited to do alone.

I think it is advisable to get yourself in an affordable location--soon--before things get really out of control.

Incidentally, I am going through something with similar stress, though a different scenario, and found a book to help. It reprograms you to think in a beneficial way. "What Do You Say When You Talk To Yourself?" It is really basic, but when someone has taken so many hard knocks, we can easily be like a leaf in a current, and lose the ability to control our own destiny.

It may be a simple start to help you get back in control of your life.

Ahem. Does he owe you any money?

No, just the opposite, I owe him money. Sad

He was always supportive both physically fixing/building things here and financially.

The problem is I was forced to file bankruptcy a few years ago and almost lost the house then. It took forever in my life to finally get a house and this one was bought to be our new home, our fresh start. I have dogs and can't just pick up and go anywhere. I'm also afraid if I do let this house go, I'll never be able to get another with my credit file.

There is nobody that can help at this point. My best friend is 3,000 miles away. My brother is probably 1,000 miles away and all I get from him are lectures.

I'm not working at the moment, I'm out on medical for major depression. I do have a job but I despise it and get treated like crap, with a horrible commute, which should be just ducky for me to try to function whenever I do get back..... especially since I have to pass all the exits that go to where he works and lives on the way back and forth. I'd get a part time job but I'm exhausted.

I'll see if I can find the book you mentioned. It sounds right up my alley. I sure feel like a leaf lost in the current. Crying or Very sad

Thanks.

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dlowan wrote:

Are you sure you have no have no legal rights after a long relationship? Here, in Oz, you do!

Just worth checking, to see if there is anything that might ease things a little???

Oh sure, I could file palimony charges but I couldn't do that to him with all the guilt and grief going on in his life with his kids. I really believe that's what's behind all this to begin with.

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So, I have lived in financial despond too. Long story, but there it is. This is part of why I sort of keep coming back and nagging. You need, with him or without him, to secure yourself emotionally and financially. I am still on financial lily pads and am older than you are, I'm sure. I want to jolt you into thinking of yourself and your future without counting on him.

The reason I am nine hundred miles away from the house of my marriage is that I couldn't keep up the payments and the associated monies, and I needed what I could get by selling it to do a new start. Where I am now is where there was a friend who was also floundering; she and her husband had moved north and sunk their money from their own house sale into a business that failed after eight years of trying, although they still had a new small house left after that. She and I had worked together before and agreed on most things across the board, except that she is tidy and I am slobbish, with tidy overtones. So now we have a double business, design and an art gallery, almost always on somekind of tenterhooks.. but many times full of joys of work that works out, gallery shows that people love.

Ten years after I heard he didn't love me any more, I can cheerfully say I wouldn't go back there, should he ask. That started to happen fairly soon, but it wasn't within months. More like a year and a half. Life has its periods. I don't think you should be frightened that your feelings will leave you without a forward or a backward. That will just be for a segment in time when you are actually getting stronger and will have a forward, however unclear it may be re past messiness.

Some would say this kind of crisis is an opportunity and in a way they'd be right, as you can ask your mind what ever attracted you - no, not about him - but about doing anything, thinking of avenues not explored.

Another nosy question.. do you exercise? Not that it cures anything at all, but I think it helps, swimming or jogging, or walking, or, perhaps hilariously, ironically helpful, some
dance class. I am one of the few people on the planet who doesn't do yoga, but I hear it is also helpful re sense of self, or non-self, heh.

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Camille wrote:

dlowan wrote:
Are you sure you have no have no legal rights after a long relationship? Here, in Oz, you do!

Just worth checking, to see if there is anything that might ease things a little???

Oh sure, I could file palimony charges but I couldn't do that to him with all the guilt and grief going on in his life with his kids. I really believe that's what's behind all this to begin with.

Fair enough. I despise the idea of such goings on, too.

I just wondered if it might assist with house arrangements or something.

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This business partner of mine now filed bankruptcy in '99, I think. They didn't have to sell the house. People offered them credit cards fairly soon after, but they only took one and pay it off immediately, are watchful.

They now have both refinanced and gotten a recent line of credit, as well. I am not sure that bankruptcy is aways completely dire, but haven't been through it myself.

You do have to deal with the matter of the dream house no longer housing the dream. In my case, our house became more fully mine in my mind as well as financially.

At least two people have told me, thank god you got away from that house.. and I still think they are wrong, my soul, such as it is, went into designing that house remodel and in the doing of it. But I get their point. I have forged a new wing of myself in a new place and it has helped me not dwell in the past but to just consider it one part of my being.

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