I know nothing about the woman my h is with now and will do my best not to discover anything. Don't even want to know what she looks like.
When my h first agreed to a divorce in Jan 08, I was obviously upset and scared but didn't feel like I was making the wrong decision. When we decided to go to couselling and "work on our marriage" I did the work but h did not, choosing instead to have an affair and throw money at lapdancers. He was also well on his way to digging us into a financial hole. If I had known at the end of Jan that what was happening was a MLC, I am not sure I would have done anything differently. I just could not live like that anymore.
When I wasn't feeling any changes on his part over the next five months, it was fairly easy to make the split and initially I was again scared but fairly calm. It wasn't until he started treating me like his arch-enemy and I started discovering all of his lies that I fell apart emotionally. I didn't think we were going to be friends exactly but I didn't think that it would end up the way it has. I always stayed friends with ex-boyfriends, even still sleeping with them for a time, in the past. Once I started reading about MLCs I wondered if it was something that we would be able to get past but after discovering the lapdances at the end of Aug 08 I knew I would never be able to go back. I had a dream once that we got back together and all I felt was shame.
My brother was a great guy and a huge loss. Sometimes my mother forgets and ask why she hasn't heard from him in a while and I can't bring myself to tell her why. I just pretend I don't hear her and eventually she remembers. My SIL was, I believe, a good mother. She just really considered her and my brother and the girls their own family and didn't want to spend much time with us which was difficult for us because we really wanted to watch the kids grow and be with our brother. Two years before he died, they moved to another province so we rarely saw or heard from them until he became ill and came to Toronto for treatment.
I'm sorry about your mother. It is certainly true that cancer has little to do with lifesyle with a few exceptions such as lung cancer. I think that you are either going to get it or you are not and you are either going to recover or you are not. Listening to the oncologists when my brother was ill made it clear that they really have no idea. My friend's mother had cancer of the uterus and recovered and then had colon cancer and recovered.
I hear you about the three month thing. I have never really forgiven h for the way he was when my brother died. The morning my brother died he immediately went to bed when we got home, leaving me alone to call my boss, coworkers, friends, etc. At the funeral he stood in a corner laughing with his brother during the reception like it was a cocktail party leaving me on my own to greet my friends, and then he tells me I should be "over it" three months later. Really heartless but that goes back to his lifetime of emotional detachment doesn't it?
I discovered yesterday that h was the only person in his group who was let go (had someone who works at the bank check the inhouse email). Obviously his being fired cannot be blamed entirely on the economic crisis. I am not surprised if he continued behaving the way he was during the last year or so of our marriage. You can't keep up all that drinking, late nights, etc. without it taking a toll. Part of me believed that it was just to get away from me, however, and now that he has a new relationship and is "really really happy" he would be behaving himself.
I am very much a homebody so it is difficult to get out to do things. Also, most of my friends are married and have children so it's hard to find someone to spend time with. I know -- it is pathetic. The paralegal course is not going to work because there are about 18 mandatory subjects at $600+ each plus books as well as a field placement. My boss is pretty good but I don't think he would let me take six months off to do another job somewhere else. Feel free to give me ideas . . .
