Im just going to give up.

[AloneAt35]

Rue,

I read through your other thread and I just wanted to tell you how much I relate to your situation. I can totally understand how you feel about everything: your H's radical personality change, his abandonment, his coldness, his giving up his own children (I have no children, but my ex-partner was very close with my young nephews and they ask about him constantly and beg to call him/see him but he refuses to speak with them), and his "running away" in general.

I've thought about your situation and your heartbreak and I want to tell you that I think you could 'reframe' the idea of "giving up" differently. You aren't really giving up - the heart will do that on its own time, when it is ready, if at all - you are simply acknowledging your PRESENT circumstances and taking the time and initiative to rebuild your own life based on what those circumstances are today.

But the only constant in life is change. The circumstances and pain of today WILL change because that is the nature of life. Just focus on now, adapting to now, surviving now, and meanwhile, let God or the laws of the universe (however, you'd prefer to think about it) work on your H.

Because I wasn't legally married (though in a 20 year partnership), the word "divorce" doesn't have the same control over me. My ex-partner was able to walk out and announce his intentions to marry OW within a matter of weeks. No law can protect me and so I've had to adopt the very same attitude that I am suggesting to you. Is it "giving up"? No! It is relinquishing control of tomorrow and focusing on surviving today.

Rue, nothing can explain or justify what our partners have done to us, their selfishness, their disregard of our decades of love and devotion to them. They have changed and they can change again. But what we need to do is also allow change to work its will on us. We won't survive this if we don't. But we have to survive this for one very important reason: we don't know how the story ends yet. Let's survive long enough to see how our stories end.

I truly know the pain in your soul, but letting go of your husband is not the same as "giving up" on him. Let him go, let God or the forces of the universe have him instead. They are so much more powerful than either of us anyway. All we have is TODAY for OURSELVES and our goal is to survive it.