PLEASE!!! Need help quick! Calling all vets!

[AntoniaB]

Tad for a long time I said that this was worth than the spouse dying...and I do know from all I've read and therapy that we initially have worse to deal with in a way because of the rejection. If someone dies, we get a lot of sympathy, there is a funeral, there are people who feel badly for us that we lost a spouse. There is like, a "ritual" to deal with it, a socially acceptable ritual.

What of a divorce? Nope. Divorce is so common, and so many people seem to want them anymore at the drop of a hat, that there is a sort of "oh well, yeah, your'e better off" attitude. I can't tell you how many women I've met, who have said when finding out I was divorced this year, "Congratulations." That's sick to me, it really is. My XH even told me that he hasn't been hanging out with as many men as he used to because they all wanted to "run me down" when they heard he was divorcing me. Now I doubt he's going around saying "I cheated on her." But he claims, and I actually believe him, that he has not spoken ill of me. I believe him because on one level, he's always been a bit scared of me and wanted my approval.

So with that kind of attitude going on in the world, it becomes tough for us who were rejected, because it's like other people want us to run around and say "Yeah! I'm free!"

And if we then say "but I got cheated on" or "I got dumped after 20 years", then that brings a feeling of shame or embarrassment with it. And what do we want? We want the ex to sweep in and take that shame away from us. So we make them FEEL bad about what they did. Surely their guilt over the way we feel will make them want to save us, right? Nope. It doesn't happen.

25 years is right--our ego is the problem when we say things like "this is worse than them dying." Yes, initially, or even for the first several months, maybe a year, it feels that way.

But I can tell you now that I have found myself saying lately with all honesty that I no longer think this is worse than XH dying. He still LIVES. Despite the fact that I never see him anymore and we communicate maybe once a month, and that may go away for good now that the legal stuff is all but done, do you know how happy I am to know that he is still ALIVE? It doesn't matter that he isn't with me. I love him and always will. Despite everything, I would not want his life cut short, before he has a chance to WAKE UP as I did. I am so much happier with myself now than I've ever been in all my 42 years. I want that chance for him. Yes he's still struggling and still the same person he was, and getting a new woman and divorcing me didn't change anything. But as long as he breathes, there is still a chance he can turn it all around. Maybe he never will. But maybe he WILL.

And by the day he does, I could be long gone, or with someone else, but HE believes he has one life on this earth and that's it, and if that's true, I hope he can achieve the peace and clarity I have achieved. Why? Because I unconditionally love him.

I think if you really do the work on yourself to heal, you'll understand this and you will be happy she's still around somewhere, even if she's not connected to you at all.