Looking for the silver lining...

[AntoniaB]

Ok I reread your post and I see more I want to comment on. The part where you say you've had no contact after 3 kids, 30 years, and great memories.

I think when you bring that up, you're showing that you're still feeling a lot of sadness/regret/anger/etc. about things not going the way you planned. First of all, that's totally understandable. But until you can get past that, you WILL feel stuck.

What you have to try to work on is to let go of the feeling of being "cheated" of a future. This might be one of the hardest things to deal with. We all have this "feeling" that if we spent all these years with someone, had kids, formed a life with them, made future plans, etc., that we are wronged if those plans do not come true.

The most valuable thing I have learned through all of this is to LET GO of the feeling that just because someone says "we will do this" or "I will love you forever" that there are no guarantees.

What you're feeling stuck by is the fact that you have a "belief" and your belief has been crushed. There is a book called The Four Agreements that is all about this. It says, very simply, that you must learn to get rid of your beliefs if your adherence to the belief is making you struggle/be unhappy.

Look at it this way: what if 30 years ago, someone said to you, "you're going to have 30 years in a wonderful marriage. you'll have kids. You'll have wonderful times and memories. And that's it. No more. You get 30 years with THIS person."

Would you have taken that? Would you have walked away from that promise because it wasn't till the day you died? I doubt it. You'd have taken it, and you'd have hoped you could make it last longer.

And you did what you could but it couldn't last longer because of free will of another person.

But you wouldn't take any of it back, would you? NO. I am sure you wouldn't.

So be happy that you had what you did. I'm not saying you're not happy with it at all. What I'm saying is that you're allowing the fact that this isn't continuing to cloud all those 30 years. Don't let that happen.

Be happy, be thrilled, that you had what you did. Just because you lost it doesn't mean that the rest of your life isn't going to be wonderful. It will just be DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU EXPECTED.

Some people never get that 30 years, IB. My mother had great years with her KIDS, but my mother and father have been living like a divorced couple under the same roof, being angry at each other, for 40 years. This will persist till one of them dies. No sex. No sleeping together. No affection or caring at all. Just a blind devotion to "marriage" as they are both Catholic.

I've already had FAR more than she has had, even though my XH betrayed me. I'm lucky, compared to her.

I just want you to try to look at the good you have had, and the good you still do, and to stop focusing on what you do not get with him now. And I think if you believe in a higher power, you need to look at this as your higher power finding a way to pull you away from a rel. that was toxic and only bound to destroy you.

You have a second chance to live your life. I get totally why you feel the way you do. But if you try to look at it from a different perspective, you will FEEL differently, and you will break free from where you are now.

(((HUGS))))