Has anyone gone through a separation or divorce after both husband and wife have experienced extreme trauma?
We lost a son (accidental death) three years ago. Three weeks later, we got hit with a natural disaster. My wife and I’s relationship deteriorated after that, and I’ll take much of the blame. Among many things, I never really forgave her for what I felt were personal attacks after our son died.
My wife handed me divorce papers three weeks ago (no discussion of divorce before that, although we were in counseling). Three hours later, she had left for her family’s house four hours away, after spending only 15 minutes with our kids (ages 19 and 20, one about to enter college, and the other transferring to a local college after flunking out of another). She told them that she would never come back to our area, but they could visit her at her family’s house, where she plans to live permanently. She also told my youngest that she wouldn’t be accompanying her when she started college.
This departure is uncharacteristic of my wife, for whom her kids were her life.
I have PTSD and I’m sure my wife and kids do, too, especially my youngest child, who witnessed the accident. They were very upset when my wife left, and really could use their mother’s support right now, even though they are theoretically adults.
I decided that I couldn’t be what I’ve been in the past any more, especially what I became after our daughter died – an automaton, impatient, relentlessly driven to fix everything (that’s called hypervigilance, typical of PTSD). So I’m taking new steps to manage this with a new therapist, including starting a new type of treatment (EMDR) aimed at trauma victims which I recently learned about.
I hope that none of you have experienced the loss of a child. Only those who have experienced it can truly understand what it is like. I’d known people who had experienced it in the past, but didn’t understand how devastating it really is until I went through it myself. Out-of-body experience is how one close friend who went through it described it.
My wife has told me not to call her, and I haven’t. She hasn’t called here at all since she left (one child has called her, while the other, unfortunately, refuses to, despite my urgings that he do so). Right now, I’m waiting it out, working on getting better, on managing my life and increased workload (my wife worked for me part-time, in my home-based business), and helping my son as he starts at a new college (he has a learning disability).
And, of course, I’m lost and confused, among many other emotions.
Just curious to learn if anyone else has gone through something like this.
