Summary so far: H asked for a D and after I kicked him out I discovered he was having an affair with an ex-GF. For a while I wanted to reconcile and we lived in the same house, but after time he moved to another state, he served me the divorce petition, I moved to a temporary place and we fixed up my dream home to sell it. His OW now lives with him and my dream house has sold and the divorce process is going to now pick up steam, so that is why I decided to move my thread over to the "surviving the big D" forum.
Friends and Family: My SSs are staying somewhat in touch and are off doing college things. My mom is very supportive, although she is not happy in her marriage so sometimes talking to her can be emotionally exhausting, but I learned to set some boundaries and that is helping. I have other family that feel that I should be happy that I am not in a relationship with this person they now hate, and they don't understand why I am still unhappy, struggling, stressed etc. If you look at the list of all the things not to say to someone going through trauma, they pretty much have said all those things to me. I try to not judge them too much, as they are helping me in other ways (financially) but it is still very hard to not be able to turn to your family members with the truth of the feelings you are struggling with. Most friends have been supportive and that has helped.
My emotional state: I'm still all over the place. I've been off of this site for a while. Some of it is just being so overwhelmed with getting house ready to sell, and moving, and working a lot of extra hours. Some of it is depression. I felt so strong at the beginning when my focus was on what makes a good relationship and learning boundaries, etc. But soon I realized that I wasn't really feeling better, and then on further learning and reaching for understanding, I have come to realize that I have some PTSD over the way my life has been for the last few years. I started to view parts of my history in a different light. I started to realize how it wasn't just that I had terrible boundaries, its that I was being gaslighted and manipulated and emotionally abused by my H. I started to question my whole idea of my marriage and if any of it was real...
So this is where I begin this thread...
El
Me 52, H 56 T10 M7, 2nd MR for both 2 Step Sons (19 and 21) BD: Fall 2020 D finalized: July 2022 XH Married AP soon after D day.
