Stuck in limbo V

[DnJ]

Lots of feelings and thoughts stir when the kids leave the nest. Did I do a good job raising them? Gosh, it’s going to be quiet. Now what do I do? Oh my, I’m old. And such.

When my first of four kids left for university, it hit W hard. She started upon a pretty sad path. She became consumed by dark tormenting feelings.

She started exercising to the extreme. Like 6 hours a day, on top of running her daycare, gardening, and so on. She lost a bunch of weight. A dangerous amount. She was a fit slim 5’10” gal and really had no extra weight. Still she dropped around 40 pounds. She became crazy thin. Like bones sticking out of her thin.

And of course, she started an affair. And other running behaviours.

A few days after BD, she actually told me she had thought she was going crazy. For months, she had cried entire days while the kids were in school and I was at work. Months! And she hid what she was going through. She had no index, no language, to explain what she was feeling and thinking. She was so scared and tormented.

Her epiphany was when she concluded that a crazy person wouldn’t think they were going crazy, so therefore she wasn’t. And everything she felt and was doing was absolutely right. Absolutely! She was so incredibly sure.

And with that, she burnt her old life to the ground. She threw me, the kids (S19, S18, S16, D15), the dogs, the house, the cars, her family heirlooms, gifts from the kids - everything she tossed it aside like we/it were trash. Her grand Thanksgiving supper announcement of her affair and leaving was an utter shock to all eight of us (kids, me, and my parents) sitting around the left over turkey. “D, you get the house, the car, and kids. Unless you don’t want them, then I guess I’ll have to take them.” It was shock and pandemonium.

So many reactions from us seated around the table. My eldest got immediately angry. So did my Dad and son’s GF. My second oldest had an attack and could not breath. He stumbled outside and his GF had to go after him. My youngest son, got furious! My daughter was in shock. My Mom was likewise dumbfounded and starred at the chaos in disbelief. I, from what I was told, went white as a ghost. My blood drained from me and I kind of went into shock.

I did manage to get W to come out to the living room and we talked. Her blaming me for things. A few examples, according to W, of “my” faults that warranted divorce and all the collateral damages: The furnace vent blows cold air when it starts up. My company provided work truck burns too much gas, and she is trying to save the planet. My stated rebuttal that I own and drive a Prius meant nothing. I was an old man. Again, reason meant nothing, she just ignored the stated facts that I was 49 and she was 46 at the time.

Our conversation was bizarre. She sad nothing against me. She actually blamed the kids more than me. (Later, I found out just how true that was.)

Anyhow, she completed her exodus 3 hours later when she walked in to the darkness, with just the clothes on her back, down our 1400 foot driveway to waiting OM. She moved in with him that night.

Time from us completely unaware, living our normal loving family with loving wife/Mom to her gone, was 3 hours. Staggering thing to witness. And thank goodness there were so many witnesses.

What a terrible night in the aftermath of that. I had the presence of mind to ask everyone to write down what they saw and heard. Their account of the events. They all did. Interesting having such a written record. Individual viewpoints all corroborating something that was unthinkable.

A few weeks later, W confided how the pending empty nest was really bothering her. Her solution, and as messed up as this is, her solution and “her” logical reasoned plan was to leave the kids before the kids could leave her. I tried to reason and explain the illogic of that. LOL. Believe me when I tell you this, you cannot talk a MLCer out of their plans. She believed she was correct, with such assuredness.

This woman, my wife, I knew for 31 years. Married for 26. Four kids. She become an alien. The complete opposite of who she was. She destroyed her life. And I’ve never seen her so sure about anything as much has she displayed when dropping the bomb. As she said that night - “I am willing to risk never seeing my kids again for a chance at happiness.”

Such a lost soul.

She had happiness. Love. Joy. Fulfilment. And it was all ripped away from some unearthed terrible childhood traumas that were long ago buried by the very people who should have protected her.

God, please bestow your mercy upon her.

For those that have seen this kind of thing, you know what I speak of. For those that haven’t, I totally get how unbelievable MLC sounds.

A midlife crisis is a horrible soul consuming thing. I’d not wish it upon my worst enemy. It is that bad!

I read a lot of situations here. I see lots of stories of emotional turmoil and such, and I hope and pray every time, that it’s more life transition than crisis.

D