Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Midlife Crisis => Our Community => Topic started by: Tailspin on August 23, 2025, 05:29:57 AM
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This is a continuation of my story as I have reached 150 posts:
Here is the link to the first part
https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=12206.0
I am so sorry that where you live is so terribly unfair. It just never seems right to me that a person who is perfectly capable of getting a job is not required to do so. Have you no recourse at all? :( How are the kids doing?
I hope you are taking some time for yourself, doing things you like to do. It is hard, but it's really worth it.
I have found my own piece in a way with my faith in God. This whole experience has made me closer to him and I have looked at my life is a raw and unfiltered way. I realize now that from this point fwd I will handle relationships in a different way with better boundaries and goals. I have learned many things the past 2 years.
The kids are handling thing so much better. My relationship with them has grown so deeply. I value my half time with them in a much deeper manner.
It is hard. Where did that person who loved you go.
The lack of empathy is staggering but it seems part of it. I still can’t quite understand where the woman I loved went.
I know people think they are still in their somewhere. I am less sure.
It does become more manageable. Less painful. You will laugh again and find joy.
I know that folks have said that somewhere in there the person you knew still exists but I'm not sure myself. I hate to admit it but I think more and more that the person my wife has become is really the person she really always was and that she hid it. I still pray for her and don't wish evil on her but I really want nothing to do with her ever again. My soul will never be right again but that's the price we pay for giving all of ourselves only to be punched.
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I sometimes agree that this was who my XH was all along and he just hid it until he couldn't. That would actually make more sense to me than the person I thought my xh was went completely crazy and he could somehow come back from that. I'm given to understand it does happen with some MLCers, but they usually didn't go quite as far off the rails and other MLCers do. ON the one hand, I wish I could understand and on the other I am grateful I cannot.
I do beg to differ with you on one point. I believe your soul will be right again, it will just never be the same. And that may not be a bad thing.
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I do beg to differ with you on one point. I believe your soul will be right again, it will just never be the same. And that may not be a bad thing.
I agree with that. I have come to understand that everything in our lives is a lesson that we need to learn from. Every scar is a lesson. My trust in others will never be the same but that's something I will have to deal with. I'm not a negative person in life but this whole thing has opened my eyes to how others can destroy you and not even care.
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I know that folks have said that somewhere in there the person you knew still exists but I'm not sure myself. I hate to admit it but I think more and more that the person my wife has become is really the person she really always was and that she hid it. I still pray for her and don't wish evil on her but I really want nothing to do with her ever again. My soul will never be right again but that's the price we pay for giving all of ourselves only to be punched.
To toss my own beliefs in the mix, I don't really think there is a "core" to any of us. I think we're all sites of potential that are constantly becoming. My ex-wife's favorite author Kurt Vonnegut wrote "we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be" and that feels right to me. (Ironically, I remember my ex-wife discussing this quote with me a long time ago.) To me, it doesn't negate "responsibility" for our actions, or the responses to those actions, but it does drain the sting out of how personal those actions might feel.
What I had with my ex-wife, and what I imagine you had with yours, happened. We experienced that. It was real. And then it changed (and who the hell knows why!). Right now it is dark outside for me, but before it was bright. It doesn't mean that it was always dark, only that it is dark right now. When the sun rises again it similarly won't mean that it was always bright. Paradoxically it's true that it is both dark and light.
As for your soul never being right again, I agree with OffRoad that it will never be as it was the same way we will never be children again, or experience yesterday again. That isn't to minimize the change, only to highlight that we're always in flux, things are always shifting, our potential is always emerging.
I agree with that. I have come to understand that everything in our lives is a lesson that we need to learn from. Every scar is a lesson. My trust in others will never be the same but that's something I will have to deal with. I'm not a negative person in life but this whole thing has opened my eyes to how others can destroy you and not even care.
Straight up! And it is absolutely wild that people can behave like this. It is definitely something that can't be forgotten. That makes me think of a quote from Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy (which was written by an unjustly imprisoned man awaiting his execution) "no man can ever truly lose what was never really his own." Having someone you love fully, trust completely, and respect immensely betray you is absolutely reality breaking, pain beyond imagination. But what was destroyed isn't you.
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Time heals so much Tailspin, I promise you, it does.
Yes these experiences change us, but our ability to bounce is amazing. Our strength and resiliency can be truly astounding.
You've got this!
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Following along...