Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: BirdSoul on July 26, 2012, 12:05:37 PM
-
Does the MLCer feel guilty/odd/weird doing things with OW that they used to do with spouse? For example, my ex-H recently took OW on a trip to Hawaii, where he had been once before a few years ago with me. Odd for her to be going to place with him where he has memories of me. I also imagine my ex going to the same farmer's market and watching the same TV shows with OW that he and I used to enjoy together. Is he trying to write over our long history to supplant his memories of me with new experiences with her?
And on our wedding anniversary, and my b-day, how does he feel? Does he just pretend it's any other day? Or does the date nag at him? Does he celebrate BD date with OW as the beginning of their relationship? He was texting her updates during BD and on the phone with her as he left me sobbing in our home while he moved out. How can that be a happy day/auspicious start to their relationship?
I think this is the reason for the move with her, the minute the divorce was final, to a new city. He is, as one of my friends put it, still following the pattern of running away. We had often talked about moving to a new city together. I do feel like she hijacked my life.
And what is OW thinking? Does she not feel any guilt or shame? Does she not see that she could be me? My sister said OW, in her late 40s and never married, must have been desperately lonely to think that my emotionally raw ex, still very much married and living with little old clueless me, was a catch! She's not a classic Affair Down. Has master's degree, career, decent looking (sort of a turtle-like head though, LOL).
Perhaps some who have been all the way through the journey can explain this part to me. I just can't picture them cozy on the couch together and him not thinking of us. How does that work?????
BirdSoul
-
What I tell you isn't from my own experience but from what I saw when my mom and dad devorced. My mom would cry and cry whenever she saw things that she used to do with my dad. (My mom cheated on my dad and that was the reason they devorced.) So she never came to our baseball games or softball games or anything that we did because seeing my dad there made her cry. Even to this day 23 years later she still won't do most of the things that my dad will do. My dad on the other hand went regardless. He still had his moments but he told me that "Time will fix all wounds". Now he is happily married to his second wife and did a great job of raising us kids. My mom is still misserable and regretting every day what she did to my dad and wishing she could have all that time back. So unless he is truely a hearless person he has feelings and remembers things that you did and it hurts him even just a little bit each time.
-
I have no idea how it works and what they feel. Mine has taken OW1 and OW2 to places we used to go, gave them the same records he gave me, show them the movies we liked.
He has also bought OW2 the type of shoes and clothes we used to buy me turned OW2 into the tv show I liked when we were together and to hobbies I had.
I think he feels the pain and tries to hide it with a replacement but I'm not sure how it works.
-
Thanks Jonnie and AJ,
He used to come home and call out "Hi Sweetie!" I wonder if he does that now, in their new home, with her. I agree that 1) somewhere deep inside this has to nag at them and 2) they probably do want to create all new memories as quickly as possible to replace the old ones.
H and I always had a habit of going out for breakfast on the weekends. The last time we went (after BD), I was crying and said something about maybe never doing this again and he told me I'd always be a huge part of his life. I thought he meant that I'd always STAY a huge part in his life and he would come back. That's not what he meant!
Sad.