[xyzcf]

SPOUSAL ABANDONMENT.

You would think that after all this time I would not be needing to learn something new.

WE focus on their crisis, what a mid life crisis is, what similarities are with our spouses but what has been lacking for me is an understanding about why I have felt so much distress. I know people who have been divorced but they do not seem to experience this continual pain, so many many years later.

This was done to me. I agree, that by the time they tell us, they have been thinking about it for a long time..it was not a "spur of the moment thing"...they knew and they never ever shared it with us.

And so we are shocked and traumatized and broken.

Amazing how helpful this forum can be, even to old timer's. Maybe now that I can see it with this definition, I can better accept how hard it has been to get over this.

Thanks Barbie for sharing!

[barbiedoll]

I agree 100% xyzcf... about a deeper understanding of the catastrophic injury this causes in the ones left behind. YEARS to process and come to terms with ...NOT like the "typical " divorce. I absolutely remember telling my husband in hysterics that it would have been easier if he had died. And I believe that with all my heart .

[Nas]

I absolutely remember telling my husband in hysterics that it would have been easier if he had died. And I believe that with all my heart .

Yup.

[Shining Star]

This is so relevant to me today.  I have been beating myself up for still healing.  Every day I wake up still in pain, and I have to talk myself through a morning routine to get going.  After almost 5 years since BD, this has had a major impact on my self esteem - what's wrong with me that I can't get over what happened.  Reading the article says that my reaction and healing time is different than others going through a "normal" divorce.  It says that it is ok - I am ok.  Thanks for posting it.

[Milly]

Shining, same timeline and still wake up every day thinking the way you think.

Barbie thanks for posting this article. It covers how I feel completely. Only, I knew there were problems by the time my H walked out. I just didn't know what it was and I thought I'd be given a chance to work at the marriage. Still, every feeling mentioned is how I feel. It gives me a sense of relief to know that I'm normal for not having been able to move on yet.

Maybe people think it would be hard for an LBS to know she could be suffering still 5 years later, but for me it it helps. It makes me feel less like a failure, and more like I'm still in the right place in the manual for abandoned spouses.

[Anjae]

Thank you for the link, Barbie.

It is only normal in the sense that is happens to 5% of marriages (in the UK?in the US?), therefore it is not a single, isolated incident. The other 95% of marriages do not end this way, so, in that regard, those 5% aren't the normal way.

My lawyer was also familiar with such cases. Which tells me lawyer from different countries have seen it and dealt with it. On the other hand, he said he had never seen anyone doing the crazy divorce legal stuff Mr J was doing. Mr J was a bit extreme in his legal crazyness.

It is normal to still feel hurt after many years. This thing doesn't just go away. Agree with Milly, for me it is better to know others are still hurt/feel a certain way, years down the road. I no longer feel hurt, etc., but it was always good to know others felt the same I did years ago.

[barbiedoll]

I am going to be brave and raw and risk a scolding from those that have been impatient with my never ending struggle ...I have stopped posting gut-raw struggles ( after 5 YEARS!) as there are some who judge the firetruck out of me ...that will silence me...but only temporarily . I am incredibly hard on myself for not being able to "heal or get over it or make decision " . Just THIS MORNING I took an online quiz to see if I have BPD ....yes I did!  . Because I do feel like there has to be "something wrong with me " to STILL feel such pain about it . MOVE ON ALREADY...I say to my battered SELF . Frustrated by my "SELF". It is like you are trying to heal with the "rapist" that brutally raped you ... no one will ever convince me that it is "easy".  I have been told repeatedly by therapists that I am OK , that I am "normal", that my emotions and reactions are "normal"... some HS members think not. It will take YEARS ..any "short-cuts" will fester and sit in there to re-appear later . UGH. I too feel relief that the pain is described in a way that those of us that can still weep about it ...we are normal. Thank you ladies...

[Anjae]

I'm one of those. The way I see it, it is normal to hurt/feel pain years down the road. But there is a level of anger, hurt/pain or other issues, that if they remain so raw many years down the road, something is not working.

It is painful to read your threads, Barbie. Nothing seems to work for you and the issues seem to retain the same level.

People may still feel hurt/pain, but make visible progress. One thing does not exclude the other.

The other complicated thing, Barbie, is that you have your husband back. Most of us do not have our spouses back. So, ii makes it even more hard to read. Someone who has the spouse back, but is still inside so much pain and other issues. Very complicated.

Shouldn't someone whose spouse has been back for a good while be working on the marriage? Shouldn't there be steady progress in such regard, as well as with both spouses? Why still such raw pain and other feelings, Barbie? I don't know.

Why do some who have their spouse back feel the way you do and others, like Acorn, so differently? I don't know.

[xyzcf]

Hi Barbie,

I am much much longer than you are. The therapy I started in Aug 2017 has helped me a great deal, but I am still in therapy.

He did something recently that sent me crashing once again BECAUSE I STILL DO NOT WANT THIS LIFE!! The destruction of my very small family causes me a great deal of grief.

We should not pass judgement on one another because there are so many factors as to why we feel the way we do.

It is not as simple as "your husband is back so what's your problem?". No, in many ways I think I might have healed a bit faster had he done what I asked in 2010...to leave me alone and never see me again..but no, he smiled and said "oh there will be plenty of opportunities to see you" and he continued with touch and goes and gifts and visits and holidays away together but has never addressed the real issue..his abandonment of me and all that I held dear.

I don't know if I will ever be ok...OP asked me that years ago..would I ever be ok if he did not come back and my answer to OP years ago was "I don't know".

So far, I still hurt every single day.

Anjae wrote:

The way I see it, it is normal to hurt/feel pain years down the road. But there is a level of anger, hurt/pain or other issues, that if they remain so raw many years down the road, something is not working.

Or perhaps there is no timetable for grief which is what I learned working with parents whose children died.....it will continue to color every single day of their lives, the loss of their child....one of my best friend's son died 20 years ago, she has 5 other children and 14 grandchildren...but it doesn't matter..she still mourns for her son.

We are different. The way we respond is different. Some of us, Barbie, myself, MyBrainIsBroken are still in a dark pit that no matter how hard we are "trying" to recover from, we do not.

I accept it. I hate it but cannot see any other "thing" I can do to change how it is for me.

Oh, just thought of something I need to add..came up in therapy, something that happened to me when I was 8 years old...my therapist pointed out to me, so this has happened to you before that someone you loved left you suddenly with no warning or explanation. I may be having difficulty because that loss was never resolved..who knows?

[Anjae]

Must likely, there is no timetable for grief. But there really is a level of anger, etc. that if it persists after many years means something is not right. Intense, raw anger for years on end signals some sort of problem.

There is also a difference between anger and hurt. As there is between the raw intensity of Barbie's feelings and yours.

Brain has more complicated issues that do not pertain to feelings brought by his wife MLC. It is a different situation. If, after 9 years, you still need therapy, logically, there are still things that need to be solved. Otherwise there would be no need for therapy.

But that is the thing, Acorn, and others, have spouses back relatively early on, RCR did, for example. They are not in the same place Barbie is. What is the difference? Because there has to be one.

The one thing that can be done, as most certainly several therapists have told you, and others, is perspective. To look at things from a different perspective.

However, one of the problems with MLC is that things keep happening. But that is not the case when a spouse has been back for a good while, the person is back, it is a different phase. It is not logical that the exact same feelings and issues that existed at BD exist in reconnection or reconciliation. Otherwise, the whole journey, for both LBS and MCLer, would be BD/Replay and it is not.

Oh, just thought of something I need to add..came up in therapy, something that happened to me when I was 8 years old...my therapist pointed out to me, so this has happened to you before that someone you loved left you suddenly with no warning or explanation. I may be having difficulty because that loss was never resolved..who knows?

Could be. Who knows? You, and the others, know that, as a general rule, I am not found of therapy, aside from the practical type of therapy you are now doing. I don't notice much, if any, difference, in progress, healing, etc. in LBS who do therapy and in those who do not. If anything, at times, therapy only seems to bring more and more problems/issues to deal with, never allowing a person, or couple, to have peace and time to heal. Constantly digging into a wound is not good for brain and body.