[geist]

She has requested (and both lawyers have suggested) that I not be present for the item pickups, so we've rescheduled it for March 2.

Yeah, the anxiety is killing me today. I've barely been able to work for weeks now, but I've gotta buckle down. We have had mostly cordial texts the last two days, but I sense it's over — whether she has an MLC or not, here's no guarantee of reconciliation.

[Treasur]

Can see some sense in being absent to keep the emotional volume down for everyone.

But I would also make sure that you remove anything that clearly belongs to you which has either great sentimental value or financial value. Oh, and any personal financial type info. Bc it’s not unknown that these folks take stuff they shouldn’t or look at private stuff you might not want them to see. You could of course, I suppose, agree via the lawyers a list of big items she wants to take?

[geist]

Can see some sense in being absent to keep the emotional volume down for everyone.

But I would also make sure that you remove anything that clearly belongs to you which has either great sentimental value or financial value. Oh, and any personal financial type info. Bc it’s not unknown that these folks take stuff they shouldn’t or look at private stuff you might not want them to see. You could of course, I suppose, agree via the lawyers a list of big items she wants to take?

That is the current plan. She will take only what we mutually agree on from a spreadsheet she’s made.

[UrsaMajor]

That is the current plan. She will take only what we mutually agree on from a spreadsheet she’s made.

Uhhhhh ... yeah... right..... and if you believe that,  I have some oceanfront property in Wichita, Kansas I'll sell you - REAL cheap.

Anything that you do NOT want her to take, make sure that you lock it away someplace where she will not have access to it... You may wish to consider consolidating all the things that you DO agree on that she wishes to take in one part of the house so she doesn't have a reason to go on a fishing expedition...

Sorry but Mid-Lifers have the morals and ethics that God gave a turnip and will not think twice about taking whatever they feel like  despite any agreements to the contrary....

[geist]

Small update. My mental health has declined severely since receiving word of the divorce. I'm in therapy, and may need to check into a crisis center.

I have friends here to make sure I don't do anything drastic, but I'm basically crying every day. It's like every morning is the opposite of waking up from a nightmare.

She's coming on the 2nd still, and I'm going to have all of my valuables packed up along with all the things I know I do not want her to take.

The challenge I'm forced to reckon with is what do I do with myself afterwards, because I have no "home" at this point. I'm not ready to process that, and the grief is debilitating. I may have to take a leave of absence from my work because of it.

Sorry to dump. I just wanted to give everyone an update.

[xyzcf]

Hi giest

I know it is very hard to believe me, but you will not always feel this way. This hits us very deep and is truly "trauma", indeed some feel it is similar to post traumatic stress disorder. Our bodies are made to go into fight/flight/freeze mode when we are "threatened". It's a normal response but is not meant to last for long periods of time.

I cried so much, I couldn't sleep, I lost weight, I couldn't focus and if I held my hand out it was shaking. Never in my life had I ever experienced  these things. When I could not get out of this "state", I used clonezapam to break the cycle of intense anxiety. It is highly addictive so doctor's don't like to presecribe it.

You will know by now that you are surrounded here by people who have gone through what is happening to you. I am glad you also have some real life people to support you.

You are in an acute stage of this so many things that I will suggest, just might not be enough right now......medications and therapy may well be what you need at present. I just want to say again...you will not always feel this way. It will start with one breath, one minute, and gradually increase.

I took up golf...when I addressed the ball, for a brief moment I was not thinking about what had happened...and then I would cry in between every hole. You will find things that help you. Some here train and run marathons, other get involved in volunteer work...right now you have to get through each day. And accept that you are allowed to feel deeply about what is happening...your life has been blown apart.

This chart helped me to understand the feelings my body was experiencing and where I needed to be to bring it back to the green zone.

https://lissarankin.com/polyvagal-theory-interoception-a-neuroscience-understanding-of-attachment-trauma/polyvagal-chart/

My therapist was an expert in mind body connections and treating trauma. That worked better for me than traditional talk therapy.

Keep writing here, others will write to you and I think that will give you some relief and please let us know how you are doing.

You mentioned you did not have a home anymore. Do you have to leave the place you are living now?

[Treasur]

Xyzcf knows what she’s talking about.
I also was an LBS who experienced very similar PTSD symptoms to those she describes.

And both of us are still here.

No way to get round it, Geist, it’s a life hurricane. And you will be taking on other losses and damage in addition to the loss of your wife. I wish it weren’t so, but that it just how it works. Your job is to get from today to tomorrow in the best shape you can. Then from tomorrow to the next day. It really is imho quite a lot like hunkering down in the root cellar until the worst of the tornado passes. I found that, for a while, not forever, you have to prune life back to basics…..keep it as simple as you can…sleep, fresh air, simple food, some sense of safety and structure, kind people who care about you, gentle things, taking life a bit more slowly one step at a time.

I think your reference to ‘home’ is bc your current place is rented? And too expensive for you on your own? Or perhaps just doesn’t feel like where you want to be right now? If so, that’s ok. Staying or going…do what feels like the best thing for you, the thing that will give you a little space to breathe and heal. Whatever choice you make, you can always change your mind when your mindset changes, that’s ok too. Again, just like when a hurricane hits, you find that a lot of things we worry about in normal times don’t matter in quite the same way.

Your job is to keep going, day at a time, gosh an hour at a time if you must, until this life hurricane passes through. And it will, it always does, that’s how life works….you just have to keep going for long enough to get to the other side of it even if you can’t imagine right now what it looks like. And you will. I did…and I genuinely did not believe I would…but I did anyway. And so will you. But you do it one small step at a time until you’re ready to walk with bigger, stronger steps on ground that feels more solid under your feet. Just keep going, my friend. And know that we are here, cheering you on.

[geist]

Thank you all for the replies. Yes, I am taking this so hard that I may need to check into a crisis center. I am working on it with my therapist.

When I say I don't feel like I have a home, I mean that she was my home — it didn't matter where we were. The place I'm in now does not feel safe, and it feels like a tomb. I don't know where to go, because I have no strong ties outside of family that I don't particularly get along with in Missouri.

So I'm juggling five options that are all equally nauseating, move to WA (our original plan), move to MO (god help me), move to TX (and be alone most nights anyway, but I have friends there), stay local (to what end?), and maybe a wildcard answer of moving to Sacramento (fresh start, theoretically I could drive back to the bay area when needed, also cheaper — but also alone.)

I'm terrified of being alone, even though I managed through two months of isolation. I had hope, but now it's essentially gone. I didn't know as soon as I joined this forum that everything would suddenly start falling apart at an accelerated pace.

I remarked to my therapist that I feel like I'm wearing a geist-shaped mask and acting like I'm a human at this point. But I'm just following a script — I feel so empty inside when I'm not feeling the pain, which comes in waves and hits harder and harder each time. Again, I'm talking to a therapist twice a week. Yesterday, she asked how I was and just broke down crying for the whole session.

I don't know how anyone who experiences this holds it together. Heck, I don't know how anyone here has been able to reconcile their spouse (whatever the statistic is.) Everyone tells me there's the other side coming, but 14 years is... well, my whole identity. The other side feels like ash.

Sorry for the depressing post, it kind of turned into a journaling activity.

[Treasur]

It’s ok to vent here if it helps.
Most of us have at one time or another.

I lost my parents (in different ways) just before and after BD, and of course my h. I absolutely get what you are saying. I did not know what to do with the word ‘home’ any longer…my home was my people and without them, well the word did not make sense to me. Not sure it does even now exactly…I’m rather loosely rooted nowadays I suspect. There are a lot of things which are different in my life now and that’s just one of them. I suppose I have just learned to live around it…bc truthfully there are different ways to live your life, and you (and me) are not alone in that.

But it is also tbh too early to say what you will do with the word ‘home’ in years to come. Life unfolds. Maybe there is no ‘home’ now but it does not always mean that’s how it will be.

My first feeling of something like ‘home’ wasn’t a house at all. It was an allotment with a shed where I cleared ground and fought nettles and grew vegetables. Something about getting my fingers in the soil made it feel like a kind of home then. And during Covid it was a marvellous place to be. Now it’s perhaps my cat, my books and a different garden where I live now.

Sounds as if your various options - excluding the family one which sounds like it comes with some drawbacks - all include some dollop of alone. Which sucks and maybe feels a bit scary? But in a way that makes your choices easier perhaps? If you accept that wherever you move, you are going to have to go through that feeling of alone regardless (at least for a while) it lets you look at other criteria. Either practical ones - cost or proximity to work. Or ones that offer a chance to scratch an itch or experiment. Bc you know any choice you make now does not have to be forever…you can change your mind. When I didn’t know where to go, I tried thinking what would lift my soul a bit….and for me it was being by the sea. So for a couple of years I did that and it was healing for me. So if you were to pick a place, any place, where you think you might be surrounded by things that made you feel just 1% better, what would it look and feel like? Lots of busy people? Mountains? Sea? Trees? Tall buildings? Bc this is one of those rare times, when so much of life unravels, when you can throw the dice and pick somewhere to try out without having to compromise around what others want.

[xyzcf]

It is good that you are seeing a therapist. There are many different courses of action. You have mentioned perhaps needing to be admitted to a crisis center. That might very well be the best solution.

You do not have to make any decisions about where you wish to live right now. Staying put might be the best option until you are more steady. It sounds like you are hardly able to breath at present let alone make huge life decisions. Allow yourself the time it takes to regain your equilibrium.

Being alone is difficult and incredibly hard. I ended up being sent back to a house in a country that was not my home country, that I had not lived in very long, that I had only a few acquaintances, family were all a plane ride away. I did not have a job, no animals, just an empty house. I honestly do not know how I made it through each day.

A friend on HS, who lived in the same city said something to me one day (my husband and I have been together 35 years)..he said "xyzcf, MR xyzcf is just a man, and not a very good man at that". It was shocking for me to hear that...I couldn"t "accept" that he wasn't the wonderful loving person I had known for 35 years...but as I learned more about his crisis, this was the start of my understanding that he was only a part of my life, there were many many other parts AND that even the part he had in the prior 35 years was no more.

Slowly, I think the human spirit will try to find a way to "survive" I adjusted to my new reality. A reality that I never wanted but had to learn to accept.

For as you will read here, there is NOTHING that you can do to fix this or change her mind. As inconceivable as that seems, as impossible as that seems. I have never stopped loving him, but he is not my spouse anymore, not even a friend although we do spend time together for family times and because he reaches out, even so many years later.

Pick a small thing to do each day...go for a walk...get some plants to take care of....discover that you can do things on your own..at first it might not feel very good but we are able to shift our perspective and we do start finding things that are interesting.

But all this takes a great deal of time.

You acknowledged that you were journalling your thoughts here...no need to apologize for a "depressing post"....journalling is an excellent way to start to make sense of what has happened to your world.

When you can, allow yourself to dream, to open your mind to the possibilities that exist. Find something that takes you out everyday...maybe taking a class at a gym, joining a church, finding a meetup group that interests you, taking up a new hobby..mine was golf as I stated previously. Traveling to a new place.

Eventually I started meeting people and life became a bit better, not so lonely and more "interesting". When I look back, I actually don't have clear memories of that time,  I just know it was horrible.

But, we survive....you will see that in every single person's story here.

Keep posting and hopefully others will come by and say hello.