24 years marriage - ended

[Tom amoss]

Hi

Thanks for your message.

I still live in the family home, I did get estate agents in but ending up crying on one of them, and in the end didn’t do it. I know she would like to sell, but at the moment is keeping quite.

There is no talk about divorce or even an agreement. Nothing has changed other than she has moved out, got her flat, and we still work on our business via email.

But the business is not going well, which is down to me, as I find it so hard to work with her.

You and I are very similar, I do see a lot of my friends, one couple in particular.

Without I would not be here at all.

I ring the Samaritans all the time.

I find my self trapped. Trapped in my grief, and panic about what my life has become.

I really don’t find DVD or books or anything like that of any help, I sometimes watch LOST with my eldest son, or drink wine.

I have also been looking on Match, but its so depressing, my wife was a very good looking girl size 8 and I’m not sure I can look at girls who are different. So I guess that proves I’m not ready. So that adds to the hell I’m in.

If I look at my self, I have so much going for me, I have lost someone who didn’t love me, I have a good job, I am flexible with my time, I’m healthy, and my kids are independent. So go Tom, have a ball, do what you the hell you want.

But I can’t as I morn for a life that has ended, and will never return.

So I’m trapped, and no amount of letting go, moving on, man up, accepting the truth, Hope for the future, you name it its been thrown at me, makes a dammed bit of difference.

I have even been on the orful antidepressants, which are just plain evil things.

Sorry Nervous my experience may not be yours, so don’t take this as an indication of what’s in store for you,we are all different, and go through our own hell.

You take care, I’m glad you replied. And do reply again, even if its to share your hell point as well, and good parts

Tom

[Debbie2508]

Hi Tom,although I've never contributed to this thread I've been following your story. I thought/hoped that things had been improving for you,as you hadn't posted much for a while. Sorry to hear you're still feeling so low. At least you do have the occaisional good-ish day,that should give you some hope that there is light at the end of a very long tunnel. I don't think the healing can be rushed,and the harder we try to force it,the more upsetting it becomes.

 

Its been 7 months for me,and I feel just like you do,although I did have almost a whole month of feeling positive and thought I'd "cracked it",but now I'm back to square 3 maybe...... but at least its not square 1,I guess.Ive no advice,I'm afraid,I just feel some of us take longer than others to get through this. But at least we're dealing with the pain,rejection and hurt,not suppressing it......and yes,it hurts like hell,but I honestly do believe there will come a time when we're "over it"and because we've faced it all head on,it won't come back to haunt us over and over again. Just my thoughts,and probably a long way off.

 

Chin up.good luck :-)

[RightThere]

Search online for a divorce support group in your area.

 

I know it may sound corny, but getting in a comfortable setting with other people going through a similar situation may help to move past where you are stuck.

 

If it's not for you, it's one meeting and you move on.

[Nervous]

Hi Tom.

Hope you're keeping ok.

I take it that your wife is generally uninterested in what you do and your general welfare. I can see how this would make things harder for you. My wife cares about me, says she loves me and says she misses me too. She follows this up with a resounding "I just can't live with you". What a kick in the clinkers that is.

Apparently things are now peaceful in her flat, like she's suggesting I caused a lot of aggro. This is gaslighting.

Truth is I quit drinking 2 years ago took up a couple of hobbies and was even called boring by her.

Sometimes I wonder why I miss her when I think of all the shouting and strops she had with my step daughter. Her constant complaining about having no money and housework and her general unhappy attitude (about everything from family to politicians on tv).

When things get out of hand, I remind myself of these things and it helps a little. I must be an optimist after all because I still think we can resolve all of this.

However, it's not just us men who should be making adjustments. The wifes are not right all the time, they just think they are. I cannot recall one single occasion when she said she would change something about herself and only a handful of apologies in all these years together.

I would apologise for things even though I felt I didn't have to.

Does any of this sound familiar?

I fear that once the settlement goes through, she will drop me out of her life completely. Now that's mad thinking but I can't help it and I know you can't help it either.

What do the Samaritans say to you and does it help you or make you feel worse? My son has been good to have around but it's not the kind of company we crave. I long to have the solution to this but like you I struggle to see past the emptiness.

Anyway, as far as Im aware, I will wake up tomorrow and be faced with more of the same and the day after that etc.

Keeping going and filling the time isn't easy, especially when memories blind side you.

Hope some of this made sense, I've been rather tired and fed up today.

All the best mate. I hope you're well.

[Shocked Suzie]

Hi everyone.

 

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while.

 

Well its just over 5 months now.

 

In lots of way I have not moved on at all.

 

Spent hundreds of pounds on counselling and even hypnosis.

 

I see-saw from desperately wanting her back, to ,OK she’s never coming back, but just look at me, my life. I have nothing to live for.

 

One day out of 5 I may get a goodish day, where I can think more positively, but it’s a big fight to maintain it.

 

Deep down I know she will never return, but to get hope, a fire in my belly for life, OH I so desperately would love to find that.

 

 

 

What doesn’t help is I’m still working with her on our business, its still only via email, so haven’t see her for a while, but that connection is still there. Its not easy.

 

Plus I work from home, so feel trapped here.

 

I would have thought by 5 months I would have made some progress,but my emotions and loss and grief are just as painful as there were.

 

Any advice on getting hope for life, a future, or just blanking her from the mind?

 

 

 

Thanks

 

 

 

Tom

 

 

Firstly 5 months isn't very long at all!! You are being very hard on yourself, really also as you was living in hope if getting back with your W, you may as well say that the '5 month' time frame is in fact shorter.

 

I still feel like crap, probably only 60% there .... I feel that 'for me' I don't want him back, but am still upset of his lack of compassion towards me n at times the kids... But you need to remember they have detached ages ago and it's really nothing personal and it shows lack of character on their behalf!

 

For me atm i'm having a 'me' personal battle... Not much better than the loss of relationship battle sadly. Just gotta try to work through a day at a time...next week I begin a fitness programme, I've been told I need an outlet... That's what I have chosen, gonna put my head down n deal with my inner self of how I've been left emotionally from what has happened. Maybe you need to set a simple focus in one thing atm and do the same.

 

SS x ((((hugs))))

Edited August 11, 2013 by Shocked Suzie

[Tom amoss]

SS Thanks for yourhug. Its was felt.

 

I know I am too hard on my self, I just want to be able to work.

 

Nervous, thanks for being there U

 

And all of you, thanks.

 

 

 

Yesterday I tried to do a positive thing.

 

I got the bus to Oxford to go see a Jazz band, I ended up crying through the entire event.

 

Come home, thankfully, but in a rare state.

 

And spent today mostly in bed, and at a friends house.

 

Work not done, even though I have loads to do.

 

Ended up texting her pleading to come back, and no reply, which I expected.

 

Its no fun is it! I really miss her, and see no end it sight to this agony.

 

Yes I know what I have to do, but can’t do it.

 

I can’t let go, I know.

 

God I wish there was a way out of this, but I can’t

 

Tom

[Tom amoss]

You know, I could do with some practical help.

How did you let go.

How did you stop pleading with text etc,

How did you get out of bed, when there was nothing to get up for?

How did you find that life was worth living again?

How did you cope with the gut feeling all of the dammed time.

How did you see your kids with out see her in them?

How do you cope with working with your wife, even if its just email contact.

Sorry, way to may want’s here.

But I am losing control of our business through lack of effort, and I SOwant it to continue as I have worked so hard on it over the last years, butfind my self paralysed.

Tom

[hayewils]

Hi Tom,

Good to see you back posting again.

Im sorry that your still having a difficult time.

You know, i still have my trouble dealing with my wife leaving and i had a very difficult time with, "letting go".

Im still not completly there yet but i can deal with it much easier today. The last time i spoke with her, always email and only when she wants me to pay for something, it showed me her true colors.

Especially that i can look back and see how she left and just cut me completly out, changed her phone number and everything. Complete silence till she wants me to pay her for something she feels that i owe her. First off, she left, we owe them nothing except thanks for causing us grief.

Another thing, this is the way we get treated by the one we loved so deeply. They are not worth our time and effort.

I know its all easier said than done but really. Your wife lied to you about her feelings for you for 14 yrs? Mine was only 4, i cant imagine the length of time for you. But how dare them lie to us like that. We were used basically, i know i was.

As far as im concerned, they can all go jump off a cliff.

I refuse to let this happen to me again.

Know what else i did to help me cope? Anti depressants.

With those i started realizing after the second week on them just how depressed i was the last couple years cause i wasnt getting what i needed from my wife. The very person who didnt love me. You know what? Thats just plain flatt out sucks. She wasted my time!

Dont give this woman anymore of your time. Dont let her drain you anymore. Dont let what she chose to do define Tom anymore.

I know its tuff, as i said, i still have my days but, i refuse to let her drain me anymore. Liars!

Were here for ya buddy, we arent going anywhere..

[Misadventure]

You know, I could do with some practical help.

 

How did you get out of bed, when there was nothing to get up for?

 

Tom

 

Tom, this is the only answer I can help with because it works for me..even though it IS still very hard. VERY hard..some days I just want to lay there paralyzed and cry.

 

How about fostering a dog through a dog rescue and help saving a life? Obviously right now would not be a good time to have a lifetime commitment of that dog to adopt one...how about fostering?

 

Let me tell you... when you are gut down in bed in the morning...and you don't have the will to get out of bed in the morning..you see this face staring at you..begging to go outside...and if you don't then he/she will go inside..and then feeding and walking...adoption events.

 

Without my dogs and my foster dog, I think I would be face down in my bed today on my day off.

[hayewils]

Another thing. These woman who did this to us are blood suckers. They are vampires. There is a mexican name here in texas for this mystical beast running loose. Its called a chupacabra. Meaning goat sucker. People find there cattle dead around here and they blame it on the elusive chupacabra. Well, its not very elusive cause i lived her. Damn goat sucker..

I know in the UK youve got werewolves and stuff. That her Tom.

Werewolves are for real too. I watched a movie the other night and i saw them with my own eyes.. Not kidding, theyre real.. You lived with it

 

Smile,

Scott

[Shocked Suzie]

Tom ive just PM'd you...let me know if you got it as i've been cut off twice

[Tom amoss]

Hi all

 

This is just an update to anyone who is reading.

Well in the end she pulled her side of our business, it was worth at least ¾ of the money earned, which just left me with the small money part.

So I asked her to resign her directorship, and she did.

OK this means not much to u, but to me it’s a great leap forward, I NOW HAVE NO CONTACT IN PLACE.

6 months of utter hell, trying to work with her, and if anyone tells you that it can be done, IT CAN’T

I have really suffered, it’s not worth it.

I really hope this is now the start of the beginning.

Yes I will have very little money, where as she will be swimming in it, but in the end you have to say, what is the cost of your health, or your life. YES I mean your life, because when I am very low…..

I’m not saying I don’t miss her, or my life as it was, but now things have a chance to heal, and to me that is worth all the money in the world.

 

Tom

[hayewils]

Hey tom,

Good to hear the update. Also glad to hear your ex resigned.. That is something that should of been done a long time ago. There is no way i could do that. I thought about possibly going back to the place i worked for 10 years but also thought i couldnt do it cause it would hold me down from healing. Just to many memories and i would have to see her old office.. So thats a no go. We have to pull ourselves out, at all expense if want to end the madness in our heart and in our head..

[Amazingpiggy]

Try ur best Tom.

I also trying my best to forget him. Bu I can't. We had a daughter.

 

Pick up Urself. Go travel. Watch some movie.

MAke Urself very busy

[revitup]

Tom Amoss,

 

"Show the world what you're gonna do....THEN...tell it what you have done!"

 

Get on with living and do it now.

 

Some people move on quick some slower,we all move on one way or the other.

 

Five months isn't really that long.It's long enough that you should be concerned about the crying and "can't get off the couch" biz though.Just do it my man.

 

Fake it til you make it if necessary.Just say what you are becoming and meditate only on what you desire.We get that which we think about all of the time.If your thoughts are only on what you don't want,you get what you don't want!

 

Good luck

 

REVITUP

[Tom amoss]

Hi All. and thanks for your replies.

I have now, I hope, negotiated a final value for her to finally leave the company at the end of Sept.

She wants more than I want to give, but in the end I get her out of my life. I may have to use her for certain aspects for the short term,but that is on my say so, that at least gives me control, and power where before I had none.

 

Now that the business is mine, I have a whole new outlook on life, it’s quite a sea change.

 

Yes I am going to find it hard financially, very hard, by time I have paid for the bills, I will have about £300 per month, that’s for food for three of us, petrol, and anything else. OK that may be a fortune tosome, but for me this is a new thing, didn’t have money worries before. And italso relays on me being able to work, and getting the work in.

So loads of uncertainty.

Its odd, but even though I am seeing a whole new side to mywife, the hardness, greed, and such a lack of any decent human niceness, it make me wonder why do I miss her so MUCH

 

Separating the two people, because the wife I thought I knew was not like this.

 

I miss a past life, a dead woman, she died 6 months ago, the woman out there is a total stranger, may look like her, may even talk like her,but she is not the wife I had.

There is a very good chance I will never see her again. I very much hope so.

I really do not want to see her again, I do, I do really, but I don’t.

 

Tom

Edited September 4, 2013 by Tom amoss

[Bluesandy]

Hi Tom, glad you move on and saw the real face of your wife... That's the point of non return... For your information, mine had left 6 months ago, and I am still with my new mate for 5 months, and it is a lot less painful. I still miss my old life and my wife, but as you, I see more and more her new face and understand that it was a chance for me to move on with another girl, more affectionnate etc.

Keep going, Tom, you are now on the right track and the door of happiness will be soon yours ;-)

[Tom amoss]

Thanks again for your replies.

 

Finding the new face of my wife hard, she is so greedy with money, yet she earns so much.

 

It’s hard to dislike a person who you miss so much as well.

 

But I have to say that for the last 2 weeks she has not dominated my thoughts, and for the most part I don’t think about her at all.

 

My worries are more of my future, work, and finance.

 

When I do think of her, its now turns to anger.

 

Yes I still cry, not every day now, but the tears are a mix of worry for my future, and of a sadness of all that’s happened, of the utter waste of what I thought was good.

 

Plus the last 6 months have left me with a hangover of sadness.

 

Tom

[GorillaTheater]

Finding the new face of my wife hard, she is so greedy with money, yet she earns so much.

 

Alimony/spousal support. Pursue it.

[Tom amoss]

My Dear Wife.

Why oh Why did you leave without a chance for me to fix things?

Why did you pretend to love me, make love to me, how was I ever meant to see things were wrong when they looked so good?

Why didn’t ‘t you talk about how you felt?

Why didn’t you speak up?

Why did you hide your feelings from me?

Why did you make me believe in love and you, when this was not the truth.

Why did you deceive me?

Why did you do this?

Tom

[Tom amoss]

Today I miss my past

 

Today I regret my past

 

Today I have no future

 

Today I see no future

 

Today is hopeless

 

Today I have no belief

 

Today I have nothing

 

Today is not worth it.

[Tom amoss]

Today I accept where I am.

 

Today I acknowledge that the past is not like today.

 

Today right now I cannot live in the past.

 

Today I cannot live in the future.

 

Today I cannot see my future as I am right now.

 

Today I only live for now.

 

Today I cannot hope

 

Today I cannot believe in a future

 

Today I only have what I have

 

Today I will be grateful for what I have

 

Today is all about today.

[Tom amoss]

I have not been well this past week.

Big setback and its all about living on my own.

I don’t want to live alone, I cannot live alone.

If my kids go to live with her, what do I have left.

She takes all, she wins, and I didn't want this anyway, I didn't start thisgod dam or full mess.

Why do the bad people always get what they want?

She took her freedom, why does she have to take everything else as well.

The boys choose her, because she is outgoing and I can’t get over theheartbreak, 6 months of a very hard time and I still can break free from thetotal debilitating sadness of her leaving.

I wish there was a on/off switch, but there is not, and no matter what I’mtold, no matter what I'm meant to do, I feel this loss, and it has power overme.

Tom

[Misadventure]

Tom, I know how it is... two step forward.. one step back. Some days are good, some days you feel like sludge.

 

There is an on/off switch but what that is = avoidance and it will only hit you later.. you need to face it. Deal with your fears..your fear of living alone.. the loneliness..it is scary.. I am there too but its going to happen whether you like it or not..and same for me... I need and you need to just rise above it.. deal with it..learn to live life again with the cards that have been dealt and make an effing empire out of those cards.

 

I know what you mean about the new face but here is something that really helped me.

 

Write down what you miss..

 

Write down the attributes if the new face..

 

Is what you miss at all possible in this new face...The answer is most likely no to much of what you miss.

 

You have to mourn...but then realize that you deserve something good in your life...pick yourself up by the bootstraps.. and say NO EFFING MORE.

 

Mourn your old life.. your old wife.. and realize that its like an alternate universe....there may be moments where you recognize a shade of the person who was your wife but it is not the same person.

 

If you need to still mourn and cry.. and it will happen... give yourself only so long..only 30 minutes of full blown letting yourself feel this pain.. and then say NO MORE.. and go do something with positive energy..because eventually it will make you feel better...and then go out for a run, go to a zoo.. go walk some dogs at a kill shelter..go talk to some old people in a nursing home and give them something to smile to.

 

Do not let what happened to you define you. It is just something that happened.. and it effing sucks... may feel like a tidal wave at times..scream..cry..vent..get a bat and hit a tree...but let it out and then define yourself again by who you are...not what happened to you or who you were married to.

Edited September 22, 2013 by Misadventure

[Steen719]

Do not let what happened to you define you. It is just something that happened.. and it effing sucks... may feel like a tidal wave at times..scream..cry..vent..get a bat and hit a tree...but let it out and then define yourself again by who you are...not what happened to you or who you were married to

.

 

MisA gave some good advice here.

 

Tom, I know what it feels like. I was married for 22 years and it is really so hard to get used to being alone. My friends are married, for the most part, and have lives of their own. My saving grace is that my son stays with me when he comes home from college and I work 2 jobs and do jazzercize 3-4 times a week.

 

I chose to leave the marriage after his infidelity, but it was still hard. 6 months seems like a lifetime, I know. It was about 8 months after my divorce before I felt sort of normal. You will get there. It's hard, hard, hard, but you will. I know there may not be any sanity (or useful) in my thinking this, but, for me personally, I would rather be with someone who felt something about the loss of his marriage than someone who could jump into something new at the speed of lightening. I don't find that an attractive quality in terms of what they might have to offer. (just my opinion, people, don't go off on me)

 

You will get there.