I would recommend The Shack! You can find it in any Christian book store under the fiction section! It does not deal with divorce specifically but it deals with loss, grieving and recovery! When I went through a bout of sadness this book was a great help! You may even find it to lead you to some other places (good ones)!
Hang in there find a good support friend or friends, and yes you will have to let go of the negativity! Let go of the woe is me! See it for what it is a blessing and not a curse! See it for protection for you and your daughter not abandonment! You will meet someone wonderful and they will fill in all the missing pieces! But they will only come to you when you are ready! Healing takes time, but you can and will heal!
Try to see things for the glass is half full as oppossed to half empty! It takes practice and patience, but will pay huge dividends for yourself! I know it is difficult, but you can do it!
Married:10 years D final 8/28/08 10 minutes is all it took Life goes on and DB was no small part in growing from the Divorce!
Thank you everyone so much for all the support and all the good kind words and advice. I think finding out my XH remarried was very shocking and set me back quite a bit. The fact that he dove straight into another serious relationship and ended up married to the woman is mind boggling. But shows just how little our marriage meant to him. A hard pill to swallow. I loved him and feel like I was wholly commited to him and our marriage and family. I still don't fully understand why he was so unhappy with us. Every thing he ended up saying led to him leaving was not in my opinion why a husband leaves his wife. I never cheated or lied. I have no addictions... We had in-law problems, we fought sometimes - but every relationship has it's up and downs. He went from one day I love you to the next day leaving. Makes my head spin when I try to analyze why things went down the way they did.
At the same time because he left the first time I never felt security in the marriage even when he came back. I would ask him would you ever do that again - hoping he would like any normal person - say no (knowing how much I had suffered during the seperation). Instead he said to me "if I am unhappy I will leave again..." How can you feel secure in a marriage like that? I felt like I had to constantly be on my best behavior otherwise he would have another reason to leave. It was so crazy. Am not sure why people get married to people they supposedly love and then do this kind of thing to them. The worse part is I think now he's remarried and he probably treats the other woman v differently. But do people ever really change? He had major mood swings, who call me bad names, he would tell me on occassion to get out of the house... Is he a different man with her? And why? What was it about me that allowed him to be so cruel? Even upto now not feeling any remorse but rather justifying his behavior as his only recourse. Just thinking... Am trying to be more positive - am trying to be not so woe is me. Takes time - I'll get there. Just so many unanswered questions that still plague and bother me.
Yes people do change, I doubt jumping out of one relationship into another is a good indicator of that though! Chances are history will repeat! His behavior is an indication of two things one, he is never satisfied with himself, therefor looks for happiness in others, second he does not know how to tell the truth! You will find someone just work on you, don't dwell in the past move forward, you will find the "happy" again! It all works out in the end!
Married:10 years D final 8/28/08 10 minutes is all it took Life goes on and DB was no small part in growing from the Divorce!
. I think finding out my XH remarried was very shocking and set me back quite a bit. The fact that he dove straight into another serious relationship and ended up married to the woman is mind boggling. But shows just how little our marriage meant to him. A hard pill to swallow.
My X met someone in the last year of our marriage (when it was very troubled and I wanted to go to marriage counseling) and he married her 14 days after our divorce was final. It isn't about you or how much he valued your marriage. He has a weakness in him that he cannot address, so he moved into another relationship rather than deal wth his own issues. What he did is not normala or healthy, but it was his way to deal with his problems.
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I still don't fully understand why he was so unhappy with us. Every thing he ended up saying led to him leaving was not in my opinion why a husband leaves his wife.
Because the truth is that it wasn't why he left. He left because he was unhappy and needed to blame someone. So he left and looked for someone new to "make him happy". The reality is that it is not someone else's job to make you happy, you need to be happy with yourself. I would venture a bet that he is still not happy, but still does not see it as an internal issue....it will always be someone else's fault.
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He had major mood swings, who call me bad names, he would tell me on occassion to get out of the house... Is he a different man with her? And why? What was it about me that allowed him to be so cruel? Even upto now not feeling any remorse but rather justifying his behavior as his only recourse.
Is he different with her....maybe for a while, but that is because he is caught up in the newness. He is still who he was, unless he does some internal evaluation and does the work to make lasting changes in his life. My X has never expressed any remorse, and still lays the fault of the failure on me. Oh well. Nothing I can do about that. I know what I did wrong and I know I will not repeat those mistakes in any relationship. His issues are not about you.
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Just thinking... Am trying to be more positive - am trying to be not so woe is me. Takes time - I'll get there. Just so many unanswered questions that still plague and bother me.
You will probably never get any satisfactory answers from him, so you need to accept that as his reality. Your reality needs to be YOURS. You will get there, you are already on your way.
I read this somewhere recently... A bad experience, when viewed from the ego which is merely the mind’s false sense of the self can keep one frozen in time, bitter, angry and consumed with changing the unchangeable past. Time to step away from your ego and leave the unanswered questions in the past, they really don't matter.
"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." Jon Kabat-Zinn
I'm feeling better day by day. Still a little melancholy in the mornings... that's my worst time of day. But I was just thinking I really need to stop focusing on him... really it is hard not to but it is such a waste of my time. And he certainly isn't thinking of us. So why am I wasting my time -
He was emotionally abusive and I think that has made it much harder to move on to. When you're with someone who puts you down and shakes your self-esteem you start thinking maybe their point of view is valid. You start to doubt your worth as a person. And the rest of the world can tell you that your smart and pretty and a great person etc but the fact that the person that you loved the most didn't see it that way is what you remember the most. My confidence and how I feel about myself has taken a battering and it's hard to get that confidence back. Especially when someone goes as far as to leave you - that just totally reinforces this sense of you being worthless. And that is hard to come to terms with.
He was emotionally abusive and I think that has made it much harder to move on to. When you're with someone who puts you down and shakes your self-esteem you start thinking maybe their point of view is valid. You start to doubt your worth as a person. And the rest of the world can tell you that your smart and pretty and a great person etc but the fact that the person that you loved the most didn't see it that way is what you remember the most. My confidence and how I feel about myself has taken a battering and it's hard to get that confidence back. Especially when someone goes as far as to leave you - that just totally reinforces this sense of you being worthless. And that is hard to come to terms with.
Sweetie, I could have written this myself. In my case it was 20+ years of marriage, and a gradual wearing of my self-esteem. I realize now that I lost my sense of self in my marriage. I didn't love or respect myself so it was easy for him to justify his actions. Fast-forward a few years and I am amazed at the person I discovered still hidden inside of me! I finished ny degree, started my career, bought my own house, and have quite a few very good friends. I go out and people seem to enjoy being around me.....no one criticizes everything I do! Life is good. I still maintain that this is not the life I would have chosen. I would have done the work to save my marriage, but that option was not given to me, so I had to go with plan B....and it seems to be working out okay. You will get there....it just takes a little time.
"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." Jon Kabat-Zinn
stillalone and bright_new_day...good morning. Both of you ladies were victims of emotional abuse, and you walked on eggshells so much that you basically 'lost yourselves' in the marriages. You spent so much time and effort trying to keep him from getting pissed that you 'quit being you'...and walked on eggshells almost constantly...trying not to break em'! That's a helluva way to live. I believe both of you ladies, especially stillalone (only because you're not as far along in this crisis as bright_new_day is), would benefit from the book that I recommended earlier, 'Love Without Hurt' by Steven Stosney. It's a healing book...one that I'll recommend to anyone in or out of relationships. It's a book about you, and it'll help you to heal...and to understand. I'm sorry you ladies had to live the way you did, and also that you're having to go through what you are.
"Always go straight forward, and if you meet the devil, cut him in two and go between the pieces." - William Sturgis, clipper ship captain, 1830's.
