I have been posting here for 9 months on and off, and I hope no one minds me posting again. I am now looking for help / advice / guidance or shared experiences that might help me in some way with getting the clarity I need to move on once and for all.
I have both more information and more personal clarity on the situation now more time has passed, but am finding it impossible to make that final switch in my mind where I make the choice to move on, or where I finally accept all this.
My situation is very complicated. I will bullet point it here to save anyone from reading too much or going back over old threads.
- I was engaged to a man who I was incredibly happy with. He was seemingly madly in love, devoted, could not be happier. We were just very, very happy. I can't really find words to adequately describe what I mean by this...it was like a kind of bliss. No badness. No nastiness. No doubts...just two people who loved each other.
- We lived together with my child and his child. Happy blended family. He was a wonderful partner and father and stepfather. All four of us loved each other very much and had a really happy house. Our kids considered themselves brothers.
- I had relocated a significant distance from family, friends and job to live with him, which put a lot of pressure on me. Where he lived was very rural, did not have jobs in my field, and I could not afford a car on his salary. It was hard, but we really loved each other and most days were spent feeling lucky.
- In 2013 our family experienced a severe run of bad luck and extremely stressful circumstances. As I was starting my own business, was isolated and was very stressed I developed generalised panic disorder. It was not crippling, but it affected me and for many months he offered me emotional support through this illness.
- Over this period he developed depression himself (we had a huge number of outside stressors and huge financial pressures), but did not realise it was happening and did not communicate to me in order to protect me. He felt it was his role to look after me and he felt if he showed how down he was that I would leave him.
- He had a nervous breakdown in Nov 13 and collapsed in on himself completely. Before people ask, it was most definitely a breakdown and a severe one as I witnessed it over many months. He left me very unexpectedly during the period when the breakdown started. He sent me a text message to say it was over and he was never coming back. This came out of nowhere. I can't describe the shock. He saw me as a burden he could not cope with and felt the only way to get better was to not have to worry about me (or my son) anymore.
- He took me on a rollercoaster after that point of saying he loved me still and just needed time and asking for my support to hating me blaming me and telling me to go away. At times, he was so loving and opened up to me and I really felt we would get through it. Then he would turn cold and cruel again. Some of the things he did were unbelievably cruel and have left me quite shaken.
- He had a very unhappy and painful marriage before me where he was emotionally abused over a period of years and did not react at all or let out any anger at her. He also had a difficult childhood where he was in boarding school from the age of 10 and also where he was bullied. He also had job problems where he was treated like crap, and he is generally completely unable to stand up for himself. That said, I NEVER took advantage of his gentle nature.
- After he left, he did not say goodbye to my child, would not allow me to say goodbye to his, and our children who shared a home and life for years never got to say goodbye to each other either. It has been very traumatic on every level really and myself and my son have found it hard to adjust.
Fast forward nine months and he is better. He had 12 counselling sessions (I am sure this wasn't enough but he is stubborn) and he was on anti depressants for six months (again i am not sure it worked that well) but in the wake of his breakdown is a different person.
He learned in his 12 sessions of counselling that he was a "people pleaser" and that he was so adept at trying to earn approval from others that he forgot what made him happy.
I explained to him that was all well and good, but in order for me to "please" him he had to actually talk to me and tell me what he wanted. He accepted this was his mistake and not mine.
He simply says he realised that after many years (or a lifetime) of trying to please everyone, that he was exhausting himself and he needed to only focus on his own needs. He says he likes living alone and being alone and can't see wanting to be with anyone for a long time.
Now, I do understand the mechanics of what happened to him, and that he had underlying emotional problems that I didn't see, and I understand this was always about him and not me, but at the same time I lost my home, family, partner, life as I knew it, had my wedding cancelled and I feel so much all consuming grief and have no clue how or where to direct it. I find it hard to get "closure".
These parts leave me very confused:
1. He claims now that he was "people pleasing" and that he believed my love was conditional on him being a superman and this comes from the rejection of his previous wife who cheated on him over a very long period. He thought if he was the perfect partner, perfect Dad, perfect man I would never do that to him an that I would never leave. He said he thought if he showed me the warts and all version that I would not love him. But this feels so unfair on ME...because he never actually asked me and I didn't know he felt this way. To ME we were completely happy. He hid it from me and I paid the price????
2. It upsets me that for whatever reason this illness or this episode made him see ONLY the bad. He only sees that my son had aspergers and was challenging sometimes. He totally forgets how he used to cry and sports day, or how my son used to curl into him and tell him he was the best Dad in the world. He ONLY sees that i developed and anxiety disorder and needed support. He forgets everything else about me that he loved. It makes no sense to me. Even NOW after all this time if we see each other we still fancy each other like crazy, we still laugh, there's still such an ease between us and so much love. Yet to HIM...all I am is a burden? It makes me angry because I never blamed him for me getting anxiety....even though my relocation, the resulting isolation and problems could have all been attributed to him...it hurts so much that he blames me for his breakdown.
2. He and I had such a happy, kind, mutually loving and giving relationship and it was turned to one where he hated me overnight....and his only reason for that was that I had anxiety. Even 9 months on this is his ONLY reason. It hurts me SO much that my illness which I could not control was given as a reason to treat me this way and I cannot stop blaming myself and it's left me with such bad self esteem.
3. I am consumed with guilt for our children. I have no idea what to do or how I move forward from this. I have asked if we can all have contact, and my ex seems really to avoid the question. I believe he thinks it is better for the four of us simply to disappear from each others lives as if 5 years of family never even happened.
4. I don't know now if he ever truly loved me the way I loved him, or if I was just being used. I am scared that everything that was most previous to me in my life (him, our children, our home, the life we were making) was just a big fake. And if it was...where does this leave me?
5. He was the only father figure my son ever knew, and my son sees him as his real father. I can't shake the raging anger I feel at him for coming into that little boy's life, telling me and promising me he took the responsibility seriously, that he would treat us with kindness and always work on problems if they came up and he allowed by child to love and trust him over a period of years - only to yank it away and not even care enough to stay in touch.
As hard as I try to tell myself that I loved someone who didn't really exist, that there was nothing I could have done, that he was not who I thought he was etc.. I keep coming back to what my heart tells me. My heart tells me that we should have been together because we fit. He was not pretending every day for so long. He was a genuinely kind and loving man. We got along SO well. We fancied each other like mad (still do!) and we were kind to each other every day. Trying to tell myself he was not what i thought he was feels like lying to myself, because deep down I know this is not true.
I am sorry for the long post. I would be so grateful to hear from anyone who has moved on after unexpected abandonment. I want to make a new life, but I can't let go in a way where I feel peaceful about it.
All I can ever do is feel confused, conflicted, frustrated. I know I am at the final stage, the crux point where he is now recovered, off medication and making a new life without me and I know all hope I have held for so long is now gone and I MUST let go.
I just can't find the right mental stance to do it. it just feels UNFAIR. It feels WRONG. It feels SURREAL. It feels nothing like anyone ever expects.
People, with a life and a family and a ring on their finger are SUPPOSED to get a chance to work on problems. They are not supposed to be denied the opportunity by the other person pretending their were none and disappearing into the night with the decision to end a life together being made all on their own. People are SUPPOSED to get a build up period where they sense things are not quite right. For me, this was just a massive shock.
