Husband abandonment

[Tammie]

Hi, I have been struggling lately. One afternoon I came home from work and found a letter on the bench saying my husband of 16 years couldn't be with me anymore. The next day he told me he was in love with someone else and told me who it was. I asked him how could he say he loves me and slept next to me days leading up to this and he said he did it to make me feel better. The following day I came home and he wasn't there, so I went for a drive and knew where she lived and found his car at her place. Just like that he was gone and wouldn't reply to any calls messages. He never checked on me, we lived on a property and i was by myself. I didn't see any changes in him and had no warning signs, i found out later that he had been cheating on my for 2 weeks prior. I was in absolutely shock and couldn't eat or sleep, I lost 10kgs in 8 weeks. I have never felt the pain of abandonment, the break of trust and the feeling of both being good enough. I got the house ready for sale by myself and put it on the market without any help from him. 8 weeks later the house was under offer, 4 days before Xmas. I had new years by myself and woke up feeling so overwhelmed that I nearly took my own life, that gut wrenching call to my mum asking for help. 

I got professional help not long after and it helped, life was starting to become abit easier. There are days like today that I struggle to find my purpose in life and wonder when will these issues stop or how to stop them from popping up. I have to live with this for the rest of my life and would love to know how others have dealt with these problems and how to overcome them please. Thank you, this is just the start of my journey and didn't want to bombarded you with all the story.

[indigo22]

Hi Tammie,

Welcome and thank you for reaching out to us.

I am so sorry that you were abandoned, it does leave scars that are difficult to heal. The fact that it all came out of the blue I think is probably the part that is making it a struggle for you. If there are signs, it doesn't come as such a shock.

The thing you need to remember is that what you are going through is a type of grieving period. He may still be alive, but you are grieving the loss just the same. I left my husband many many years ago and I went through the grieving period too. It does take some time to come to terms with how different life is after the realisation that things did not turn out the way you thought they would. You will get past it though, it will just take time.

I am glad to hear you have had some professional help to deal with the fallout. If you can find things that you are interested in, hobbies, art, music, (whatever fires your interest) you will be able to focus your thoughts on what you are doing so you are not ruminating as much. The ruminating will ease as time goes on.

My guess is you may still be wrestling with the thought that you are/were not good enough. I urge you to not think about that for another minute, we are all good enough, he was just not the right person and when you do meet the right person, you will know without a doubt that you are good enough exactly as you are.

As for your life purpose, what would you say was your purpose prior to this event? Or going back even further, what would you say was your purpose before you met him? Sometimes we need to go back a way to figure out what path we were on before we changed to a different one (usually because of someone else's influence).

You are indeed on a Journey, we all are. The challenges that we go through are an opportunity to learn and grow.

So what have you learned from this challenge, the positives and the negatives?

In what way has this challenge made you grow as a person?

When you are able to answer those questions, you will be well on the way to healing from this challenge.

I will be here if and when you want to talk.

In the meantime, take good care of yourself,

indigo