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How do you stop caring?
If you weren't the one who left... how do you turn the emotions off?
I knew our marriage wasn't perfect, but I wasn't expecting perfection. I knew there would be good days and not so good days and that there would be things to work on. I didn't think our marriage was 'that bad'... bad enough for him to just leave...
and now with him having a girlfriend it just tears me up inside...
I don't know how to stop thinking of him as 'my husband'... I go through a store and I think "hey, he would like that" or "I wonder if he thought to get xyz while he was out earlier" and I have to stop and remind myself that he's NOT my husband and I'm NOT responsible for making sure he has things anymore... but it's hard.
And since we talk everyday (usually about the kids but not always) I don't know how to separate myself from him... I know I probably need to but I really don't have any friend here to turn to and I get lonely. I don't know how to grieve for my marriage because I wasn't, and I'm still not, ready to end it. I didn't give up on it, I still feel like things can be 'fixed'... but I'm the only one interested in fixing things and I know that it takes 2...
Please tell me I'm not alone in thinking this way....
Re: How do you stop caring?
It's hard at the beginning, especially when you have children,
But with time you will learn to live without him again. Like the previous person posted, you do not need to talk to him everyday.
What really helped me was just focusing on work and my son, he kept me occupied, so I didn't really have that much time to dwell on how our marriage ended. I don't think that I would be in the place that I am in now, if it wasn't for my lil guy.
Hang in there..
I was not the leaver, and my husband is dating. He was before we split, actually. I still have bad days where it hurts and I'm angry, but most days, I just don't care. I have no idea how it happened, but one day I just woke up and felt better. He lives across the country from us and comes to visit the kids once every 1-2 months. Things are worse for me when he's in town and shortly after he leaves, but most days I am happy and content just being with my kids. We have been separated since October and it's just within the last. 3-4 weeks that I've started feeling good again.
FWIW, I still feel married to him, and probably will until we are officially divorced. In my heart, I made a lifelong commitment and I was prepared to hold to that commitment. In my mind, my logical side, I know that he's a cheater who abandoned me and his children, and that's NOT the kind of partner I want for myself or the kind of example I want for my children.
It will take time. These are things that used to trigger my "phantom husband" feeling--sort of like how when people get their limbs amputated, they still can feel as if there was a leg there...
I would see food we'd used to have in our fridge that was a staple (For ex, he loved Hot Pockets....and I always had to restock them).
I remember the first Christmas season after my ex and I broke up and I would see things I would've bought for him for Chirstmas.
We watched "House" and sometimes, I'd hear a funny joke and think "Oh, M is loving this joke right now....whereever he is watching this right now..."
Nowadays, three years later, every once in a while, I see or hear something that reminds me of him.....but it's not filled w/ the torment and the pain it used to be. It is more just a "hmmm....." with very little emotion attached to it.
You will get there. Be patient with yourself. I used to journal all of those feelings I had initially and these days, it's nice to look back and read them and see how much I've grown since then.
I chant daily
"He stays out til 3am on Fri and Sat nights "to work" at his university"
"He exposed me to an STD when I was pg with our 1st baby and said he only told me because I was pg. If I hadn't been pg I guess it would still be a secret"
"He joined an online dating account when I was pregnant with our 2nd baby"
I could go on but those three usually do the trick...
Yes. Yes and again yes. Your "love" goggles are also going to fall down and you'll start to see that he was not so good to you during your marriage.
I was the one who left 8 months ago, and I still feel this way sometimes. Even though he and I both know it was the best thing to do for both of us, it still rattles both of us that we aren't going to be husband and wife sometime soon.
As others have suggested, try to cut back on communicating with him. I find that the days where he and I talk, even if its just about paperwork or something completely unemotional, it stirs my mind for the next few days and seems to reset that emotional clock and I have to talk myself back into knowing that we are not going to be married and this is not meant to be.
You'll see in time it'll get easier. Good luck.
It really doesn't matter who did the leaving in most cases. Even in my extreme case I had to take the time to understand it was the end and work on myself.
Over time more of the break-up and all of the things he did would sink in. My head knew from day one that it was over and I would never trust him again, I just had to be patient while my heart caught up.
It took my almost a year to get to the point where I just didn't care about him, AT ALL. I was in therapy the whole time and that really helped in my case.
I want to add:
We are told our whole life to listen to/follow our heart. In cases like this the best advice in the world is to listen your head and/or your gut.
My head was logical and unclouded... my heart was all over the place and very unstable... Even if it was painful I followed my brain and I will always thank God for that.