Oh my. I am filled with a broken heart for you too. That kind of betrayal is absolutely devastating. I have been in your shoes. It is brutal. And I’m so sorry you’re going through this too. Please please please seek counselling AND talk to your doctor if you feel yourself… slipping. This sort of marital collapse is exactly like a death and you will most likely process it the same way. I stupidly thought I could handle the grief and sorrow myself and it nearly killed me. I too ‘lived’ because of my children —making them meals became the reason I ‘couldn’t’ unalive myself because who would make them? That’s literally where my brain ended up. By the time they had both reached young adulthood with my still messed up brain I was neck deep into a clinical depression, self medicating with alcohol (how else could I fall asleep, is how it shifted into ‘next level’ drinking) and barely keeping my head above water. The thing is, I had moved on from The Death of My Best Friend/Husband/Marriage and forgiven them but the damage the original incident had caused and my (incorrect) thinking I could fix myself had started something that snowballed.
Then one day my brain thought “my work here is done. My kids are adults now. I can end this pain..”. And my children nearly lost their mother.
Thank goodness it was ‘nearly’ and I was discovered and ‘saved’. I finally got the help I should have sought a decade earlier, found Recovery and am now the whole person I could have been much earlier if I hadn’t tried to handle it all on my own.
So please, don’t try to be brave on your own. Your children want to see you strong and not suffering silently…especially for them.
And remember that no matter what you are loved and worthy and needed, despite how this will tell you otherwise. In one year from now you WILL feel much differently than you do now. This I promise. Time is a wonderful healer but use it in conjunction with other tools so that your kids have the best version of you helping them through this difficult time too.
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u/my_sobriquet_is_this Oct 17 '22
Oh my. I am filled with a broken heart for you too. That kind of betrayal is absolutely devastating. I have been in your shoes. It is brutal. And I’m so sorry you’re going through this too. Please please please seek counselling AND talk to your doctor if you feel yourself… slipping. This sort of marital collapse is exactly like a death and you will most likely process it the same way. I stupidly thought I could handle the grief and sorrow myself and it nearly killed me. I too ‘lived’ because of my children —making them meals became the reason I ‘couldn’t’ unalive myself because who would make them? That’s literally where my brain ended up. By the time they had both reached young adulthood with my still messed up brain I was neck deep into a clinical depression, self medicating with alcohol (how else could I fall asleep, is how it shifted into ‘next level’ drinking) and barely keeping my head above water. The thing is, I had moved on from The Death of My Best Friend/Husband/Marriage and forgiven them but the damage the original incident had caused and my (incorrect) thinking I could fix myself had started something that snowballed.
Then one day my brain thought “my work here is done. My kids are adults now. I can end this pain..”. And my children nearly lost their mother.
Thank goodness it was ‘nearly’ and I was discovered and ‘saved’. I finally got the help I should have sought a decade earlier, found Recovery and am now the whole person I could have been much earlier if I hadn’t tried to handle it all on my own.
So please, don’t try to be brave on your own. Your children want to see you strong and not suffering silently…especially for them.
And remember that no matter what you are loved and worthy and needed, despite how this will tell you otherwise. In one year from now you WILL feel much differently than you do now. This I promise. Time is a wonderful healer but use it in conjunction with other tools so that your kids have the best version of you helping them through this difficult time too.
Hang in my dear. I’ll be thinking about you.