Thread: How long?
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Rose76
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Rose76 Treading water.
 
Member Since: Mar 2011
Location: USA
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Default Nov 30, 2018 at 01:00 PM
 
15 years is a long time. Your recovery from this loss is going to take time, and It will take something else, besides time. Without that something else, you will never recover. I have a family member in your situation who has become disabled by divorce and will never fully recover. You don't want that to happen to you. I'm hopeful for you because you are working. The person I know gave up on working and on other responsibilities.

Here's the other thing, besides time passing, that you need. You have to acknowledge what you did that brought you to this heartbreaking place. If you say, "I was victimized by a man who fooled me.", then you give up all your power. Sometimes, bad things happen to us that are totally out of our control. That is a self-defeating way to look at this.

Here's what makes you a true victim: Some drunk runs a red light and crashes his car into your car. The doctor tells you that you have cancer. A terrorist blows up a building while you are in it. This is not that kind of thing, where you had no part in setting yourself up for devastation. Your husband did not suddenly get substituted by a monster. Who he is is who he is and who he was. You believed what you wanted to believe. You insisted that the truth was what you wanted it to be. You kept insisting on that until reality clobbered you over the head and made it impossible for you to keep kidding yourself. You can learn from this that there is a price for buying into a fantasy. Then you can open your eyes and your heart to reality and meet it on its own terms.

Maybe it's too soon for you to consider this, but it will never be a good time. The person I know said her husband promised her that he would never hurt her, and so she trusted him. He specifically promised her that he would never be unfaithful and would never cheat on her with other women. She said she relied on that. Now she gives up on life because she got betrayed.

People do get fooled. Getting fooled by someone doesn't mean you're stupid. But spending 15 years thinking your marriage is just fine - when it is not - means you tend to believe what you want to believe. It's time to stop doing that - not to go around being negative about everything all the time . . . . . but to maintain a healthy skepticism and get to know others for who they really are.

You can give up and spend your life with a cat, but you don't have to. I recommend taking off the "rose-colored glasses."
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