Feeling lost

It''s been 4 months since she left and my life has been a roller coaster ever since. The first months were characterised by non stop crying, wishing I was dead, confusion panic, guilt and fear. I had no job (gave it up to look after 2 year old daughter 4 months before!) and now no wife.

4 months on I have a good job, my daughter seems happy in full time nursery, isn''t too affected by having two bedrooms and my wife and I are able to get on.... so progress certainly, however everything still feels like it''s running on automatic and although I cry less I still feel the panic, fear, loneliness and desperation. As my other post points out I''m still holding out hope she''ll realise she''s made a mistake, which probably keeps me where I am.

Thing is I love her to bits, I miss her, my daughter misses us being together, I miss us as a family and I just feel like my heart has been smashed into a million pieces.

I know I have my daughter and to be honest she is keeping me going... but I feel completely lost.

Some people have suggested going out on dates etc but in my head that would be cheating on my wife ( I know she has) and my heart wouldn''t be in it, but I also know that it could help me move on...

I just can''t work out what to do to stop the horrible feelings I have. I can''t see my future and that cause me to panic.

Not sure if I''m asking for advice or just writing down what I feel in the hope that it helps.

It''s no consolation to you but I know exactly how you feel. What you have written I could have written myself. I have just spent four days with our three year old son. We''ve done a lot: walked in the forest, had a picnic, been to the park, been to the zoo and the adventure park, done the chores and the shopping.

But it seems impossible to ignore the gaping hole where my wife used to be. For me, the hardest thing to take is the loss of our family unit. I think that for me, a family is something so precious. I am still mourning the loss of it.

Yes. Panic and acute fear are subsiding for me and being replaced with a nagging loneliness and depression. I accept this has happened to me but my life is strange and unfamiliar and I don''t know where to head.

Your post sums up a horrible place to be but from which there is no immediate escape. It''s a rollercoaster for which you didn''t buy a ticket but were forced to ride anyway. Problem is, once you get on, you have to stay on til the end.

Hi Samchik, yes I''ve read your story (if only it were a fictional story...) and feel we have a very similar experiance. Unlike you my wife didn''t want to try to fix things (or give that false impression) presumably becuase she felt she was happy with her new bloke and that she couldn''t remember alll the good things about us and our life thorugh the haze of infactuation...

I am begining to think that my problems are made worse with the contact I have with her. We get on well, I often talk to her on the phone about "normal" things such as her work, my work etc... in some ways the same con versations I would have had if we had been together. I saw her this weekend when we werre sorting out days for our daughter and I just looked at her and felt complete love... I look at her more like that now than I ever did but the feeling is real. Problem is because we are so friendly with each other it reinforces why I want to be with her and reminds me of what I''ve lost. I imagine if we were screaming at each other it would in some ways lesson the loss slightly. Thing is I have no desire to be like that with her and part of me thinks we are more likely (or less unlikley) to be able to get back together should her feelings for him change...

As you say it is most accute when you''re doing things you used to do as a family. I went to the seaside with my Mum and Daughter and as much as it was a lovely sunny day and my daughter had lots of fun being there without her broke my heart over and over. You''re left thinking why would she really want to ruin our family...but then I empathise with her too, and don''t want her to be unhappy and round and round I go...

I think Sam''s ''no immediate escape'' sums it up really. It will get better but only in time. There''s no fast track through the heartache and confusion which has taken over your lives. Some issues must be dealt with immediately and some you can afford to let wash over you for now. The children are very young and innocent and although it''s not what either of you wanted for them, you''re both doing an amazing job of being great Dads.

We have to make a superhuman effort to free ourselves of the person we loved and have lost. We read on wiki of having no contact, which is impossible with the children and of course you''re going to find yourselves missing the old life you so badly want to keep although you now know it''s like an addiction that''s doing you harm. This sounds counterintuitive, because we think we should be able to leave behind what isn''t good for us and instinctively gravitate towards a new and better life. But we''re humans and we gravitate to the life we had and thought was happy.

It''s a lot like stopping an addiction and for a time there''s a great deal of anguish and pain, loneliness and fear. Just acknowledging that this is hard, and having compassion for ourselves as we work through this process, can help us to stay on course when we feel the urge to slip back.

Try to accept that in time we establish new lives and the yearning for the old ones will disappear. Eventually, we will instinctively reach for things that are good for us, and the longing for positive change will bring new beginnings. Not suggesting that you should go out an buy motobikes, but read jj''s blog and you''ll get my drift. Bear in mind both jj and I are much further on in the process than either of you, so it''s going to take time.

The only way to get through this is to endure this time of difficulty and challenge. Eventually you will change your mindset. Our hearts and minds need time to adjust to a new way of doing things, but they will in time realise that when love and trust has broken down the love loses it''s currency. Save it for yourselves and your little ones and who knows what life has in store yet?

xx

ConfusedDad i know exactly how you feel . Sometimes i feel like i will be ok then 1 second later i am crying like a baby again.
I am only 8 days in and reading all the threads on here i am going to have a horrendous time to look forward too. If my x was a horrible ***** and never loved me maybe it would be easier. But she was so loving generous and we hardly ever had a bad word to say to each other always talked joked everything seemed fine. I mean the night / morning she left she even organized my birthday dinner with mates and brought me a present ,then left 3 hours after we got home that night just dissappeared from our bed while i was asleep. That is hard to take and a real rip your heart out the smash it to bits feeling. Still finding this bloody hard and i really do wonder if i ever will, i adored her and lover here to bits.

Juwelkeeper you’re right it is a hard time ahead, but I am already feeling better than I was 4 months ago. To start with I cried all the time, I drank every night to numb the pain, I kept calling her or trying to discuss things face to face but she just got stressed and would then get angry with me. At the beginning she told me she wasn’t seeing anyone and that she’s just had a one night stand (I found text message so she had to admit that bit). It wasn’t until 3 months in that I extracted the truth from her and she was seeing the guy she cheated on me with before Christmas… I always thought she must have been but you believe what you want to believe and she did a good job convincing me.

Your situation is extreme but I fear the background will be similar. Met someone, infatuated with them, running off with them, sod everything/everyone else. My wife is the most lovely sweet, genuine, kind, caring person I have ever met and yet she has done the unthinkable to someone she said she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Like you, mine came out of the blue, one minute we’re sitting there planning our second child and then next she’s telling me she doesn’t feel the same way about me. Only someone else being involved can cause such a sea change.

When it all happened to me I had trouble staying asleep, I went off ok after a number of cans of lager but then I would wake at 3 or 4 every morning and not get back to sleep. When my wife walked we actually shared the house, one day I would stay the next she would and the other nights I had to go to my Mum’s and she went to a friends, this was so our daughter stayed in the same place. I put quite a bit of my sleep issue down to not knowing where I was, but without doubt it was mainly the shock and the constant overthinking of the whole situation. I went to the Doctor’s and got Tamazepam but it did nothing for me other than gave me a very scary day of extreme tinnitus (withdrawal symptom weirdly)! My sleeping got better almost exactly 3 months after she left… I did get prescribed something called Zopiclone but after the Diazepam incident I didn’t dare try it! If I were you I’d get to the Doctors, explain your situation and see what they suggest.

I found the best thing at the time it happened was to talk to people about it, it was a distraction and although I went round and round, the fact I was talking to someone else made it feel a bit better. My brother has been very supportive and has spent hours and hours talking to me on the phone. If you have close friends or family call them and talk to them, it certainly helps. If you don’t have people who you can talk to then call relate and see one of their counsellors, I went but as I already had a few good people to talk to he became just another one of them.

I wish I had found this site when it first happened, I only found it last week and it’s already helping me to know there are others feeling exactly like I have. I’m glad you’ve found it so soon as there are really helpful caring people here who truly empathise because they have been through it.

Just keep strong and know that it does start to feel better, I certainly feel much better and although I have very low days I know I am so much better than I was and so will you. Just do whatever you can to distract yourself and take each day at a time.

Thinking of you mate

Thanks CD