ipswitch

Sometimes a life event is the thing that "fills the rain barrel," and we feel a need to change or simplify. Some years ago, my partner was diagnosed with cancer. My first thought was "now what do we do?" My second was "sever business with person X." I happen to like person X personally. But I had enough going on at that point with my regular job, and a full time relationship, and worrying about the cancer, that I wanted to reduce the inventory of things I was responsible for. Person X's business (and it was strictly business) got the ax. I know when my Mom died I didn't have much to give---in addition to the sadness, I'd let the housekeeping go to the point one of my cats got un-housetrained. But I was single at that point - kind of - Current Guy and I were communicating, but weren't spending a lot of time together. I had to slog to work, and come home and that took almost everything I had. It may be that bf doesn't have it to give - That's not an excuse to treat you badly. But it sounds like, one way or another, he's through. At five years together, it's not you, it's him. But that doesn't take away the grief of a relationship that may be ending.

DLK, had your husband been ill before? Sometimes we start grieving when the diagnosis and prognosis is realized. At any rate, this is one situation where it becomes, "Your grief, your rules." My last years with my husband were not great - he was an alcoholic, was at that point unable to hold a job. I still loved him, but had plans to leave. I decided against it when he told me he was terminally ill. It's been 11 years. I probably think of him (in our happier years) several times a week. I mourn his death, and the alcohol that ruined his life years before he passed. I have a new love, but not one who remembers me when I was 20-something.

I suspect the people who manage best are the ones who take time to examine how the last relationship worked and what didn't, so those stumbling blocks don't hamper the next relationship.

Maybe there's another thing to consider. This relationship got you ready for the next step, whatever that may be. My first, serious long term relationship was more bad than good, looking back. We moved waaaay too quickly. He proposed, we moved in together. He called off the engagement, then he asked me to move out. The relationship limped along for another year or so. I finally got up the guts to ask, hey, were we ever going to move forward, get engaged, and get married. The answer was an unequivocal "no." The reason, he told me, is that he couldn't make a lifetime commitment to a woman so immoral she'd live with someone without marriage. I reminded him that before we moved in, he'd said he could never marry someone he hadn't lived with. He said, "I changed my mind." A couple years later, I married a lovely man who sadly was an alcoholic. We had a lot of good years, and a few bleak ones toward the end when the booze was getting the better of him. He died from lung cancer. Three years later, I had met my current partner. He is a blessing. He lead me back to my Christian faith. (Death of husband was the start of that journey I guess) Maybe my life would have been different if I'd dumped #1 sooner. I'd have met someone else? Maybe someone better? But maybe not my husband. And if I had left my husband, I may have found another partner. But not my current one, because he was married and living across the country. He and his wife divorced just a couple years before my husband died. I don't know. That's how I'm thinking about things, today.

I was pretty young the first time I fell really hard for someone. A couple months later we were at different schools and even being young we knew enough not to make promises we couldn't keep. A few years go by - every time I'm single he's got a girlfriend, and vice versa. We never did get together again. Fast forward thirty years, I think I was already widowed, add in Facebook - and we 'friend' one another. He's married, but 'it's complicated.' within *weeks* he's got a different girlfriend and they're all doing the lovey-dovey posting to one another on Facebook. Come to find out he's got five children from almost as many women. He asked the new girl to marry him, and in a year or so, they broke up. One of my Sunday school teachers told me that God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is no. But there is a song, "I thank God for Unanswered Prayers." I think that kind of applies to my situation.

Sometimes, people are in a situation where they just don't have anything to give. Maybe they're young and haven't suffered a big loss before, and this is too much to process. Maybe they lack maturity. In my opinion, the sooner you find out, the better.

Ohhh, point #3 is an awesome one. I'm also on a forum for friends/family of alcoholics. People are often left without any sort of explanation other than "it isn't working" or sometimes, just no explanation at all. For what it's worth, I 've suspected that 'closure,' like sobriety, is an inside job. The idea that I 'gave someone else my power' and that all I have to do is start using it again is very helpful, indeed.

Many, *many* years ago, I had a boyfriend, my first. We were together for three dysfunctional years. I met and socialized with many of his friends. We broke up (finally) and sometime after that, he moved across the country. I recently re-connected via Facebook with one of his frat brothers. "Bob" had mentioned that he'd be willing to forgive former boyfriend "Fred" but couldn't speak for anyone else. Didn't say for what, but obviously there was some major falling-out, and Fred moved across the country "to leave his past behind." This month Fred died, and his buddy Bob informed me of the news. In spite of how the relationships ended, Fred's friends have some fond memories of him. My memories are of a man who was unfaithful when we were together and cried to his buddies that I was a heartless person when I tried to move on. I had harbored something of a fantasy that someday Fred would contact me and offer something like an apology. One of his friends wrote, "____, Fred thought the world of you." It certainly wasn't demonstrated in the way he treated me. I've offered the best I could- a sort of bland, "I'm sorry. I know you guys were great friends for many years." But it feels fake, and in my pettiness, I want to say truthfully what he was really like. It's been 35 years, and I can't quite forgive him.

There was a famous person who when interviewed was asked about the fact there was no 'partner' in his life. He said he had a lot to offer a lot of people, but really not much to offer to one person. From the sounds of it, your ex had a lot of issues going on. I'm not sure from the sounds of it he meant to betray you. The exception would be about the part about "we can still be friends." That always sounds self-serving - at worst a set-up for booty calls or FWB, at best patting one's self on the back so mutual friends can be assured that one really is supportive and a nice person. I know exactly one person who remained friends with her ex-husband, and she thanked him on Facebook for supporting her through her cancer treatment. It does happen - occasionally. Bringing the child up was a dick move, though. Your story is the reason living together before marriage isn't a test that always works. If (like your ex) you don't have it in you to live with another human day in and out, one needs a way to end things civilly then go your separate ways. How fortunate you two never lived together. Undoing that would have been messy, indeed.

I found this helpful:

I remember someone telling me, when my Mom passed: "No matter how old you are when your mother dies, it feels like you've been cheated." That's not universal, either as I've met people whose parents were abusive, but for the majority of us, I suspect it's true.

If you haven't, yet, I'd suggest attending a grief group for those who have lost partners. Often it is led by someone with experience in shepherding people through the beginning of the grieving process, and he or she can help steer you toward additional help should you feel it necessary. An additional benefit would be you being out of your home with other people. Your local hospital would be a place to start looking for something like that.

Oh, I don't think so, at all! A doctor should know what he or she is good at: someone who isn't good with children shouldn't be a family practitioner, or maybe (and I've heard this discussed among health care providers) there are patients with alleged 'chronic pain' who doctor-shop to feed an addiction. Someone with genuine chronic pain would actually be better served by a practice that specializes in just that. I wouldn't be too quick to assume nefarious intent. I'm no doctor, but a seamstress. If someone warned me that someone "almost 79, mean and cantankerous" was coming in, I'd actually be amused and taking it as a personal challenge to see if I could make her day better. But that's me.

Some people don't want to recouple. They shouldn't be forced or even encouraged to. If someone is still so consumed with grief that he or she can't participate in a new love relationship, I guess that's what I'd call active grieving. If "no one can ever measure up" to the deceased spouse (as if one can put humans on a scale like that) then stay single. As a corollary, a man or woman who can't bear that you've had a past, maybe he or she isn't mature or secure enough to be in a serious relationship. That's a problem, but it doesn't have to be YOUR problem. Be careful what you assume. I don't assume that divorced people *wanted* that, as I've known several who didn't, and *very much wanted* to continue a marriage. Sometimes, there is no abuse, but addiction that will impact the spouse and children. I was at a hearing test with my partner, and the tech asked about our marital status. No, not married, we said. One of us divorced, one widowed. She then said, "My husband left me for a younger woman. It would have been easier if he died." Just because it isn't the *same* loss, doesn't mean it's not heartbreaking. I could tell by her voice it had been. Just because I was ready to leave, didn't mean I didn't love him any more. I realized wishing for his mental health wasn't going to make that happen. If loving someone made them healthy, most mentally ill would be cured, wouldn't they?

My partner and I must be ..different...somehow. I'm widowed, he's divorced, and neither of us have any problems mentioning our respective spouses. (FWIW Partner's ex-wife died last fall.) The two of them had many happy years together, raising two children. My husband, sadly, was an alcoholic. I loved him but previous to his announcement that he had a terminal illness, I had plans to leave. In a way, I was grieving the loss of the man I married long before he died. Anyway... A's life and love for me (however imperfect) and death, and my new love are, like Nora McInerny explains in a TED talk, are not separate stories, but strands of the same thread. My married life, and for that matter, -all - my loves, are part of what made me who I am today. Partner's 25 year marriage made him what HE is today. If I wasn't widowed, if he wasn't divorced, we wouldn't be together. I was puzzled when I read of a widow and widower looking for a way to acknowledge their deceased partners at their wedding: well gee, if their partners hadn't died, they wouldn't be getting married. I did see profiles on dating sites from men who expected to hear nothing about former loves. There are limits, for sure. Don't need to hear about your former sex life (or that of any of my current friends, for that matter) And if someone is still actively grieving, maybe some counseling is in order before one starts a new relationship. Maybe I'm too pragmatic, or something. As for someone who would want me to pretend I sprung fully armored from the head of Zeus - pfffft. I don't have time for rubbish like that. I had a life before Current Beau cam along. So did he. Not going to pretend otherwise.