Today, at long last, I received my decree absolute, 2 years after I left my ex-husband.
I feel like celebrating one minute then I feel sad, I feel lost, then relieved, I feel scared, I feel free – I’m all over the place. I’ve spent 2 years waiting for this day and now that it’s here it feels like a huge anticlimax.
I have to remind myself that today is the last day of my marriage but the first day of my new life.
I’ve just got back from court.
My marriage is over.
I feel free. I feel like I want to tell the world.
My solicitor just rang to warn me that it’s absolutely normal to feel euphoric right now, but that my mood might crash in the next few days. At least I know.
I do feel very tired. The horrible churning of anxiety has gone. I felt it going as the proceedings went on this morning.
I know there’s still shit to get through. We have to sell the house. He has to sell the business. I’ll get half of both. I’ll get a lump sum from him in the next few days. He’ll get some of my pension (unless he dies in the next 4 months).
I’ve got closure. At last.
I never expected this to be easy, but I didn’t expect it to be quite so hard.
My thoughts are dominated by my ex. I want to just forget about him, at least for a few minutes each day. But he’s been there if not in the front of my mind, then at the back at least, for most of my waking hours over the past few days.
I want to get to the point where I feel no love and no hate for him. Just nothing. At the moment hate is the prevailing emotion. I’m frustrated with him that he’s still living in the marital home. It must be nice having no mortgage and being able to afford a foreign trip with your 3 children without their mother. Bitter, moi? Yes, I’m bloody bitter. I’m furious. I’m livid.
But I need to switch off these emotions because right now I’m letting him win. I’m worth more than this.
I need to feel nothing towards him. Like a plant.
I’ve been getting feelings of emptiness and loneliness for the past few weeks now, so rather than feeling sorry for myself I’ve done something about it. I reached out to a friend who separated from her husband a few years ago and we went out for supper.
I told her about an idea I’d had to set up a local social group for single people and she thought it was a great idea.
So, I’ve started by messaging all the
Facebook friends that I know who are single to invite them to join. I’ve had 2 replies. So our new group has been born – just 4 of us so far. It’s a start.
4 months ago today I walked out on my husband. I know it was the right thing to do, but it has not been easy.
Over the past few weeks I have been feeling increasingly lonely and I’m craving for an intimacy that I never even had.
I’m craving for someone to share my day with, someone to confide in. My husband never was that someone. It isn’t him that I miss, but the dream of what I wished he had been.
He never did listen to me. I remember once when we’d only been together for a short time he joked that I was just background noise; that should have been a warning.
Over the last few years of our pointless marriage he didn’t listen to me at all. Also there was no respect and there was no trust.
I’m writing this blog to remind me why I left. When you feel alone, and lonely, it is tempting to think that maybe you could go back. Maybe things would be better. Maybe it’s better the devil you know.
No way. No bastard way. I’ve already wasted almost half my life with the wrong man. He is one leopard that will never change his spots.
Maybe it’s time I started looking for other fish in the big wide sea.
It made me smile today when I noticed my ironing board in the garage. I bought it, brand new, 2 months ago, and it’s still in the plastic wrapping that it came in.
Before I met my husband I rarely ironed anything, and then within a few months of being together I had somehow been hoodwinked into a thankless routine of ironing a pile of clothes every 2-3 days. He soon realised I was pretty crap at ironing trousers so he continued to do those himself, but I became tricked into taking on the traditional female role of ironing his shirts, at least 6 of the damn things every week.
I have taken a photo of my lovely ironing board, still in its wrapper. It is a symbol of my freedom.
this is me again 