The last 2 days have been awful but I’ve got through them.
I came to the UK, returning with my friends who had come out to Spain to visit me (he didn’t know this). He looked shocked when he saw them. WS was almost in tears when I arrived. He wanted to hug me first. I said no, I could hardly look at him.
At the airport hotel we talked for over 2 hours (well I did some shouting for a while too). Considering I had cried so much the last 3 weeks there wasn’t a tear in me Monday night.
He still insisted that he was happy in our marriage until 8weeks ago. he never meant for it to happen, still loves me, WS and AP never wanted to hurt me, it just happened and he couldn’t change it.
I kept repeating the questions, where were your boundaries? what about our marriage vows? why didn’t you take a step back and fight for us/me? The rubbish excuses just kept coming. Even though I was cross with him I stayed relatively calm and detached. He cried loads I just looked at him.
Then I asked about the sex and was told it had started once he returned to the UK 3 weeks previously (when he was supposedly "choosing".). My heart smashed into a billion pieces, not because he confirmed it out loud but because it finally made everything real and over.
I told him how much I loved him and would have done anything up to that point to R but he is in love and she is his new world. He has done exactly what he wanted with no respect or concern or value for me. He went to his room next door and I heard him sobbing through the wall.
Yesterday wasn’t such a detached day. He agreed to visit his mum and we tell her together. Before hand and all the way on the 2 hour journey we talked. This was a really bad idea and tormented me. I heard so many "sorries, I never wanted to hurt you, I’ll love you forever, I want us to be friends, I want to ALWAYS be there for you and he cried loads on the train. He knew how upset I was, knew I wouldn’t be eating or sleeping and told me I had to start doing both
He held my hand and I held his hand. My warped mind told me this was going to be the last time I saw him before it became officially "over" once we told people and I wanted some physical contact, god I was going to miss him soooooo much.
He started telling his mum by saying "I’m not going to Spain, I met an old school friend and I care for her a lot so I’m staying here". His mum is 80 and didn’t get it or believe him to begin with so I interjected with " WS has been having an affair for 2 months and he’s left me". That clarified it for her.
She immediately went in to mother mode. Are you having a mid life crisis? Is it love? Is it because you were in the UK a lot on your own? She was trying to rationalise it. She was very upset saying she thought he’s making a massive mistake and it was wrong what he was doing. I left them to it and went into another room so they could talk. Another person he had blindsided and I felt really sorry for her. She has been an amazing mother in law for 15 years and I hated to see her so confused and upset.
I sat on the bedroom floor and just felt so sad. He came and and sat next to me and started talking again. More tears this time from both of us. He called me by my nickname and said "you can’t call me that, I’m not your ….. anymore". He instantly broke down sobbing, how was he going to call me anything else? I explained I had a name and he’d have a nickname for his new GF soon enough. I kept reminding him he was doing exactly what he wanted so he shouldn’t be sad. He was about to fall into his new life all happy etc.
He told me AP is getting stress from her older adult children about not giving their dad a chance at R (they had been separated 7 months) and setting up with him. I resisted the urge to smile and say oh well but it did give me a bit of pleasure hearing that his ready made family won’t be welcoming him with open arms. The 15 year old living with them is the only one that "understands" he told me. I told him I didn’t envy him setting up with a teenager again
After a while I had to ask him to leave. I needed to accept our marriage was over and both of us sat opposite each other crying wasn’t doing that. I told him I loved him, thanked him for the years we had together, some were emotionally exhausting but we had got through them together and thanks for the memories.
I wished him and his AP all the best for the future (I didn’t want to say it and right then it translated in my head to "I hope it goes very wrong for the 2 of you very quickly". ) Their love going wrong wasn’t going to bring my marriage back. That was gone forever but I’m not a person with a lot of hate in me and ultimately I just want people to be happy. Life is just too unpredictable to be wasted on hate. He came up behind me, kissed me on the top of my head (he was sobbing again) and left.
Oh my god I sobbed when the door shut. His mum held me and told me how sorry she was and he was an idiot. She had been married 50 years so had never known pain on this level but I was so glad I had someone to hold me and just let me cry. She sent me to bed to get some rest and I slept for an hour. She then spent the evening trying to get me to eat.
I’m crying typing this at 5am. It’s over, it’s done, he’s made a huge mistake but that’s all words and nothing can bring him back, not that I’d want him back. I’m mourning for what I had, the new life for us I was ready to start next month, everything I thought was so rock solid.
I will get through this. I’ve had 7 months on and off of living on my own while he was in the UK working and I actually really enjoyed it. I know I’ll have lonely moments now that I will always be on my own but I’m building a good circle of people around me in Spain. Who knows what the next chapter of my life will be. I’ll try and stay in Spain and build a new life but finances may dictate a return to the UK.
I never thought I’d be 48, living in a different country and have 2 relationships 15+ years in length and 2 divorces behind me. That wasn’t the fairytale I dreamed of but as my very dearly missed dad used to tell me " IT IS WHAT IT IS"
Next to fly off again to tell my mum tomorrow.