I've been going over in my mind who my deceased WH throughout our whole marriage really was. We were married 32 years by the time of his death.
I remember those first days after his death. I remember feeling in shock and emotionally numb. The tears kept coming, deep soul quenching cries. My daughter picked me up off the floor several times. I remember those first few nights where I just sat in his truck weeping.
I remember moments where I felt like I could barely breathe, going into fits of sleep and then waking up to my new and at the time terrible reality that I at first saw as a nightmare. I honestly thought that I would never get beyond the deep despair that I was experiencing.
I remember those first few moments where I told my kids I didn't want to live anymore and both actually broke down in tears thinking that they were about to lose their mother too. I was in pretty bad shape back then. I remember those day's. That was 3 years ago.
I really didn't think I would make it through this terrible, horrific grief period several times. And strangely the truth of who he really was was very hard to comprehend. I'm not sure how to describe it? Denial on my part? I didn't want to admit to what my subconscious already knew.
After his departure from this earth, I began to come out of denial. Turns out not only was he a functioning alcoholic which I became aware of the severity of it over time. But he also had on multiple occasions one-night stands and several affairs over the span of our marriage.
He outwardly admitted to me that he "only" had one affair. But somehow reality reared its ugly head and the truth slowly began to unravel in slow motion. It was so strange what I went through.
So on top of grieving his death, I was coming to terms with my deceased WH was not only an alcoholic but sex addict too and in fact was never faithful to me at all during our marriage.
What I am finding more and more is that there are many here on SI with very similar stories and I should include a high success rate of coming out on top of this. Why shouldn't we eventually come out ahead? We weren't the ones being cheaters and liars. We were the spouses who remained true to our life partners, dispite any poor behavior or any other life's obstacles that came iur way.
I worked hard to get where I am at today. This has been the most difficult journey of my life; his death and the realization that he was never faithful to me throughout our marriage. I thought I died inside learning the truth. I kind of get the feeling this is how you are feeling.
Your WH is cruel. I went through stuff like this too. My deceased WH was cruel to me. Sure he was nice and charming and took care of us but the love wasn't there because he chose to give his love and emotions to other women. He shield ed them from me because in his mind theses women were more important to him than I was. I feel that he kept me around to keep up the appearances. Lol You know, good family man, husband. He definitely had a strong need to keep up these false appearances.
Your WH has been downright cruel to you for awhile now. I'm just wondering if your brain tumor may have had something to do with his wanting to run away from you? His not being able to face reality about your not feeling well.
Your WH fear of health scare surely wasn't a ticket to abuse and abandonment though. I'm sure if this was the case or part of it he could have come to me to discuss whatever it was that was bothering him.
Running away is never the right answer. I think a good mature man with healthy coping skills would have stuck around to help you in your healing process.
I think your best best is this time to stick to a hard NO CONTACT. I did this as husband was ending our marriage with divorce papers. I barely survived this personal hell he put me through, especially because my mom and two of my brothers passed away in this time period. Lots of junk to unpack for sure.
Yes, go no contact. There is nothing that he has to say to you anymore of importance. The lawyer can handle this.
I remember at one point and I was "still" in the dark over who he was, he wanted to come back into my life again. I was his plan B. He was divorcing me to go and be with her I guess but their fantasy relationship must have fallen apart.
He came back to me and I took him back so readily which of course in a way it was a mistake... just more painshoping was all it was. And the worst was yet to come.
Most horrible times in my life. And similar to what you are going through. My husband behavior towards other women was so way out of line, like he was single and I was just a friend. These other women were so much more important to me.
Today and most days I really don't care anymore about how he felt towards me. But I do think about how disrespectful and intentionally at times how hurtful his behavior was to me.
You see, his behavior was on him. He was just being who he really was. He pretty much got to zero filters and began saying and doing so blatantly what he wanted to do.
Today I shake it off and tell myself that he decided he didn't like me anymore which today is just fine. Just wished he would have told me a lot sooner so that I could have went on my merry way and mayve could have met up with Mr. Right. But he chose utter abuse and disrespect as his pathway in life.
If I could go back in time and this isn't being said said out of hurt or hatred, I would have listened to those red flags and kicked his ass out of my life sooner. But today I feel denial and my financial dependence on him caused me to stuff my emotions down. Anyways, knowing what I know now I would have kicked his ass to the curb and say bye!
No one needs to take abusive crap from anyone. That's not love, to be abused and mistreated. One thing I realize today, and when in the moment I start boo hooing which I've done A LOT of this. I just tell myself that I am no longer his victim, so I don't need to play the victim role anymore. And I'm not a victim anymore. I used to say why!? Why!? Why?! Why did you do this to me! How could you do this to me?! Now my response in my mind is that he was a sick man who chose to not get serious help for his addictions. And each day he wake up he chose to feed these addictions instead of trying to make life right and productive.
And now when I begin to cry over his mistreatment and I am missing him or who I fantasized him to be, messed up I know to have such confusing and conflicting emotions, I say to myself, what he did were his choices. His choices belonged to him. His choices imo were a reflection of who he was. He chose to not love me properly. He chose to get drunk all of the time and to cheat on me with multiple women. That's not love either. He chose to abandon our marriage when trouble arose. He chose to not be the best husband in the world to me and a great father. Instead he chose a different avenue in his life. And honestly those choices were horrible, especially because he had a wonderful family he sacrificed to be with these other women and be unfaithful to me and his late night drinking and partying. But this is what he chose to do. No matter what he used to say to me, today I know he was just the wrong person for me.
Having a good comeback in my mind when I get teary eyed over whether I am missing him or crying over how he treated me, has been one of the best things I have done for myself. His taking us on family vacations, putting in a pool for us, fixing up the house for us, buying me nice cars, etc does not make up for what he did to us and I don't allow these material goods to control my thinking anymore. I have a great perspective today and now I know what love is and what isn't love and I won't settle for anything but love, faithfulness, respect, honesty... if a man can't give me what is important to and for me, then he isn't the right man for me.
If my husband were to miraculously come back to this earth, hypothetically of course, I would not be able to be with him again. The veil has been lifted. I see his truth. I can clearly see him now. No more blind spots for me.
I do not hate him anymore. I still love parts of him. The good parts in him. I'm slowly working on forgiveness and realizing that there was something broken in this man to do what he did to me and the kid's. And buying us gifts did not compensate for his poor behaviors and poor life choices.
But I am also learning to let go. It has been a very long process to get where I'm at today. I kind of feel like I'm getting close to being done with the deep grieving. I am finding my grieving for all the what ifs, hopes stolen dreams, has served its purpose and with a renewed understanding I am ready to move forward in my life and let go of the past. But it has taken time to get to this point. Like lots of time and I'm glad I allowed myself to grieve the loss of his life and the loss of the marriage I wanted to believe I had.
I am so much better today. Never thought I would feel better. Still have very sad moments and I still sink into deep, dark sadness and depression but as I said earlier, I am so tired of grieving especially for a man who felt the way he did about me. I mean, I chose someone who didn't like me or love me. Maybe he liked me but surely didn't love me. I think that is fair to say. So why would I want to try and hang onto someone who didn't even love me when he was alive? Or maybe I need to reword this to say that I am finally feeling I'm getting closer to letting the hurt and pain he caused to me throughout out marriage go.
Don't worry about how long it takes you to grieve and process everything that has happened in your life. Just use this time to allow yourself to grieve everything that you need to grieve. I'm telling you that there is a whole bright new world waiting for you when your feet begin to settle onto the ground again. Just takes time to heal. Use that time. It's okay to not be okay. Remember that.