Dropping back in after being gone a few months - recovering from hip surgery.

Anyway, I just realized I need to grieve for the loss of my 20 year marriage, the person I thought was my best friend and soulmate, and the financial losses resulting from the split as well. Plus the dogs that stayed behind with him... the self-esteem, lost through rejection... and probably other things as well.

But, I don't know how to grieve. Or what to grieve for. Should I make myself cry? Or... I just don't know.

Funny, I moved out 15 months ago. Why didn't this hit me sooner?

Does anyone have any advice on how to grieve? Or how you know if you HAVE grieved? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Hey [color:"blue"] Deja Vu [/color]
Good to see you again...I think the stages come at different times for each of us. Sometimes I think they also can get out of sequence, but they usually are:

Denial (this isn't happening to me!)
Anger (why is this happening to me?)
Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
Depression (I don't care anymore)
Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)

Some of these occur DURING the marriage (I know mine did!) What stage are you at? Are you worried because you haven't had a "breakdown", with gut-wrenching sobbing yet? Not all of us do that, either.

Thanks for posting those 5 stages. Everyone is definitely different. I experienced at least 3 of those stages at the same time after I found out about my XH's affair & OW being pg. My true acceptance didn't come until after being divorced for almost a whole year.

During this past week I had two dreams about XH, in the first one we were arguing, I woke up & realized it was a dream, he wasn't here anymore & I will not being arguing w/ him anymore & I was so overjoyed! In the second dream we were at a concert we were supposed to go to this past Friday, (until I told him never to call me again last month), & he was acting really fake around everyone there, doing things a H who loves his W would do, helping me w/ my coat, taking my hand as we walked thru the crowd & in my head I was screaming "u know we are over & this isnt' real, why are u pretending we are this happy couple??" I awoke again relieved he was gone & no longer in my life.

Not sure if that is part of acceptance or not but I do know I no longer grieve over my marriage ending. I still think about him pretty much on a daily basis, usually thoughts of the way he hurt me, nothing positive, but I no longer want him back in my life in any shape, form or fashion. God answered my prayer & took those feelings of wanting him back & being so desparately in love with him away. HE did it in his own time & during that time that I was waiting, not so patiently I might add, I know I was still grieving.

Hang in there. I wish u many blessings & most of all peace.

The old saying.... this too shall pass is true, u just don't know when it will - pass but it will.

I just take each day as it comes and whatever happens happens. crying i cry yelling i yell ... this is so hard i wonder if ill ever be happy

I found a great workbook early on called the "Fresh Start Separated/divorced workbook" I bought it at the discount book store, but it helped work through the steps. I'm sure there are other books out there.
My local divorce support group helped alot too.
The lesson is, we either deal with the healing now, or deal with it later (when it comes back to haunt us).
I say, deal with it now.

I have been off work now for about 9 weeks - unable to even drive until about a week ago. I feel like I should have spent the time rebuilding my self-image or something. Instead I've ended up feeling bad again about the D.

It didn't help that I found H's Personal ad that was full of lies and advertised himself as divorced, which he is not. I started having some of the old thoughts again. I thought I was really settled about how I felt, only to find myself revisiting old territory again. Finding things that remind me of the good times... something I really never did do. I think I convinced myself of all H's bad qualities, and how wonderful it would be to be rid of him. I also think I focused on my new "project" - that of finding a new place to live and getting moved in.

This may be the first time since I moved that I've really had the peace and time to reflect - and now wonder if I didn't just replace my grieving with diversionary projects instead. Now, granted I had to deal with these other things... but I think I substituted them for dealing with my feelings and my losses. For instance, I occasionally have thoughts that maybe this isn't real after all (denial?) YIKES! I thought I was way past that.

I also realized that the past several weeks I've been a hermit. I've gone through as much as a week without checking my e-mail, not answering my phone, etc. Bouncing between feeling isolated, and wanting to be left alone.

So the bottom line is: I am familiar with the stages of grief - intellectually. But I do NOT know how to make myself go through them. And how will I know if I grieved or not? And I've been watching WAY too much TV - anything to avoid having to face up to difficult things ahead of me. Like putting together my D paperwork... like, maybe if I don't get around to it, the D won't happen. Is that what I'm thinking? I just don't know!

Does this make any sense?

BabyGirl,

How did you know you had accepted it? Did you do anything consciously to accept it, or just wake up one day and realize you were at peace with it? Or...???

Inquiring minds want to know!

I don't think I cried or yelled. I just hunkered down and dealt with the realities of packing, moving, etc. That's the point!

I too wonder if I'll ever be happy. Today on Oprah they were talking about the self-esteem of young girls. I found myself thinking, as they focused on these girls having their whole lives ahead of them, that MY whole life is behind me. As they asked these girls to focus on what they had to offer, what their good points were... I realized something. Most of my qualities and abilities that have contributed to my self-esteem in the past are deteriorating as a natural part of aging. To be rejected by my H was adding insult to injury. It's hard to maintain self-esteem for things that are falling apart.

My deterioriating hip also made it difficult for me to do lots of things, and one of the reasons H gave for rejecting me was for not keeping myself fit (as if I could do anything more). That's one of his criteria for his new woman, according to his personal ad.

I do now realize -- from what the doctors say, and the xrays -- that I kept going way longer than I should have. Several physical symptoms I've had over the past years are directly traceable to the hip problems. And, I'm having trouble in PT now, and the therapist says there are muscles I haven't used forever (as long as 25 years) since my lost range of motion prevented me from accessing them.

Ah, but I ramble... sorry...

I'm going to look for this... thanks!

Here's a link:The Fresh Start Divorce Recovery Workbook

Thanks! I am addicted to Amazon anyway!

For me I knew I had totally accepted it after 2 months of "dating", exchanging Christmas presents & finally after holding out for 7 months I stupidly gave in to SF w/ XH. Of course once that happened the "chase" was over, I couldn't get a call from him much less see him. I told him that it bothered me, that I felt played, used etc. His reply of course was that I shouldn't feel that way, that it wasn't a "booty call" I really didn't think it was. I know exactly what it was, he thought that I was still soooooo hung up on him & that I always would be & he could continue to treat me any ol' way he wanted since he is the end all be all of my life, my reason for breathing. He thought that "yeah she put up a good front for 7 months telling me she didn't want to see me anymore only to back down after a few weeks that he wore me down ." He thought we would go back to doing this sick dance that had gone on since our D was final on 3/2/05.

Well after his treatment of me after having SF w/ him, him forgetting my b'day even though he left me a message on that day about some other stuff & to top it all off he called me on 2/9 & asked if I would claim OC on my taxes so he could split the refund w/ me. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" /> The nerve, this is the baby he created w/ OW while we were M as I was preparing to have a tubal reversal so we could try to have a baby together & he saw no problem w/ asking me to claim her so he could have some money in his pocket, maybe he forgot this baby is a BIG part of the reason we are no longer M. After that I knew w/o a doubt that it was over, I made the right decision to D him, all regrets were gone & in my "light bulb moment" as Oprah calls it, I accepted that any hope of reconcilliation was truly over, the D was for the best decision I could have made for myself. I filed he didn't want it, always told me we would never be over. It was a long hard road to get to where I am now, I wish I had moved on sooner but I like not having any "what ifs" rolling around in my mind & I don't.

If the day ever comes that something doesn't remind me of him & his A & OC I will be even more at peace. Example -today I was driving my SUV & it was really windy, I was thinking it could flip over, my mind instantly flashes back to early December 2001, XH was driving very fast in the SUV we owned at the time, exceeding the speed limit and flipped over, several times, no seat belt, totalled the SUV walked away w/o a scratch. Of course he lied to me about where he was headed, I later found out he was rushing like a mad man to see OW. It still makes me sick to think about it, here I was sick to death thinking I could have lost him & he had almost killed himself trying to get to her. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> Its just little things like that that seem to happen on a daily basis. One day I will be free of those thoughts also.

Sorry this turned out to be so long, but that is how I reached acceptance.

P.S. I changed my screen name, "BabyGirl" is what XH used to call me, I am no longer that & I ain't mad about it at all. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Deja Vu, Elisabeth Kubler Ross developed the 5 stages of grieving to describe what a dying person goes through as they approach the inevitability of their own death, not to describe what the survivors of loss go through. For us, the process doesn't have such a well-defined end. I went to a grief recovery workshop after my stepson's death with the people who wroteThe Grief Recovery Handbook. They describe a process for working through and completing any kind of loss through written exercises you share with another person or group. It helped a lot, but the reality is, as long as we're alive, we'll never forget someone with whom we spent 20 years of our lives. Hopefully, we can get past the "what if's" and the regrets, and as time goes by, get triggered less by every day occurrences.

For me, the key is forgiveness, of myself even more than of my STBXWH. I need to accept my human fallibility and turn WH and my M, as well as the outcome of my Dv, over to God. When I start obsessing, I have to remember to give it all back to God, again. I'm glad my good memories haven't been completely swallowed up by the bad. The farther I get from the situation, the more it seems like WH and his whole family "died" since in reality, nothing is the same as it was. WH is consumed by his addictions, DSS and MIL are dead, and FIL and I only exchange Christmas cards now.

I am into acceptance, although I don't think I'm done because I don't feel like I've forgiven. And that's a big piece for me.
We all deal at our own pace.
Find what works for you.