Day One – Shock
23 September 2011
Returning from a four week holiday visiting my son – our son – my husband asked me out on a “date” which amounted to him telling me that he was ending our marriage of nearly 37 years. No discussion, no alternative, no choice and, to me, completely unexpected. With those words he spoke to me, it was like a knife had been driven straight through my heart and my insides smashed into a thousand pieces. I had to detach myself from the moment in order to survive. There was this intolerable pain that started that first minute of that first hour on that first day and I wondered how I could cope, how I could survive and when the pain would stop. I was in an instant stripped of my past, robbed of my dreams for the future and thrown into the twilight zone of the present – one painful hour at a time.
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I can understand the knifing pain you would have experienced in that one single moment and ever since then. I had quite the same feeling when I found about my husband’s infidelities and I detached myself to such an extent from that moment that I went into emotional shock from which I am still emerging. Despite the whole process of acceptance and moving on I have gone through there is one question which resonates through my life and every other experience I have read about, ‘how could they?’
How could they trivialize our whole life, our hopes, our dreams, our future, our existence per se to end it over a text message, a ‘date’ or over the email?
Sadly I still draw a blank till date…
Yes, it is very hard – something that I will never ever understand.
I too agree that one can get to a state of acceptance and moving on in many aspects ….. but not that.
I too have drawn a blank.
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I’m not sure why I have wandered back into your archives. But I can’t help myself. Your writing is compelling. I’ve always believed that through our pain we can help others.
I looked at the dates of when you wrote this & it was during a time when I was going through a life changing time in my life.
Now, as I look back today, so much has changed. The pain ebbs, the lessons reap wisdom.
I went through a divorce over two decades ago, after 14 years of marriage. It was devastating. I still have unresolved feelings about it. My ex has since died, which has kind of shut down feelings I still have never dealt with.
I commend you for your honesty. It is kind of inspiring to follow your story almost seven years later, and know how far you’ve come!
Thank you for your words of support. It means a lot to me. The pain has lessened yet still ebbs and flows to a degree. One must carry it around in one’s heart and get on with things.
Take care.
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