Probably Separating -- but not too sad

I've been married a long time... we will probably separate soon.

I'm 50-years old and the outlook is scary; but I don't feel destroyed or even very sad.... is this normal?

Hello MId-Life-Larry: I'm sorry your marital relationship has come to this. I'm 67 (& still married...) I don't know whether or not how you feel is normal. Perhaps, if the road to where you are now has been long & rocky, it's simply a relief for you to be finally reaching the end of it.

Of course, it is possible also that the real impact of what's coming simply hasn't hit yet. However, as long as you're not feeling destroyed, or even very sad, now... perhaps the best course of action is to simply appreciate where you're at, at the moment, & be glad of it. I wish you well...

Hi Larry. Sorry to hear about your marriage. My parents divorced in their 50s...after a very long and unsatisfying marriage. There was just no connection left and no desire on either side to put in the effort to fix it. Unfortunately. ..there was alot of animosity...but I must say that after a year. Their lives are much happier. And they both found someone who is a much better match. Good luck in ur journey.

For me it was such a relief to the battling, warring life I was living. I had purchased a farm with the inheritance money & sale of her house after my Mom died. It was 2100 miles away & I went there to close on the farm & work on fixing up the house. I was gone all summer & realized that I didn't miss him one little bit & he never communicated during those months & because I was feeling so much peace not having anything to do with him....I never bothered communicating with him either.

I did give him a chance to see if a different environment would make a difference in him like it had made in me that following end of December & first week in January. I ended up kicking him out & sent him back to the home we had & I continued to stay at my farm.

I wondered why that relationship was so strange all those years & why there never had been a connection or what I felt should be normal communication & wondered why I was fighting everything about him for all those years.

Leaving was such a peaceful relief to me that I never had a sad feeling about it. I wondered why he wouldn't change to make the marriage work. I came to understand why several years after leaving when I started to research the behaviors that I had been living with all those years. What a relief that knowledge was as it helped relieve the hate that had built up over all the bad years of marriage.