How long?

15 years is a long time. Your recovery from this loss is going to take time, and It will take something else, besides time. Without that something else, you will never recover. I have a family member in your situation who has become disabled by divorce and will never fully recover. You don't want that to happen to you. I'm hopeful for you because you are working. The person I know gave up on working and on other responsibilities.

Here's the other thing, besides time passing, that you need. You have to acknowledge what you did that brought you to this heartbreaking place. If you say, "I was victimized by a man who fooled me.", then you give up all your power. Sometimes, bad things happen to us that are totally out of our control. That is a self-defeating way to look at this.

Here's what makes you a true victim: Some drunk runs a red light and crashes his car into your car. The doctor tells you that you have cancer. A terrorist blows up a building while you are in it. This is not that kind of thing, where you had no part in setting yourself up for devastation. Your husband did not suddenly get substituted by a monster. Who he is is who he is and who he was. You believed what you wanted to believe. You insisted that the truth was what you wanted it to be. You kept insisting on that until reality clobbered you over the head and made it impossible for you to keep kidding yourself. You can learn from this that there is a price for buying into a fantasy. Then you can open your eyes and your heart to reality and meet it on its own terms.

Maybe it's too soon for you to consider this, but it will never be a good time. The person I know said her husband promised her that he would never hurt her, and so she trusted him. He specifically promised her that he would never be unfaithful and would never cheat on her with other women. She said she relied on that. Now she gives up on life because she got betrayed.

People do get fooled. Getting fooled by someone doesn't mean you're stupid. But spending 15 years thinking your marriage is just fine - when it is not - means you tend to believe what you want to believe. It's time to stop doing that - not to go around being negative about everything all the time . . . . . but to maintain a healthy skepticism and get to know others for who they really are.

You can give up and spend your life with a cat, but you don't have to. I recommend taking off the "rose-colored glasses."

Thank you very much. Your words are not soft, but I think you’re right 100%. I must stop believe I had a lovely prince. Most of my friends understood there was something wrong with us, in our couple. I was blind, or with pink lenses.

Good for you, Azzurrella! This is how you empower you. One year post marriage ending, you are off to a great start. Be the author of your own life story, not a blank page that someone else writes on . . . not a victim.

You have some friends worth keeping.

I am hopeful for you.

Hi guys!!I hope you had a good Xmas Day!!
I’m working day by day to recover. To accept pain and a new life.

I'm verry happy to hear it, Azzurrella! Merry Christmas! Don't give up. You can do this. Sending many hugs to you

Everything we go through in life counts as experience. Experience can be the source of wisdom. Wisdom makes life better.

May you be well in the new year.

Hi.
I feel ill.
One day I’m warmly up, one day I’m deeper down.
I’m a little tired of such up and down.
I’m shaked, I’m like on a ship in a hurricane.
The last event... My father tries to make me more reasonable, sayng that I would have to be happy with them, in this desert, far from everything and everybody...because when I will go back in the town I will be even more lonely than I am now.
I kindly requested him not to bother me anymore with his attempts of self-made therapist. I cannot struggle anymore with anything. I only hope to sleep and sleep and sleep.
But also sleeping is an effort.
I feel like a Santa Klaus of a trash movie, I have to hide myself, not to be recognized, with my luggage of thoughts that brings me down.
So tired.
Will it never end?

That really stinks to not have the support you need from your father in order to rebuild your self confidence and to have the needed encouragement to regain your independence.

Of course getting out into the world to make new friends and have new experiences is going to be slow going at first. However, as Eskie, who writes here often will tell, moving accross country and making new connections was life changing in a positive way.

I'd don't think that even for myself, I would be where I am now in life, if I was under the shadow of either of my parents. Old friends live far away. I've made some newer connections through the years and have seen unexpected reconnections with extended family that weren't a prominent presence before.

It takes time to heal, but not being sequestered or geographically isolated matters.

@all of you

Do you believe I’m on time to recover? Because of some financial issue after separation I had to come back to my parents. It is only temporary, but I’m frightened it has been the worst choice I could make. I suffer also because my ex said to me I always had done the wrong choice in my life, even if I studied with profit, I’m very good in my job, my new colleagues appreciate me and help me to be comfortable at work. Because me too, I’m helpful with every one I meet.
I feel like I’ve lost the last year of my life, as I cannot recover from this changement in my life. I’m not interested in a new relationship, I only would like to have a normal life.
Is it possible that everything I’ve done was the wrong thing? Why my ex did not help me to do the right choice? I asked his opinion, every decision was taken together.
I think he wanted only to hurt me. He cannot separate his job from his family, I was treated as a simple worker of his property. A worker not worthy, btw.
I need someone who could tell me that he’s fool. His new fiancée was more lonely than I am. So now I see there are no laws, no rules, no ethic, no moral, anything. I can just think that maybe me too I will steal the husband of a friend of mine, I must not desperate.
I did something for his friends, when they were in trouble. They only disappeared when I was.
I feel crazy.
Please tell me that I’m not.
If you have money, you can do everything. If you don’t have, you have to be silent.
Is it possible that he told me I always took the wrong choice?
He was and he is so lucky in his life...he can built and destroy at his own pleasure, nothing matters.
I hate my home, my parents that make me crazy. I feel in a cage. That was another bad choice. I thought they would love and help me, as I could do. They are old and sick, I’m the only one for them. I could not stay were I was, it was too far away; and because I had not enough money to live. So is this another wrong chioce? Everything I do is wrong?
Is this only a bad period of my life or the mirror of my future?
I have to wear a mask every time I go in the world. I’m the envy of people, it seems I have no problems. No one knows how I feel, no one understands, so I cannot talk to anyone.
It is the contrary, people tell me their own problems, because I’m wise and strong.
I’m very tired.
I would like to know if I’m in time to heal from this hate, from this cage, from rage.
Thank you.

So many step back for financial reasons and parents are a common stepping stone/path during a post divorce era. It's typically a safe place to land. Happens all the time.
I'd say continue creating your nest egg with work and the fewer bills that occur by virtue of staying with your parents. Keep working with your therapist to unravel the awful things that are replaying from your ex husband. Rebuild yourself -esteem and confidence.
It wasn't nice of him to run off and leave you for another woman. No it doesn't mean you are going to be like her?? Where did that idea come from?

@healing

Because I’ve seen that being a good person doesn’t premiate.
What I’ve learn from them?
That it is more useful and powerful to be egoist, to threaten, to lie, to deny ouselves than to be honest and good. Not to help anyone, is useless.
That me comes before than others, does not matter how many corps I will leave behind me.
Isn’t it true?
I have really to stop questioning.
Maybe it will be useful to take something to sleep and stop thinking.
I cannot accept it was my fault.
I hate my parents telling me that the problem it’s me, because I don’t accept a life of sufference and desert, as many people have.
I only hope this rage will find another person to catch.

Ok. Today it is better. I’m amazed from this up and down in my mood, they are not normal. I see.
Today’s feeling: I’m so angry because...I know why, and it is a stupid matter. Hope I will let go away also that one.
It is an hard pathway, but I can succeed in.

Hi guys!
Everything’s ok?

I agree with this. Don't rush. You are vulnerable right now and someone might take advantage of that. Take some time with self-care and lean on the support of your female friends.

Thank you.
So I’m thinking and thinking... and I’ve realized that my ex husband is a bad person I don’t want anymore in my life, not to meet even at the supermarket. The woman he’s with is a false person, even worse than he his. They have no moral, no respect for people, no love for people. So let them in their present or future mud.
I’ll be a...bachelor(?) Is it possible to use this term for a woman? I don’t need anything, I’m quite good also alone, if the alternative is to stay in a ill relationship or to have someone not good near to me. I stop struggle, it is useless. People are really imperfect, and I’m tired of accepting all the rage, the sadness, the incapacity of doing something good from others.
Everyone I meet stands on his sofa waiting for something good in his life, otherwise crying on destiny and so on. I cannot tolerate anymore, I leave them with their problems, because they want to speak and speak, but nobody has time to listen. Being on the sofa....
What do you think about?

Living with your parents is stressing you out. Make a goal to become independent of them. You can achieve that.

Hi guys!!
I would like to share with you some thoughts.
I seem a strong person. Someone who never needs help.
I don’t understand why nobody see what I’m feeling, why nobody understands that I’m fragile as others.
Since my separation I’ve had no one by my side, but a couple of friends that have maintained some distance, not entering deep in my troubles. Even if they where present at my calls, but I tried not to seek them excessively, or not to be excessively sad with them.
I’ve read that in front of a death, everyone is sensitive and full of compassion.
But in front of a divorce, no one seem to understand that is in the same manner a death, with a lot of struggles and complaints inside, even worse.
The right definitions of what I’ve felt, I found it on the web. Nobody explained to me.
Also friend, closer and not, were focused on cheating and on struggle, not on the pain of the death of a marriage.
I also have some difficult to accept the rage, I don’t understand reasons, of my ex husband. I could not recognize him as the person I married, the beloved person knew almost everything of me, my happiness, my sadness, my fears and my life projects. I cannot recognize him anymore, so I think my husband is dead himself.
I cannot understand the Macchiavelli’s plans of her new fiancé di catch him, and how he has been blind. I cannot understand his parents, they were my new family, in throwing me outside of their life. What is important for them. I were always with them.
I cannot how my parents are ignorant and plain, not to see that I’m deeply unhappy for a million of reasons.
How people live? How is it possible to live thinking only to the lunch and the dinner? How they are so rude?
I cannot believe my life has changed so badly. I try to find a reason, to see a sort of luck in all that changes, to avoid a life spent not being myself with a person (husband) who loves only himself and the idea of family he had, in which he had to have a wife, a son, grandparents. In which me or another was the same, at the end. A woman that looks perfect being better than me, non considering what is inside.
I’m full of doubts.
I pray everyday only not to have rage, not to hate.
I also fear that a specialist would not be useful. What he/she could tell me that I don’t know?
I only have to accept the state of the things?
What do you think?

I'm so sorry, Azzurella Please do consider seeing a specialist. I think it may really help you right now. I'm so sorry you don't have any support system IRL. Getting through a divorce is already hard by itself, but it's even harder if nobody is there with us. I hope writing here helps a bit. Feel free to PM me anytime. I'm always available if you need to talk. I'm sure others here on PC will listen to you as well. Just let me know if I can do something to help you. Please don't give up. You'll get over it eventually. It just takes time. But it does get better. You can do this! You're strong and you know that. Sending many hugs to you

I think you are sort of insisting on regressing to the blindness you were living in. I'm not going to retell you what I already posted, but suggest you re-read it.

I totally get that this divorce is as bad as a death, and probably worse. You are well-entitled to feel devastated.

However: You are not entitled to stay devastated forever, which is what you are setting yourself up to do. Friends and family are not going to enable you seeing your life as a permanent tragedy that you cannot recover from, eventually. If you don't recover, that will be on you.

I'm sorry, if you are not getting enough emotional support. You deserve and need that. But you have the option of rebuilding your life. If you don't, that will be on you.

I'm sorry your hopes and dreams were shattered. You really believed this man was someone who he is not. Now reality has come crashing down on you. I'm sure that's incredibly painful. The harder we believe in a fantasy, the more awful it is when that fantasy collapses.

It is your job to discover the difference between reality and fantasy. "But everything could have been so perfect, if only this man would have not betrayed me." Yeah - but he is who he is. He couldn't be who you wanted him to be. I'll take your word for it that he has been, deceptive and cruel and uncaring. Maybe he's really a jerk. He's probably not going to have a great life either.

Sometimes tragedy takes away a wonderful, loving, good husband. A heroic firefighter dies in a burning building, maybe after an arsonist lights a match. Usually, the widow goes on with her life. Usually, young widows remarry. They find a way to make life good again. It can be done.

Instead, you are saying that you should not have been disappointed so badly and you are not interested in having to start over. You are saying that "This should not have happened!"

It Is What It Is. There is no such thing as "what should be." There is what is.

I'm kind of like you. When I was young I was mad that people did so much that was wrong. My mother said: "Rose, life is as it is." I said: "That is what makes me mad!" My mother said: "Then you are going to go through life mad, and that will be too bad for you." That was the smartest thing anyone ever told me. I needed to be told that. I tend to be disappointed that life involves so much pain. As I get older, I am seeing more and more that happiness doesn't come easy to anyone. I do see how very hard most people have to struggle to make life decent for themselves. I see now that ordinary people have to put an awful lot of effort into making their lives work . . . making their jobs work . . . making their relationships work. I'm surprised so many people try as hard as they do - and just to get a modest amount of happiness. You will either take up that struggle, or you won't. It's up to you.

Instead of asking family and friends to feel bad for you, ask them to tell you about what hard things they had to deal with and how they managed to keep struggling.

When someone acts as shocked as you act over dealing with a huge disappointment, it makes me wonder if, maybe, you thought life wasn't supposed to be hard? Life is hard. It always has been. Accept that. Then do what you have to do to get where you want to go. Or you can wallow in misery, and your life will stay miserable. You are wallowing. Stop.

@Rose
Thank you for the time you spent for answer to my question.
I don’t think my life has to be simple, comfortable, easy. My life is not and was not. I’ve always been the maximum I could, nobody gave me anything for free. I understand than nothing is due to me, but this doesn’t mean I easily accept what I passed through.
I have not pink lenses, I had not. It’s hard to accept that a person doesn’t want to see me anymore, talk me anymore, that I’m “the enemy”, that I could die without a tear spent, after so many years. These are things that can make a person mad, but I’m always here, I’m working at the best of my skills, never complaining, never bothering anyone.
I cannot find a new way, ‘cause I feel and I’m alone.
And I wonder if I can change something, I try every day, but I’m not succeeding in that. I don’t know how to do, I know perfectly that I cannot relay on others. But how much am I able to do everything alone?
Will I pass every moment of my life alone?
Friends have their own life’s to carry on, we are different, they don’t care of being alone, sometimes they prefere to stay alone, just to remark that they don’t need anything. But then they bother me with every sort of stupid problems, as not to date anymore the guy they had a bed liaison. Maybe wise people are already in a relationship, so only this ones are free to do, sometimes, something together. And I pay attention not to talk about my feelings, there is no compassion in their minds.
I don’t want to stay in my sufferance, I don’t like it. Maybe I need only someone telling me that everything will go in the right way, not to lose my hope.
As I help everyone in my life, daily, I would like do listen that there are good people, and someone will help me. Anything more.

I think you should consider seeing a therapist. Once a therapist told me that sometimes we need a level of attention that we are not going to get, unless we pay someone to give it to us. You might be in that category.

You seem to have a harsh judgement of everyone in your life. It is hard to follow your line of reasoning. You need to sit down with someone IRL and talk about this.

Of course, it is possible to rebuild a good life for yourself. But your attitude has to change. I think you need a good therapist.

Thank you @Rose, I’ll consider to see a therapist. I’m used to resolve everything by myself, but it is possible that now I need some help outside. I know, I cannot demand everything to everyone. And it is true, there is a moment we have to pay to get attention we need. I will think about it.
I would like to say that the harsh judgment it seems I have for people, in the end it’s the harsh judgment I have for myself.
I have to forgive myself and to love myself, first.
Thank you.

Hello Azzurrella. I am so sorry you are going through such pain. I am divorced myself...it is a unique and bizarre trauma to have been fully partnered with someone and then go through the process of uncoupling and rebuilding a new life without your former partner.

I'm now many years out from my divorce and things did get better. I slowly built a new life. It's a slow and gradual process. It's also not linear...there isn't a clear starting point with a steady upward trend from A to B. For a while, it can feel like a roller coaster of emotions...up, down, and all around. It will not always feel that way...you're likely still in shock at this point. You need time to grieve and a support network. If you don't have a close network of non-judgmental family or friends, a professional therapist could really help. Someone experienced in post-divorce therapy.

Remember that there are no 'wrong' feelings. It's okay to feel however you feel...angry, sad, scared, confused, betrayed. The key is to develop coping mechanisms...while you grieve the loss, learn why the marriage did not work out, explore who you are now without your former partner, develop new goals for yourself.

I truly believe that it is possible for something good and even beautiful to grow out of intense pain. That probably sounds bizarre to you now and that's okay but I've seen it happen in my own life. I hope that at some point later on your own Life path, you will look back and smile and thank yourself and say: "I DID IT! I SURVIVED! I HAVE BUILT A NEW LIFE!" You can't put a timeline on it (trust me I wanted that too!) because nobody can predict the future...whether it's a person recovering from divorce or not. In time you'll learn to trust yourself...to trust your future.

Don't be so hard on yourself Azzurrella. Of course you wish people understood and offered compassion...you just lost your life partner...that's a huge trauma. But humans often don't understand things they have never experienced. Or even 10 folks who've all been through divorce...those are ten unique experiences of 10 individuals. Each one cannot actually know how it feels for the others. When I was going through my divorce, a single friend of mine told me: "I know exactly what you're going through, I lived with a boyfriend for two years and we broke up." When she said that I was SO angry though I kept it to myself. I thought: how could she possibly know what I'm going through...comparing a two year boyfriend to my marriage of more than a decade?!" And that's how I felt that day and that's okay. And now, looking back, I think she was probably just trying to be kind but didn't choose helpful words

We can heal from trauma...slowly, with time, and professional support. Peace and healing energy to you. Hope starts today. Tell yourself that even when you don't believe it. Hope starts today

So, it looks like I'm pretty good, but nobody imagines that I have a volcano inside. It's hard to manage, but I think it's like an influence, before or after it will pass.
I think everyone is different in reacting to particular events of their lives, and I understand that my "event" is very light in the face of other tragedies, I know. I can not say anything else.
But I also know that medicine for my illness is not a pill, a treatment or something material. I need people. Thanks to everyone who tried to teach me something. I will do my best, but I know there will be more relapses, at another time I will feel like a shoe sole. What to do? Wait, it will pass.

Hello Azzurrella. I don't know if you were responding to my post or a different one. I never said that your trauma is "light" compared to other tragedies. Pain is pain. Nobody has a right to negate someone else's pain. If you feel like you're in hell, then you're in hell. I did not suggest taking a pill or something material to help you recover from your divorce. I suggested talking with a psychologist. Psychologists don't give pills. They talk with people, offer comfort, and coping strategies. It really helped me.

I am so sorry you feel badly. I understand. If my message did not seem supportive, perhaps it's due to a language barrier; unintentional. I was honestly trying to offer kindness.

Take care