Are you grieving the loss of your marriage?

If you truly loved someone I don't know that the grieving ever goes away completely. You miss the man you thought he was/wanted him to be. THAT's what you're grieving. It sounds trite but what can one do but try to make your life the best it can be for you now: Hobbies, charity work, travel...etc

What do you think?

I think your advice is very helpful. Sometimes it seems like our brain has a mind of its own and we just have to take things day by day.

I am grieving terribly. I feel like I am losing my mind. My ex has moved on and is dating. He is so happy. It makes me feel he was never happy with me. I filed for the divorce because he had been pushing me away for years. I kept trying and the more I tried the harder he pushed me away. I don’t have a good support group. They all want me to be fine and move on, he wasn’t good for you. I spent 30 years with him! Now he has moved on like I meant nothing. I am crushed. I just started with a therapist to work on grief.

Your ex never made you happy and you finally ended the relationship. Even if he dates others he has not changed as a person. You are still grieving what he never provided you with in your relationship. It’s normal to grieve. However, don’t fall into the psychological trap of wanting him to suffer and feel loss. By doing that you are hanging on to what led you to want a divorce in the first place.

I think therapy can help you learn to distance and begin to focus on your own happiness. You were stuck for a long time so it’s going to take you time to learn how to focus on yourself.

Personally I'm terrified of this "time" as I am just in the beginning of this depression and misery and it's already eating away at me so badly.

My previous therapist retired last month and I am only on week 3 with my new one but he and I seem to be a real good fit . This will be my first visit with him since my wife told me she thinks it would be best if we got a divorce. Hopefully he is able to help some

I am so sorry for everyone. Divorce is the most horrible thing I have ever experienced. Having had cancer and losing my Mom was horrible but divorce was devastating.

It’s been a year for me and I think I am a wee bit better. I am trying to “live” again without my best friend by my side but I am going to be honest. Every morning I still hurts. Every morning I still miss her. I think the only difference is it is not as crippling as it once was. I can only hope that within the next year it gets that much easier. I guess what I am trying to say is, will it get better? Yes it will but will there be a day where you wake and you finally feel “healed”? I truly hope. You are not alone. My heart goes out to all of you.

I got a divorce after 31 years of abuse; been alone for 20 years, I will always grieve what happened.

I grieved while in the marriage. It wasn’t what I wished. That hurt so deep in my soul I grieved and my mental health suffered. Now that I am freshly out, I am numb. I have flashbacks of the trauma and feel disbelief that happened. I feel alright with that everything happened, though. A lot of good happened, too. We had kids, and they mean everything to me. I hate that the marriage was so bad, but I am at peace that it was my path. Now, it is my mission to be healthy. No more romantic relationships for me and I feel fine about that. I do feel defective and broken now. But this thinking we are taught to think about how we must be in a couple is faulty and I don’t have to do that. Yes, I had prolonged grief while in the marriage for what I so badly wanted the relationship to be, and now I am numb and coping with the aftermath of trauma.

I just believe that marriage as an institution is failing. The basic core family is disintegrating. Marrying for love is a relatively recent development. For thousands of years the family was all about survival. The human race needed the best matches to produce the strongest offspring. The fact that our youngsters are becoming more and more secular and rejecting God is removing the sanctity marriage once proclaimed. Divorce was a no-no.
But where did that all lead us ? To where we are now.
So it's being proven that people go through fazes in life. And the "love" for one person for the duration is nothing more than a failed extended faze. To realize that we don't "own" anyone is the hardest thing to accept. You can do your best but you cannot control if your partner of even 50 years may decide they are no longer interested. So we can go around and " mourn " the death of a marriage but if we don't move forward then it's to our own detriment.

I am grieving it, absolutely, and I always will. I never wanted to have an ex-wife or an unsuccessful marriage.

That said, in my particular situation, I firmly believe it is the healthiest decision for both of us. She was the one who initially voiced the desire to part, and it took me a few days of soul-searching to realize she was right, but that doesn't make it any less sad or make me feel any less like I failed. Our marriage was good for a long time, and I am in mourning for that.

That's what my wife did. She doesn't make decisions lightly, which was why I knew as soon as she said it was over that it was most definitely over. Neither of us was really happy, but she was unhappy enough to want out, while I was content to foolishly wait for the spark to come back. I'm actually proud of her for being brave enough to take that step and tell me she was ready to leave. That's not an easy thing to do at all.

I'm grieving the time I wasted living a lie. I'm grieving the fact that it took me so long to realize what a fool I've been.

I can completely relate.. I am recently going through the separation process and am in the very early stages. I am grieving the loss of our marriage and I expressed this to my spouse who looked at me like I had two heads.. He is sad but also has been checked out for a while so maybe he already went through the grieving process... All of this is just so damn hard.

I can relate. Year 2 of trying to divorce my husband. Been with him for over 30 yrs. He's disowned our children and is living with another woman. We've been together since h.s. and I'm heartbroken. I don't have much of a support system either.

My wife and I are still married, but I've become her caregiver after four (or more) serious health setbacks that spanned about 15 years, the most recent of which had her in hospice during the pandemic. But she recovered.

I work full time. We have very little support unless we pay for it. But with so many medical expenses, we can't afford more than about 10 hours of care per week. We don't go on vacation and just about manage to eat and keep out of debt. The house and cars are deteriorating. I'm just living day-by-day, numb to most of it. I'm most sad for our adult daughter, who didn't get the attention or support she needed while growing up.