Death of ex
Watch this postHas anyone experienced this? My ex has just died and am very confused as I feel nothing except sorrow for his siblings and worry about my children. We separated 30 + years ago and he never contacted us until 15 years later when he wanted his share of our home which he had never contributed to. He never supported his children and continually had affairs throughout the marriage. I had to work to support us and maintain the property. Unfortunately his name was on the documents and so he was entitled to one third of the property in law. I cashed everything in to keep our home and worked an extra 5 years after I should have retired until I had to stop for health reasons. Looking back I was mentally bullied and lost my self esteem. I have remained friends with his siblings and other relatives. Despite the hate and disgust felt by my children over what he had done I am glad to say they have agreed to go to the funeral and be pall bearers. I am so proud of them and I have asked his family if they would mind me attending (just to support my children). The problem is I am actually glad he is dead and it makes me feel like a bad person. I will of course hide these feelings but want to tell the story of what he did to me to make me feel this way. I thought I had got over it but I am carrying this bitterness which is very damaging. Any ideas who I could talk to?
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I felt that my children and myself were the stronger for going and reminding ourselves how lovely his family members are. He had put a rift between us in a way although we did keep in touch. There were very few there apart from family members but there was an old school friend of his who I knew around 50 years ago. It was as if we had only spoken yesterday as we fell straight into our comfortable 'jokey' relationship immediately. That was such a positive experience.
Thank you to all of you who have kept me going during the past difficult weeks. I very much appreciate your support.
Things have been complicated by the fact that I have had to share the news with one of his old student friends (who I also knew though not really as a friend). He wrote a long email of his memories some of which I remember too but from an entirely different point of view. I passed it on to my ex's family as myself and my children could genuinely not make any positive and happy comments. He has now sent me the address of another old friend so I have another difficult letter to write to an almost stranger. Sadly both these men lost their wives to cancer so I know that this will stir memories for them too. Fortunately for me my ex did not have many friends as I am finding this emotionally draining. Still, all things pass don't they? I can't wait for the funeral to be over to see how I feel then.
Your feelings of bitterness are understandable but, unfortunately as you have already realised, you are the only person they are damaging so pluck up your courage and seek some counselling. You have just as much right to speak to a counsellor as anyone else. After the funeral discuss your thoughts with your children - they have witnessed or been part of all these adversities and they also might be feeling the same as you, so you will have mutual support. Good luck and do let us know how you get on.
I will take a little time to think about my feelings and maybe take action after the funeral if I need to.
Friends and family including children know the gist but I cannot tell them some of the horrible details. I am pretty self aware and so I do know I need to get rid of these feelings in order to move on. (I have actually done some counselling myself.) As I said to Carole I will wait till after the funeral which may itself bring some closure. His family are lovely people and I would never ever say anything that would hurt them.