Dear CB:

I assumed you didn’t like my input and that is why you didn’t mention any of it for quite some time, but if my assumption was wrong, and you do want my input, then you can have more of it. I am glad you don’t use your son as a go between or to vent your feelings of pain and betrayal to him. It is a mistake that many mothers make, using their children as empathetic listeners to their suffering- it hurts the children, young and adult.

One amazing thing about your story is how smoothly your partner of half a century left you, not looking back, not reconsidering at any point, which again, leads me to think that any considerations and doubts that he had, were settled before he left. When he left, he was sure that it’s what he wanted to do. The pandemic, a shock to many, didn’t shock him enough to reconsider. His mother perhaps dying- didn’t shock him to reconsider.

And you have no idea how and why it happened, other than it may be an (early) mid life crisis, and when I suggested other reasons for why he left the way he left, you didn’t care to consider those reasons, just wanting to move on.

It would help me to move on (if I was you) if I understood better. What will help you in your question “How move on” (in the title of your thread)?

anita