Dear CB:

Twenty seven years together is a long time. What a devastation it is to have your life as you knew it gone from underneath you by surprise, not seeing it coming. If you are okay with telling me more, please do. Tell me what happened, looking back in time, what do you think happened to bring this devastation about?

anita

Dear CB:

Reads to me like a classic case of a middle age crisis- he noticed he is getting older and asked himself: is this all that there is to life.. there’re got to be something else, something different for me.

That kind of thinking. Maybe seeing his parents aging, getting sick and needing care added to his distress about getting older himself and running out of youth and time.

Do you think that’s the case with him?

anita

Dear CB:

The  no brainer part of your situation is that you need to see a good divorce lawyer so to protect your monetary rights regarding property that you own with him and otherwise, maybe you are entitled to spousal support following the separation and what may be a divorce to come.

The fact that he has been with you since he was 15 sits well with the middle age crisis theory. He sees himself at the age of about 52 (15+27), his 20s gone, his 30s… his 40s, and before he gets to be 60 and 70, he wonder how it would be with a different woman. Something different, something new to make him feel young again.

“I feel so redundant and unecessary I’ve lost my purpose and feel so so sad and cry all the time”- I am sorry, CB, that you are hurting so badly. I wish you were not hurting at all, I wish that after 27 years of marriage and you caring for his parents.. I would hope that he was appreciative of you and  grateful to you, instead of considering you “redundant and unecessary”.

If he used to be a good man, and you were a good wife to him, I don’t know how it is that he woke up one day and figured that what you feel is not important, and what he feels is the only thing that matters.

Maybe he wasn’t a good man all along, I don’t know.

And you are not redundant and unecessary, even if that’s the case in his mind and heart. You are as necessary as any human, and important no less than any other.

anita

Dear CB:

The two of you never married then, 27 years together, since the two of you were teenagers, but  never married?

I didn’t understand the last few sentences, they are not written clearly. Can you re-write the part from “He  believes I feel same to the last sentence, “I can see my live without in it”?

(I will soon be away from the computer for less than 2 hours)

anita

Dear CB:

“he doesn’t believe I want him and I can’t imagine any life without him in it”- this is a severe miscommunication: did he not notice how important he is to you, all these years…?

I know very little of your story. If you want to, if you feel comfortable and would like to share more with me, please do: were you his first girlfriend and he yours; how did it come about that you never got married, is it something he didn’t want; what was the nature of your relationship all these years? And hen you say he is has been “a very good  man and very caring” all these years- in what ways has he been very good and very caring to you, to his son, to others?

If you choose to answer these questions, please take your time doing so (don’t rush).

anita

Dear CB:

I don’t know, CB. If he was a good man all these years, I would think that he would not blindside you and leave you as he did, not explaining much.

I know almost nothing about the nature of your relationship of 27 years. I don’t know why he was surprised that you did care about him (he was surprised at my reaction he doesn’t believe I want him”). I don’t know and what you shared didn’t give me enough information to be guessing beyond what I already guessed (the middle age crisis part-explanation).

Did you and him talk at any time in the history of your relationship about your relationship objectives: what you wanted, and what he wanted from the relationship and from life overall?

anita

Dear CB:

The reason I ask you questions is that when I understand my situation better, it makes me feel better, so I figure that if you understand your situation better, what led to it, you will feel better, and with better understanding, you will be better able to respond to your new situation.

So far, you have shared that your 27 year relationship started when he was 15 and you were 22; you were his first relationship, while you had prior relationships. The two of you didn’t care for getting married, so you didn’t. Seven years into the relationship, you brought a boy into the relationship, now 20.  The relationship ended ten weeks ago. He is now about 42 and you are about 49.

He ended the relationship abruptly, telling you that “he was done he loved me but wanted something different”, and the very next day he moved out to his sister’s home.  You now live with your son in what you call “the family home”. He told you that he “wants to sell family home as he needs the equity to move on”. Since he left  “he claims he wants to remain friend”, but “he’s withdrawn contact unless about practical matters our son who’s 20”, refused going to counseling and he keeps you “at arms length”.

At some point he complained to you that you and him became “more friends than partners”, even though the two of you continued to have a physical relationship. When he left you and you reacted emotionally in an intense way,  he told  you that he was surprised by your reaction, that he thought that you too felt he was a friend, not a partner.

Events before he left: in the last 4-5 years the two  of you experienced “lots of pressure due to parents needing care and help.. caring for all 4 parents” but the two of you talked about “making more time for just two of us.. doing things on our own”, you have been going through menopause and dealing with a back injury. Last year, four of his friends got divorced “and moved on with new people”. He started a new job and went back to University.

If you want to answer the following, please do:

1. Is everything I wrote above accurate?

2. He told you that he wants to sell the home where you are currently living. Where does he expect you (and your son) to live after he sells the home?

3. In the U.S. and other countries, a woman who has been living with a man for a long time has the same legal rights as a married woman, which would mean that you legally own about half of the home where you live, or that you are entitled to about half of the money following the sale of the home. Is this the case where you live?

anita