Any men on here who are finally fully healed, but didn’t sufficiently heal for at least 2-3 years after separation / divorce?

Snowbirdy · 2023-12-24T20:28:05+00:00

It’s a slow steady process. I’m definitely better in 2023 than I was in 2020 when I had the divorce absolute come through. I have found some caring women who don’t want to marry me, but do like spending time with me. Surprisingly there more women who don’t want commitment where I live, then who do. So not super awesome for finding a relationship but pretty good for having companions to go out to dinner or for an arts event or whatever. One woman suggested that I be her travel buddy for a trip across Africa.

Cheap_Baseball3609 · 2023-12-24T02:03:45+00:00

I am 2.5 years out since separation/divorce. It is still tough. It doesn’t hurt as much as it did but still hurts. Our divorce and custody was very hostile so I was in fight or flight most of the time. Now that it has settled I have a better perspective but still yearn sometimes that we could be a family again. Our marriage was not good but I did take pride in having a family and being married. When I lost that it really hurt. Honestly, sometimes I am surprised I made it out. If it wasn’t for my son who I was strong for. I can’t go back, in this life no matter how much it hurts it makes you go forward.

NothingIsEverEnough · 2023-12-23T23:43:40+00:00

Your post itself is telling. You mention your ex “destroying” your marriage and therefore creating a loss that you can’t recover from. Since she did it, you have no recourse.

Divorce and relationships ending is a natural walk of life. Would you really want to be with a person that doesn’t want to be with you? How does that translate to happiness.

“Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past”

I think you need to forgive your wife. And once you can do, you can move on with your life.

josh11915 · 2023-12-23T22:40:04+00:00

Get into a hobby. I took up BJJ. First time in changed my life 🫡

minilabthrow · 2023-12-23T17:29:50+00:00

Take as much time as you need to heal, every divorce is different. I'm almost 7 years out and am still healing, in my case it's severe parental alienation, i have 2 adult children who I have no relationship with.

jalopkoala · 2023-12-23T15:37:41+00:00

Absolutely. 6 years divorced. Happened maybe 2-3 years ago. I went from staying alive to living.

For me, it was like a death, so I’ll always have my moments of grief and joy from remembering good times. But that doesn’t mean I’m not healed.

Now I constantly feel like if I was still married, I’d be missing out on this amazing life. Fun and fulfilling romantic partnerships, single parenting 50/50 is way more fulfilling to do it 100% on my own terms with full days off to recharge, and looking at my life after my kid is grown love that I get to tackle it on my own terms. (I do have end of life care/financial anxiety, but that would have been there even if married!)

It took a lot of therapy.

It took some brain drugs to carry me for a few years (I’m off all Rx two years, not a good or bad thing universally, but I appreciate it and I’m happy to have that in my tool kit if I need to go back.)

It took creating a life and personality outside being a father - dating, hobbies, grad school. I had to “fake it till you make it” a bit but it was really healing.

It’s fucking dark. You got this. But there is no clock. Several years healing for several decades of happiness seems okay to me.

xosto · 2023-12-23T15:07:15+00:00

How old are you brother? I'm 40 and my wife divorced me after 13 years. Very suddenly for me but for her she said she was thinking about her for some time. We have two kids. The separation and the divorce all happened within 8 months.

I've done a lot of the same things you're talking about reading books journaling exercising trying to find a purpose etc.

You're not going to find happiness outside yourself. Also you're not going to find it being by yourself as much as people tell you you need to be happy with yourself what they really mean is you can't rely on other people to make you happy. But human beings are inherently social creatures so you need to develop connection with others.

Perhaps part of your challenge is that you moved to another country where I'm guessing you don't know people and maybe it's more of a challenge to get to know people. That's not a bad thing it's just you have increased the challenge and you're struggling with that and that's normal.

I would recommend joining a men's group that focuses on self work. There's a number of men's coaches out there and I can't speak for all of them but I got a lot of benefit from some aspects of this Reddit community but it needs to be a little less anonymous and you actually have to get to know other men.

So for me I developed more intentional connections with other men at work and professional associations. Rather than going to social events looking for women to date I went to focus on other men that I can develop friendships with. But people were not necessarily going to be my friend unless I love myself and I had things that I wanted to do.

So I really focused on developing hobbies that I enjoyed and I also kept in mind trying to pick something that was a little bit mainstream for one hobby and then something a little bit more esoteric that I probably would only enjoy. The more mainstream stuff is hiking and camping and outdoor stuff. The more individualized thing was returning to playing a musical instrument that I played in high school.

I've been able to connect with these real life men at some level but they're not going to be the same as an intimate partner right but you should never really expect to dump your problems on any one person.

The community I joined that was helpful was called mentoring men and you can Google search it and decide if it's right for you. There are other dating coaches and things like that out there but dating and other women are not going to solve the issue you're going through.

Also I think it's not realistic to believe that you're going to be 100% healed before you start a new relationship I just don't think that happens. Continue to meet people and when you do you'll learn something about them and about yourself and what you want in both platonic and romantic relationships.

I'm here if you ever need to talk

Wild_Debt_8065 · 2023-12-23T12:55:56+00:00

I think that healing happens so incrementally that it’s sometimes hard to notice your progress. It’s all forward motion, even when you feel stuck. Holidays seem to magnify feelings of frustration at not being where you want to be. Hang in there! You’re better than you were and you’ll be better than that in the future.

trowaway63022 · 2023-12-23T12:28:47+00:00

I’m at about 2 years and my last big setback was August. Having a little holiday related twing this week, but it’s minor.

But outside that, this fall I felt the work put in clicked more. Volunteer work, social life, hobbies. Also broke with my first girlfriend post-divorce, wonderful person but the time alone helped too. We were both recently divorced and her baggage kind of amplified mine if that makes sense.

Speesh-Reads · 2023-12-23T07:12:20+00:00

I’m three years in and most of the time seem to not have made any progress. I moved from England to Denmark to be with her, then we got married. 20 years later - bye bye. I really had no idea she was even thinking of divorce. Of course now, I can see that there were signs, but at the time, no. Sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever recover. My life seems to be just existing, just waiting.

TALL-TOTH · 2023-12-23T05:37:06+00:00

Yes - I turned a corner at 3.5 years. 9 years on and 100% healed. Just takes some people more time.

randomly421 · 2023-12-23T05:33:51+00:00

I hear ya man, it's been 2.5 years now, and I'm in limbo. I'm running out of things to try other than dating. But that doesn't seem a healthy solution, and I'd rather avoid the hassle anyway.

Title	Any men on here who are finally fully healed, but didn’t sufficiently heal for at least 2-3 years after separation / divorce?
Author	idiskfla
Upvotes	27
Comments	33
Date	December 23, 2023 5:19 AM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/18oygrw/any_men_on_here_who_are_finally_fully_healed_but/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/any-men-on-here-who-are-finally-fully-healed-but.1241411 https://theredarchive.com/post/1241411

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