Dear Amy,
I am looking for impartial advice. I have been with the same woman for 17 years and love her deeply but find myself no longer trusting her. We had a 12 year old child that just passed away last year. During the course of our relationship I had to move away for work and was sending my money back home to support my family. I started to notice a change in how she was treating me and later discovered she was cheating on me. She claims she only met someone for coffee. She traveled 200 miles round trip for her coffee so I found that very hard to believe! Needless to say we got past it and got married as the relationship progressed. I forgave her and put it out of my mind. However, flash forward 8 years later and I started to see a change in her attitude again that mirrored what I experienced in the past. I had just started a job that required 100% travel and being away from home again for extended periods of time. After some searching because of the change I noticed she has two Google voice numbers and a MagicJack number with lots of activity both via voice and texting late at night when I am not home; late as in 3:30AM along with texting lingo after doing research it is lingo you would use on hookup sites. She had lots of numbers on her blocked list in her phone and claimed they were all bill collectors. After review it turned out they are not. The ones that are not bill collectors are men. A quick Google search of some of those numbers pulled up hookup sites and now I find myself very hurt moving more towards angry. I have never been one for an eye for an eye but while I have always been faithful; I am finding myself wanting to do the same to her but keep stopping myself because I do not want my life ruled by blind anger. She has denied doing anything at all. Any advice is appreciated. Dear Angry, I’m so sorry for the loss of your child and for the situation you find yourself in now. Long-distance relationships are hard at best and if you combine that with the trauma you and your wife have endured over the past year, I imagine things are a little bit of a mess right now. I understand your suspicion based on your previous experience, and what I generally believe is that if you go searching for something, you’re going to find it. The question is, what have you found? Is your wife lonely and seeking solace in someone else? Is she flirting with disaster because she’s having a hard time dealing with the death of your child and your long absences? Ok, so I can tell you with 100% certainty that getting even with your wife is not going to help you feel better and it’s going to complicate an already complicated situation. I can fully understand why your trust in her is shaky, but I can also guarantee that checking out her online and phone activity is going to make it worse. Finding out that she’s calling hookup sites doesn’t help your marriage and it really doesn’t address the problem. So, I urge you to quit snooping and take a more direct approach to the problem. Have an open conversation with her and find out where’s she’s at. Ask her how she’s feeling, how she’s grieving, how she’s coping. Tell her how you’re feeling. Don’t accuse. Just talk. Try to understand how she might be feeling and how her actions might be related to that. And make sure to keep your anger in check. Yes, you have every right to be angry. But this is a woman you love deeply and my guess is that she’s struggling. Be kind and show compassion, even if it’s difficult. Now, all that said, I would strongly suggest seeking marriage counseling. I would suggest this for either the infidelity issue or the grief issue by themselves and together, I think you guys could really use someone to help sort this out. Maybe at the end of the day, you find out that this marriage isn’t going to work. But maybe, if you work together, you’ll find some common ground and a way to rebuild the trust that you’ve lost. It’s up to you (and to her) as to how much effort you’re willing to put into this to fix it. Amy Dear Amy,
I have fallen in love with a man that can't or won't ever love me because of a soul crushing past marriage. I just figured this out and I am heart broken. I need help getting past this. I don't want to give up our friendship as we have known each other all our lives. This is painful in so many ways. Help me. Dear Heartbroken, I’m so sorry. Sometimes past relationships haunt us and I really hope for his sake that he finds a way to move forward. Love can be scary and painful, but a life without it sounds desolate. In the meantime, if you want to stay friends with him, you’re going to have to let yourself grieve. It’s ok to feel heartbroken. But try to keep in mind that your life is still full of possibilities. Maybe you friend just needs time and friendship and he’ll eventually heal. But the path he’s chosen, the one where he’s closed himself off to the possibility of love, is certainly one that you shouldn’t follow him down. Just be there for him. Be aware of your own feelings and treat yourself with compassion. Wishing you serenity and love. Amy Dear Amy,
I am going to be there while my spouse dies of kidney cancer doctor said 12 months left could you tell me month by month what I am in for please try the best you can to explain what she will be feeling and what I could do to help tell me about how the drugs will work I just need some kind of an idea what to expect please. Dear Spouse, Unfortunately, I am not at all qualified to answer this question. However, I wanted to take the opportunity to share a couple of resources that might help you. First, is the American Cancer Society website which has resources for cancer patients, their families and their caregivers. The following link will lead you directly to one of their resources pages: American Cancer Society Resources Then, I wanted to direct you to the Hospice Foundation of America website which has wonderful information about end-of-life care and grief. Hospice care is truly amazing both for the person at end-of-life and their families. They have an “Ask the Experts” section and also a lot of useful articles. Hospice Foundation of America I’m very sorry to hear about your spouse and I hope these and other resources will help you and comfort you. Amy Dear Amy,
What do I do to get on with my life after my husband of 52 years passed away? It has been over 4 yrs & I hate my life the way it is.. Dear Grieving, I’m so sorry for your loss, not just the loss of your husband but also the loss of the life you had. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about grieving, its that it is never as simple as just missing the person you’ve lost. As social beings, we build our lives around other people and none so profoundly as our spouses and our children. So what happens when the person we knew the best, the person we have framed our life around, leaves us? Grief is complicated. We deal with a mix of emotions, feeling guilty when we feel good and lost when we don’t. Joan Didion wrote a book about her husband’s death entitled The Year of Magical Thinking and in it she talks about waves of grief. I never completely understood that concept until my grandmother passed away last year. I felt grief in waves (and still do). Some days I was fully functional and some days I was absolutely inconsolable, consumed with grief, drowned by it. My mother, who was the primary caregiver for my grandma, and I started going to a grief support group and it was easily both the most painful and helpful thing I’ve ever done. Hearing other people’s grief makes you see your own in a new light. Sometimes it sharpens the pain, but it also makes it impossible to see yourself as alone with your loss. After 52 years of marriage, its not surprising that you are struggling. It’s not easy. You are faced with the task of redefining yourself without your husband as context. What you do next depends a lot on you as a person. But don’t let anyone talk you out of your grief. You own it. It is yours and it is a necessary part of your healing. People sometimes think we should “just get over it” but grieving is a process unique to every individual. Instead, I would suggest that you find a grief support group in your town and start talking about how you are feeling, the good and the bad. Talk about the things that you hate about your life and also the things you love. Use the time to think about how you like to spend your time, the type of people you like to be around and don’t be afraid to think big. Is there anything you’ve always wanted to do? Instead of trying to put your grief aside, embrace it as part of your journey. The road ahead is full of change and change can be scary and difficult, at any age and in any situation. But the fact that you are reaching out to me, tells me you are ready to start heading in a new direction. You can re-envision your life, and, while you can’t go back, you can make moving forward full of possibility. My heart is with you and I hope you will reach out again as you work through this process. I’m here to listen, anytime. Amy |
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