Using Self-Compassion to Overcome the Shame of Being Abandoned
What is shame in the first place? It’s a fundamental feeling that you have done something wrong or that there is something wrong with you and others can see it. We all have shortcomings that we’d rather the world not know about but when your husband walks away from the marriage, it may feel like your secret flaws are broadcasted to the whole world.
Women over the years have often told me how ashamed they feel at having been abandoned by their husband. It’s a powerful feeling that colors everything they do. I even heard from one abandoned wife who did her grocery shopping in the middle of the night at a 24-hour store so that she wouldn’t have to run into anyone she knew. It was that bad. So here, we’re going to unpack what causes that sense of shame in some women and what to do about it.
What is shame in the first place? It’s a fundamental feeling that you have done something wrong or that there is something wrong with you and others can see it. We all have shortcomings that we’d rather the world not know about but when your husband walks away from the marriage, it may feel like your secret flaws are broadcasted to the whole world.
This feeling of shame may come from three sources:
First, from your ex. Before your husband walked out the door, he made sure to reveal to you everything he said he had found distasteful, lacking, messy, controlling or downright wrong about you and those stabbing words got lodged in your chest. Whether true or not, by attempting to humiliate you, he could assign the cause of his decision to leave to be based squarely on your flaws.
He knows you well enough to know that you would be reeling from all that and it would act as a diversionary tactic so that you wouldn’t be able to clearly see his role in his decision.
Second, from yourself. You may have very strongly held views about the sanctity of marriage and your role in keeping it strong. When you pronounced your marriage vows, you meant it so that if the marriage falls apart, for whatever reason, you feel that you have failed in one of life’s biggest promises: “till death do us part.” In this case, the shame of the marriage ending is assigned by you to you.
You look back and see things you could have done differently. Of course . . . you’re human. No one is expected to be the perfect wife (he wasn’t the perfect husband), but now you’re filled with regret, blaming yourself for the marriage breakdown.
Or you may feel he made a fool of you. Looking back, you berate yourself, “Why didn’t I see that about him in the past? Why did I make allowances for all his bad behavior? Why was I so pathetically self-sacrificing? Did everyone else see it but me?”
Third, from your community. Your couple was part of a larger community of friends and family. One of the most painful aspects of your husband leaving is that you probably were rejected from some of those groups. For example, you may have been a member of his family for decades but now, you’re persona non grata.
Your ex had the opportunity to spin his story about you to his family and friends and you’re helpless to set the record straight. Although you know that blood is thicker than water, his family was your family too and particularly if they have been cold towards you or cut you off, it feels like you’ve been judged and found lacking.
What to do about it?
The solution to your feeling of shame lies in just two words - self compassion. If you’re a person who expects yourself to be perfect all the time, you’re going to take the end of your marriage much harder than someone who accepts that she doesn’t have to be perfect to love herself. Could you extend to yourself the kind of compassion you would to a dear friend who is suffering, as Dr. Kristin Neff suggests, and give yourself kindness and a hug?
Nobody’s life runs smoothly and we all have times of struggle to one degree or another. Try to view the end of your marriage as another twist and turn in your life story - not as a personal failure. It’s okay to stop beating yourself up! It doesn’t mean that you’re being unrealistic, just that you’re taking care of yourself, which is a good thing.
I once heard the saying that when you think other people are talking about you, they’re not. The break up of your marriage might have been the topic of conversation for a while but it gets to be old news very quickly. And your assumption that you’re viewed as the one to blame is just that - an assumption. You really have no idea what people are thinking about the end of your marriage so you might as well not let those limiting thoughts stand in the way of you feeling good about yourself.
This is an opportunity for you to work on your self-defeating thoughts and banish them! You don’t need them anymore! You can make a choice to jettison the shame and come back to yourself as someone you treat with tenderness and love.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
It’s Time to Dial Down Your Ex’s Power Over You
My wish for you is that you turn down his power to upset you so that rather than getting wounded or outraged, you can say, “There he goes again - I know his tricks and ways!” My wish is that you will be able to remember that the thing he did to hurt you today, won’t hurt so much in three days . . .
We were having such an interesting discussion tonight in our meeting of my online Hearts & Minds Divorce Recovery Group and I wanted to share it with you. We were talking about how much power our ex-husbands have to hurt us, even long after he leaves. For example, I remember sitting with my daughter in a cafe several months after my ex ran away when I glimpsed him coming in the door. I got so upset; it was almost unbearable. Just seeing him from across a room had that much power to totally screw me up? Why?
We were discussing this in the group when a new thought struck me. You were traumatized in the initial early days when it was revealed, in whatever way it happened to you, that the marriage was over. You were shocked. You had a huge adjustment to make in the blink of an eye - to integrate the fact that the man you loved and trusted for all those years had betrayed you.
Plus, in the early days, he might have said horrible things to you, blaming you and putting you down. The depth of the hurt comes from the fact that he shifted from the person you trusted with all your heart to an angry stranger.
At that time, he had all the power. Unbeknownst to you, in most cases, he was having an affair and had been planning his departure for some time. He may even have been shifting funds and organizing your finances to benefit him.
He also had all the power in that he made the decision to leave and there was nothing you could do about it. All the pleading in the world wouldn’t budge him. By the time you heard about it, it was a fait accompli.
But now, some time later, maybe even years later, it still feels like he has the same power to hurt you although he could never hurt you like he did in the initial revelation. Now you know not to trust him and that he can manipulate you - you know he no longer has your best interest at heart.
Often the meanness he demonstrated in the early days when he was breaking the relationship is not so much in evidence as time goes on. Particularly, after the divorce is finalized, his actual power to hurt you may be much diminished. Yet, the fear remains. Is it time to let that go?
Could you be open to the possibility that you can dial down his power, even a tiny bit, so that anything he does now is not going to upset you so much? Would you allow yourself to make a buffer so that anything he does no longer hurts to the same extent? After all, what’s the worst thing that could happen?
I think that, over time, you’re still reacting to him with the same fear you felt in the early days when you didn’t know what to expect. Now you know the measure of the man and even if he’s frustrating, difficult or even mean, it won’t come as a surprise. The shock value is over.
My wish for you is that you turn down his power to upset you so that rather than getting wounded or outraged, you can say, “There he goes again - I know his tricks and ways!” My wish is that you will be able to remember that the thing he did to hurt you today, won’t hurt so much in three days. You will be able to recover quicker until the point that it only upsets you marginally and then, only for 20 minutes until you shake it off.
His power to hurt you to the extent that he did in the beginning, is gone. You’ll never again be shocked and have to adjust to the new vision of your beloved husband - you now know that you can’t trust him.
So again, could you be open to the possibility that you can dial down his power, even a tiny bit, so that anything he does now doesn’t upset you so much? Would you allow yourself to do that? When?
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
He Got Away With It! Knowing When to Let Go
Justice is a luxury that most abandoned wives don’t get to enjoy. But rather than letting it consume you, you need to recognize when it's time to accept that you won't get closure from him and give up trying . . .
Here’s something that I often hear from wives who have been left: “How is this fair? He gets to go off and live a great life with his girlfriend and I’m left picking up the pieces. I’m alone with all the responsibility for the house and kids and I have to fight him for any bit of help I need.”
“HOW IS THAT FAIR!?!”
In a desperate attempt for the runaway husband to have to suffer consequences for the emotional damage he’s done to his ex and kids, some wives proclaim that wife abandonment should constitute a crime - an actual legal crime - that can be prosecuted in a court of law.
Wives want justice! When someone harms another, we expect that justice will be served and the offending party will have to pay. That just makes sense!
So when women tell me that they want justice and that’s all they can think about day and night, I tell them this story, that I heard somewhere years ago, in order to encourage them to let go.
The story goes like this. A guy, we’ll call him Mike, was driving his rental car out of his friend’s driveway in L.A. when out of the blue, a Mercedes comes speeding down the street and t-bones him right on the driver’s side, causing his car to spin around twice during which time, he thought he was going to die. His car eventually came to a stop and there was a moment of silence after which he heard the other vehicle go skidding down the road away from the accident.
Twenty minutes later, after the police had assessed what happened, an officer stuck a form in Mike’s face and told him to sign it. He was completely shook up and asked what it was and the cop said, “It’s just to verify that you weren’t hurt” so he signed.
Mike went to the E.R. just to make sure he hadn’t sustained internal injuries and was surprised to learn that the other driver had already been there before him. The doctor, who had also treated the other driver, said that after hitting Mike’s car, the Mercedes guy sped around a corner and hit a tree. The E.R. doctor confirmed that the other driver was drunk and was taken to jail.
A couple weeks later, when he was back home in New York, Mike heard from the rental car company saying that he had been found at fault and had to pay $12,000 to the other driver to repair his Mercedes. Confident that it was a little mix up, Mike contacted the L.A. police to correct the error. Turns out that the officer on the scene that night had gotten mixed up in his identification of the two cars and, on the form that Mike signed that night, had mistakenly written that it was he who had hit the Mercedes.
Mike then spent the next year trying to get justice. The L.A. police wouldn’t even listen to him and he couldn’t find a lawyer to take the case. He became obsessed; it was all he could think and talk about. He didn’t care about the money - he just wanted the truth. He’d exhausted his friends and finally, his girlfriend said she couldn’t take it anymore and was breaking up with him.
It took that for Mike to wake up and realize that his futile attempt to get justice was ruining his life. He gave up the case and paid the guy $12,000.
By pure coincidence, I just watched a stand-up routine on Netflix called “My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend” by the comedian Mike Birbiglia in which he hilariously recounted this story, which had happened to him. Somehow somewhere, I had heard about it and have used it many times to illustrate a point.
Why do I tell women this story? Because too often, abandoned wives get stuck trying to get emotional justice which never comes. They want their ex to acknowledge what he did. They want their former in-laws to know the truth of what happened. They want to clear their name in the community because people make judgments or their ex circulates a false narrative about the break-up. They desperately want the true story to be told about what he did because he so often unjustly blames her.
My message here is not about whether you should fight for financial justice in the divorce agreement. That's a separate topic and I always believe you need to protect yourself financially. Here I'm talking about the fact that striving to get your ex to acknowledge, apologize, show remorse or set the record straight with the kids takes a lot of emotional energy and keeps women obsessing. I tell the Mike story because sometimes, you just need to pay the metaphorical $12,000 and move on in the service of mental health and emotional peace.
Justice is a luxury that most abandoned wives don’t get to enjoy. But rather than letting it consume you, you need to recognize when it's time to accept that you won't get closure from him and give up trying.
So, in the end, does it feel like your ex committed a crime and got away with it? Maybe. But, that’s not your problem any more. You’ve paid the emotional price - now let it go.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
How Not to Have a Victim Mentality Although You’ve Been Victimized
Once you have mastered the Stoic approach, rather than bemoaning things that happen to you that you may label as bad or unfortunate, you’ll learn to welcome them as an opportunity to hone your ability to create value from adversity . . .
The other day, at my divorce recovery retreat called A Course on Happiness, the women attending learned to activate their superpowers. Everyone at the online retreat had been left by their husband from what they believed to have been a secure committed marriage till the day he left out-of-the-blue, morphing dramatically into an angry stranger.
The first workshop I presented at the retreat is called The Obstacle is the Way, based on a book by Ryan Holiday. The workshop describes the philosophy of Stoicism which, in a nutshell, teaches that if you can view any setback as an opportunity to grow and develop skills, you’ll strengthen your character, making you better able to handle anything life sends your way.
Once you have mastered the Stoic approach, rather than bemoaning things that happen to you that you may label as bad or unfortunate (i.e. your husband leaving), you’ll learn to welcome them as a chance to hone your ability to create value from adversity (e.g., training your thinking to look for things you can feel gratitude about). A simple cliche to describe Stoic thought is turning lemons into lemonade.
Women who are struggling to rebuild their lives after Wife Abandonment have a lot of emotional work to do in order to regain a sense of peace and meaning in life.
They have to figure out how to stop their mind from whirring obsessively about their ex.
They have to learn to stop regretting and blaming themselves.
They have to banish the sense of shame that many feel for being single.
They have to grieve all they have lost.
They have to train their thinking in order to envision a new and different future.
Time heals to some extent but it’s what you do with the time that makes the difference. That’s where the work comes in.
After your husband leaves and when you are over the initial trauma, you essentially have two choices.
You can wrap yourself in the cloak of victimhood, explaining to everyone who comes near how unjust it is and how unfair he was, attempting to elicit sympathy, or
You can work through the perfectly normal grief (this might take time) but eventually develop a defiant attitude that says, “I’m not going to let his leaving ruin the rest of my life.”
The Stoic approach would guide you, perhaps, to practice doing things when you’re really down that you really don’t feel like doing, although you know they’re good for you, like going for a walk or cooking yourself a healthy meal. Getting yourself to do those things takes emotional work but the more you do them, the easier they become and the better you start to feel. And along the way, you develop the skill of good self-care.
In Runaway Husbands, I offer this piece of advice: “Don’t press ‘send’ when you’re still in your pajamas!” By that I mean, although you may want to send a begging, pleading email to your ex in the middle of the night, it might not look like the best idea in the cold light of day. If you can practice the skill of self-control and wait a day, you’ll probably be glad you didn’t humiliate yourself by “pressing send”.
The fact that your husband left forces you to struggle to do the thing that’s in your best interest even though it’s hard. This will strengthen your character and you will grow from it. The more you practice self-control, for example, the easier it will become and you can add it to your list of superpowers!
So, what skills do you need to apply to achieve the items on the list above?
To stop obsessing, you can use your determination to stop yourself from ruminating and instead, distract yourself. When you see that you're on that mental hamster wheel, turn on a documentary about Italy or listen to some beautiful music to help your mind rest.
To stop regretting or blaming yourself, you can read the work of Dr. Kristen Neff and learn to practice self-compassion.
To banish shame, exercise the courage to join a single women’s MeetUp group and go together with your new single friends to activities.
To grieve, permit yourself to feel the pain without fearing that it will overtake you.
To envision a new future, encourage yourself to explore new things, no matter how small, that you can incorporate into your life.
You can change your perspective to look at this huge setback as an opportunity for you to challenge yourself, turning it into multiple lessons on living. It's all about appreciating your life, no matter what form it’s in at the moment and in the end, you'll be proud of how mighty you’ve become!
So, when you encounter anything hard in life, try to look at it differently. View it as an opportunity for you to reach down and bring up your best stuff so you can face down the situation with courage, patience, self-love, determination or resilience. There will be no lack of opportunities in life for you to rise to the challenge and put your Stoic skills in practice.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
Why did it hurt so bad when your husband left?
Rejection, betrayal and the loss of the dream of your future all figure into why it hurts so bad, but there is an even deeper reason. Attachment injury touches you in a primal place making that sudden loss of attachment feel like a physical assault.
In the study that I conducted before writing Runaway Husbands, I asked women whose husbands left out-of-the-blue what the moment felt like when he told her it was over and here are their actual words:
It was like someone had stuck a knife in my stomach and turned it
I felt like someone had stepped on my chest and emptied my lungs of air
I felt like someone punched me in the gut
I felt crushed, steamrollered, and then I felt as if I was falling off a cliff
If he had ripped my arm out, it wouldn’t have hurt as much
I felt like I had stepped on a landmine
I felt like I was hit by a ton of bricks
I had a strange physical sensation - like my brain had been shot with a stun gun
If we pay close attention to the words describing what it felt like, we understand why it hurts so much - being left in a cold, uncaring way when you had no idea that it was even remotely possible, feels like a physical assault.
In the weeks and months after the husband leaves, the wife obsesses, replaying that moment over and over in an effort to understand how someone who had loved her so much could so casually, but callously hurt her. The fact that she experienced the rupture of the marriage as a physical assault leaves her with pain in her body that she can’t think away because it’s not rational. It touches her on a gut level at some primal place inside.
What factors go into the depth of the pain?
Rejection - her husband has decided that she is not what he wants and he’s discarding her, often for someone else. He’s made an assessment of her, the wife he knows so well, and he doesn’t want her anymore.
Betrayal - he didn’t let her in on his growing discontent about the marriage. He deprived her of any sense of agency in her own life, making a unilateral decision and then springing it on her when there was nothing she could do about it. He broke the bone deep trust she had built with him.
Destruction of her vision of her future - her plans for her future, which she may have been carefully constructing her whole life, are destroyed like a house that’s been hit with a wrecking ball and she’s left unable to envision what her life is going to be like.
Attachment Injury
However, the animal cry we heard in the women’s statements above come from a deeper place, the place of attachment injury. The bond that is built within a long term marriage is more complex than just love - it’s attachment. Imperceptibly, day after day within a marriage, we are melding our identity with our partner, who we turn to in a fundamental way for support and safety like we may have done with our parents in childhood.
If we were lucky enough to have had dedicated, caring parents, we replicate in our intimate relationship the seamless sense of protection we experienced growing up. For many people, there was zero possibility that one day their mother would turn her back and walk away saying, “I don’t care about you anymore.” So when the husband does just that, it’s equally unthinkable.
For those women who grew up in an unstable or unsafe childhood home and then with great courage and hope, allowed themselves to open up and trust their husband and then he leaves, it’s even more damaging. It confirms the fear that people are not safe and not to be trusted, which is a hard way to maneuver through life.
While you’re recovering from the sudden loss of a spouse, you need to recognize that it’s not just a process of thinking and thinking and then eventually figuring out how someone who once loved you could hurt you, so that you can heal and move on. There is a concurrent process going on of soothing the emotional wound of the loss of attachment. That requires that you work towards accepting the fact that your suffering is normal and that having been attached is a good thing. It means you had the courage to let someone into your heart.
As the pain starts to diminish, and it will, you’ll find that you can feel safe and protected even without that other person because you can learn to love and protect yourself. Once you know you can protect yourself, it will be safer for you to attach to someone else because if that person leaves, you now know you will never lose the one you need the most - yourself.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
Powering Up and Powering Out When Your Husband Leaves
So, Tinker Bell, how do you get your pixie dust back now that your ex has scattered it to the winds? How do you get back your power, now that you no longer have that socially sanctioned, well-defined role of wife?
When I was a little girl, my mother took me to see the movie Peter Pan. At a certain point in the film, Tinker Bell, that sassy, feisty, hot-tempered fairy, starts to lose her pixie dust and becomes weaker and weaker, her sparkle fading, almost to the point of extinguishing. The kids in the audience looked on anxiously but then, wonderfully, we were given the power to bring Tinker Bell back to life. We had to clap. We all started wildly clapping and soon, Tinker Bell was bright and sparkly again. Relief! We had saved her!
As soon as my husband left, like Tinker Bell, I started to lose my power. I became weaker and weaker, dropping 30 pounds and eventually being diagnosed with anemia. I remember lying on the sofa, hardly moving, struck down by life. Food was unappealing. Everything was an effort. My light was dwindling.
Fortunately, I had the love and support of my friends and family who were clapping wildly and through their encouragement and my own determination, I started, over a period of months and years, to re-ignite my life force. It was a lot of work but eventually, I got my sparkle back.
I’ve been thinking about how, when your husband leaves out-of-the-blue, he takes your power with him. At that moment, he has all the power and you have none. You may wish with every fiber in your body that this would not be happening, but you’re completely helpless to affect his decision and change the course of events.
Women often ask me why their husband needs to literally run away, providing her with the scantest of explanations and the briefest of discussions about his life-changing decision. Why doesn’t he invite her into the living room and say, “We need to talk”? Why doesn’t he then spend the time she might initially need to talk it all through, helping her achieve that most precious of gifts: understanding. Instead, why does he typically disappear, blocking her from any further in-depth explanations that might help her get a grasp on the catastrophe that’s happening in her life?
You’ll be surprised by my answer to those questions. He needs to leave your life running because, to him, you’re so powerful. You’re the one who can make him feel bad and he can’t take it. He can’t take seeing your pain; he can’t stomach hearing you cry; he can’t tolerate your questions - why, why, why? If he stuck around much longer, he might have to register the effect his actions have had on you, so he has to leave as quickly as possible because you have that power, although you don’t know it. Although short-lived, in the beginning you had the power to make him feel bad about himself.
Back when you were a wife, you had an authenticated role - you were the acknowledged wife in your couple and in the eyes of the world. That role bestowed on you the dignity that comes with a secure knowledge of your unique place. It was a primary piece of your identity. But remember what Eleanor Roosevelt said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Resist the outdated stereotype that says that married women are somehow more valuable than single ones. We’re well past that!
So, Tinker Bell, how do you get your pixie dust back now that your ex has scattered it to the winds? How do you get back your power, now that you no longer have that socially sanctioned, well-defined role of wife?
You have to do what all female superheroes do - get in touch with your own wise woman power to determine the next chapter in your life and only you can do that. You need to start respecting yourself! If you’re looking down on yourself for not being a wife, you’ll end up spending too much time lying curled up on the sofa. You may need to try on a different role - that of a sassy, feisty single woman who loves herself just as she is and doesn’t need a man, or anyone else, to define her. That role may not fit comfortably in the beginning, but you’ll grow into it if you let yourself.
We’re all clapping for you and looking forward to you getting your sparkle back. Don’t let anyone take that away from you!
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
A Celebration of Women
I’ve really gotten to know the women in our runaway husbands world and so often have been dazzled by them. In the early years, I started to notice that the women who participate in my activities are smart, deep, warm, special . . .
Today, on International Women’s Day, I’ve been musing about the thousands of women I’ve met since I first published my book, Runaway Husbands, on February 1, 2010. The book is about Wife Abandonment Syndrome - when a husband leaves out-of-the-blue from what his wife believed to be a secure marriage. The woman left behind is devastated, traumatized. I’ve had the privilege of helping women recover.
The women in the Runaway Husbands community are in a club they never wanted to be a member of - one where the members have experienced a wife’s worst nightmare. I offer support in the form of therapy groups, workshops and retreats so I’ve met with groups of women on a weekly basis. Sometimes, like during a Sedona Retreat, we spend days and nights together, working on recovery but also, having fun, eating, laughing, talking and connecting.
Through all this, I’ve really gotten to know the women in our world and so often have been dazzled by them. In the early years, I started to notice that the women who participate in my activities are smart, deep, warm, special. Maybe it goes with the runaway husbands paradigm - abandoned wives tend to be empaths - caring and self-sacrificing. Whenever I start a new group, I’m tickled to see how quickly the group gels. Right from the get-go, women are offering support, suggestions and help, even if they’re suffering themselves. Being together is quickly comfortable and women open up, sharing their fears.
Women are programmed to connect with others going through the same thing. We get pleasure out of talking. I once read that pleasure centers of the brain light up when women talk but when men talk? Crickets. Just being together is healing for women. We learn from each other and feel soothed. Women tend to want to help.
So, today on International Women’s Day, I’m sending love to all the women in the world! You just keep being you!
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
Don't Throw Out Those Christmas Tree Ornaments!
Christmas tree ornaments are about family time. Each one contains inside it a little bomb of a memory. As you unpack each colorful bauble, you’ll remember where you were when the two of you got it.
Of all the rites of passage you will need to get through in the first few years after your husband leaves, the Christmas season is probably the toughest. With all the emphasis on Christmas as being a time of families getting together, when your own family doesn’t look or feel the same as it had in past years, it can really hurt.
Not only are you relentlessly bombarded with “Christmas cheer” everywhere you go, you’ll also have to contend with what in the world you’re going to do about the stuff of Christmas - the tree, decorations and those ornaments that you may have collected over the years.
Christmas tree ornaments are about family time. Each one contains inside it a little bomb of a memory. As you unpack each colorful bauble, you’ll remember where you were when the two of you got it. In years gone by, you might have enjoyed reminiscing with your husband: “Remember when we bought this one at that little shop in Maine?” “Remember when your mom gave us this one just before she passed?” “Remember when Alison made this one from styrofoam and cloves when she was in the third grade?”
They’re precious and also they’re little charming hand grenades threatening to blow and break your heart.
I was talking with a group of women from our community the other day and they were sharing their experiences with Christmas and particularly, ornaments for the tree. Elena said that she couldn’t bring herself to open the ornament box from last year so she went to the pharmacy and bought a whole bunch of new ones, but, at the same time, she couldn’t bring herself to give her heirloom ornaments away.
Suzanna said that she’s late this year in decorating the house and has only put up a few things, not like in past years when the whole house was dazzlingly bedecked, but that’s okay. She’s not stressing about it and that’s a big step in growth. Self-compassion.
Jenna talked about being alone for Christmas this year for the first time in 49 years but said that there’s a sense of freedom in being alone and that’s okay.
We talked about how, as the years pass since their husbands left, the women found themselves in different stages. Carla said that in the first year, she felt she was performing, trying to act normal although inside, she was anything but. She wanted to make the season feel festive so she pasted a smile on her face. She was in that stage of survival mode - a bit dissociated - just pushing through.
Strangely, it got harder a year or so later at Christmas when she was healed enough so that she was no longer numb and could feel the sadness and grief. She felt more normal but also more sad.
Phoebe had the last word. She said, “Let it be”. Whatever you’re feeling, just feel it. The good and bad emotions will ebb and flow. It’s like you’re in a canoe, paddling down a river. You may hit some rapids and you just have to remember that the turbulent water can’t last forever so just keep going. Soon enough, you’ll be in smooth flowing water, moving on.
You will click into a new normal at some point and you may be glad you hung onto your old Christmas ornaments. They’ll look so lovely on your tree. I hope you have a peaceful holiday season!
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
When You Can't See the Mountain for the Trees
So think about it for a moment. In the intensity of longing for something you have lost, have you lost sight of the precious gifts you still have?
Have you ever been to Sedona, Arizona? If you have, you’ll know that it’s one of the most beautiful, magical places you’ve ever seen and that’s because of the vortex energy and the spectacular red rock mountain formations that encircle the city in an embrace everywhere you look. I don’t even know how to describe it to you if you haven’t been there but take it from me, the mountains that surround the tiny town of Sedona are literally breathtaking.
I’m lucky enough to lead an annual women’s divorce recovery retreat in Sedona and this year, we booked into a new hotel that boasted of mountain views from every room. I was delighted! The thought of sitting on my balcony with my coffee in the morning gazing at that view - perfection! So when I arrived and pulled open the curtains to my room and saw this big bushy tree right in front of me, between me and the mountains, I was thrown off. “Hey, where’s my view?”
Do I go to the front desk and try to change my room? I made myself a cup of tea and sat on the balcony to think it through when I heard a quiet sound. I looked up and the cedar tree in front of me was whispering. She said, “What about me? Can you see me? I’m here, I’m green, I’m fresh, I’m actually very lovely. What about me? You’re going to tour around all day long, looking at the red rock mountains, hiking on red rocky trails. They’re beautiful, yes, but maybe you’ll need me at the end of the day.”
Of course! I had so anticipated gazing at the mountains in the distance that I couldn’t see the beauty right in front of my eyes. So I said “thank you” to the cedar tree for the lesson learned - in striving for something you think you want, you might miss the magic right in front of your eyes.
So think about it for a moment. In the intensity of longing for something you have lost, have you lost sight of the precious gifts you still have? Take a breath, take a minute and let yourself appreciate that beauty that lights up your life, in spite of it all.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
Does How It Ended Negate the Marriage that Went Before?
If your husband leaving can contribute to you struggling to become a more positive person, to strengthen your appreciation of your life just as it is, so you can love life, no matter what is happening, then you can chalk it up to experience.
We had such a profound discussion at the last session of the Hearts & Minds Divorce Recovery Group about how much the women devoted to their marriages during all those years and the fact that their husband, in the end, walked away from it all as if it had no value to him. They were questioning, how do I think about all those years of being together? Was it real? Does how he left mean that it was all meaningless?
Members of the group talked about how much they’d invested, fully expecting to be together with their husband till death do them part. They gave wholeheartedly - was it under false pretenses?
One woman said that she felt she’d been robbed. She can’t “cash in” to take advantage of everything she’d contributed. Cashing in means enjoying later years together, travelling, spending time with family together, creating a home, feeling that life’s value grew and grew and that it reached a comfortable point at which she could sit back with him and enjoy the glow.
Another woman said that she felt that all those years of her life with her husband had been tainted. She wants to wipe it all out - it’s too painful to think about.
Another, an engineer, gave a metaphorical explanation of covert narcissism. She suggested that it’s like a bridge that has a latent defect. Let’s say that the bridge can support the daily traffic but it has a weak joint that no one knows about. One day, an extra car is on the bridge and that weak joint gives out.
Our husbands are like that bridge. They’re fine to a point, but there’s a weak joint in their makeup that means that once they feel it’s all too much, they just give up. You don’t know there’s a problem because it only becomes visible after the whole thing cracks.
I was thinking about how, in all the years I’ve worked in this field, most women in the Runaway Husbands community describe their marriages in very positive terms. It’s very rare for someone to say, “Aw, it wasn’t that good”. After the husband leaves, we tend to highlight the good things that happened. It’s called a Positivity Bias. Here’s the definition: Positivity bias may denote three phenomena: a tendency for people to report positive views of reality; a tendency to hold positive expectations, views, and memories; and a tendency to favor positive information in reasoning.
Does our perception require us to view the marriage in glowing terms? A lot of women blame themselves. Yes, you weren’t perfect, but he wasn’t perfect, either. I’m sure he was annoying and selfish lots of times.
That evening at the group, as everyone was talking, I was thinking, how can I encourage them to find value in every precious day of our lives? He wasn’t perfect and in the end, his weakness became visible. But I believe that during all those years, when the bridge was holding up, it was real. He loved you and it was genuine. It was your real life.
Don’t let the fact that it ended in betrayal make you harden your heart to those years of your life. You had good times, but you also had bad times. And it all adds up to experience.
If your husband leaving can contribute to you struggling to become a more positive person, to strengthen your appreciation of your life just as it is, so you can love life, no matter what is happening, then you can chalk it up to experience.
Don’t think of it like an investment you make in the bank that you can lose when the market tanks. That’s the wrong metaphor. Think of it rather like an investment you made in yourself and in your own life that no one can ever take away from you and learn to love life again.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
Advice for the Family and Friends of an Abandoned Wife
Just remember, as huge as this feels, it too shall pass and you all can return to a new but different life at some point. In the meantime, pat yourself on your back - you’re doing a wonderful job!
I can only imagine what you are going through if you’re providing emotional support for a close relative or friend who’s husband suddenly left. An abandoned wife is typically an emotional wreck. She’s in a state of shock and has an overwhelming need to talk and cry and talk some more in a desperate attempt to understand how her husband could have left in the way he did. Most abandoned wives turn to the people close to them to be there to listen as they go over and over and over what happened, trying to make sense of it. And that’s where you come in.
You may also have been shocked to hear of her husband’s leaving but you have to put your own feelings to the side because of the enormity of her pain. You so want to help but find that nothing you say or do, particularly in the early days, can make her feel better and you worry as you watch her falling apart. You feel helpless.
Sometimes, you may dread it when you see her name on your phone’s call display. You’re in the middle of a pleasant afternoon and you know that by picking up, you’re committed to a long, painful conversation. You may feel frustrated. As time goes on, you may develop what’s called compassion fatigue because although you’re devoted to her, you never get the satisfaction of being able to cheer her up or make it right.
If her husband was your much loved son-in-law or brother-in-law who’d been in your life for decades, you may also be grieving. You may still love and care about him but can’t reach out to him because that would destroy her. Or you may be consumed with hating his guts and want only the worst for him and wish there was some way you could hurt him like he hurt her.
You may have a role to play if she has children, stepping in to make sure that there’s food in the fridge, dinner on the table and homework being done while their mom is in bed staring at the wall. And it breaks your heart to see what the kids, no matter their ages, are going through and that adds to your burden of worry.
As time goes on, things may get better but then something new happens that sets her back to what feels like square one. For example, she may learn that there actually was an other woman, or he may send a bailiff to serve her with divorce papers at her work, or she may have to face seeing him at their daughter’s wedding. Each new catastrophe means many more hours of processing it through with her, wiping away her tears and trying to encourage her.
As hard as it is, you do it because you love her and want to help and you know she’d do the same for you.
Here are some important things for you to know:
Her recovery back to relative normalcy is going to take much longer than you expect and that doesn’t mean that something is going wrong. It just takes a long, long time to recover from the trauma of abandonment.
She will recover. Although it may seem impossible from this vantage point, most women do regain their balance and rebuild their lives.
You just need a lot of patience, but if you accept that she won’t be able to pull it together quickly, then you may feel less anxious. Just know that it’s normal.
She needs to go through the process of healing - feeling wretched at first, crying, sad, hopeless. Then maybe transitioning into some anger, which can be motivating. And then working towards reducing his power in her mind and focusing on her own life. It’s a process and it takes the time it takes.
It’s hard on you and you have to take care of yourself, too. You need to be extra kind to yourself - try to do things to relax, maybe pamper yourself. Being her support is an important job and not an easy one.
How to know when she’s not recovering? If she’s drinking or using drugs or food to numb herself. If she’s still stuck, suffering and obsessing, on a daily basis more than two years after he left. Then, try to encourage her to get professional help or, if she refuses, speak to someone yourself.
Your needs will have been relegated to the back burner while you’re doing the compassionate work of providing her support but you’re important, too. You may also be struggling, exhausted and wishing this were over. Just remember, as huge as this feels, it too shall pass and you all will move on to a new but different chapter at some point. In the meantime, pat yourself on your back - you’re doing a wonderful job! You’re priceless!
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
What You've Lost - What Still Remains
How can you be both authentic and feel your true feelings while, at the same time, work on cultivating the awareness that although you have lost so much, you still have so much left?
We had such an interesting discussion last night at one of the meetings of my online divorce recovery group, Hearts & Minds. One of the women was talking about all she has lost since her husband left. Her son just had his high school prom and, before the event, all the parents were invited to a pre-prom party. When she arrived, all dressed up, she did a quick scan of the room and her heart sank when she realized that she was the only single parent present. All the other women were there with their husbands.
I don’t need to tell you what that feels like. I know you’ve been there. I know I have. That empty feeling, lonely, a bit embarrassed - all the fun drained from the party while you have to keep up a brave face, counting the minutes till you can leave.
At the meeting last night, the other women in the group were empathizing with a communal groan. But I was looking at it a bit differently. Knowing the prom boy’s mom, I thought about what she has lost, but also, everything she has; a secure job, a big support network and three beautiful kids - things that many women in the world would kill to have. So, I brought up that aspect - that in spite of all we lose, we have to keep an eye on all we have.
Earlier in the session, one of the women was talking about gratitude and how what Oprah used to call the Gratitude Attitude is so important to happiness and I talked a bit about that. It’s been a frame of mind that I’ve tried to cultivate in my own life. When I’m miserable about something, I try to fly over it to get a different perspective and remind myself that so many other women have it so much worse. I find that helps me stop feeling so miserable.
But then, a different woman in the group challenged my approach. She said how important it is to really feel your feelings, not to deny or suppress them. It’s okay to let yourself feel the hurt because . . . it hurts! It hurts to be the single woman in the room when last year, you would have been sharing the fun with your husband. It hurts to not have someone to unpack the evening’s events with later in the privacy of your home - to talk about everything that happened and how great your son looked in his suit. That’s a reality too!
Seesaw. Seesaw. How can you be both authentic and feel your true feelings while, at the same time, work on cultivating the awareness that although you have lost so much, you still have so much left? I remember having seen Tony Robbins at a conference a few years back talk about his 90-second rule. He said that when something upsets him, he allows himself only 90 seconds of suffering and then he turns it around and I thought - how do you do that? (Disclaimer: don’t try this at home! LOL)
Perhaps the answer is that it’s a matter of degree. Of course, in the beginning, right after your husband leaves, there’s not much you can do other than to survive. There are only small things that help to lessen the suffering, like disciplining yourself to not check the other woman’s Facebook page if you can, but you’re certainly unable to see anything past the intensity of the pain.
Later on, the work of recovery is to explore ways of managing the suffering so you are not totally helpless in the face of it. One of those ways is to practice that gratitude attitude and develop an awareness of what is left after so much is lost. That doesn’t mean sugar coating the painful times. It means letting yourself feel them but, at the same time, recognizing that blessings remain.
Some women keep a gratitude journal and write down three good things that happened that day each night before bed. No matter how difficult life can be, there’s always something to feel grateful for and by writing it down, even if it’s a struggle to locate anything positive, you’re training yourself to scan your day for little particles of joy. And that’s a good thing!
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
Where are my Cakes and Casseroles? How Being Widowed Is Different From Being Abandoned
Why don’t we have a divorce funeral? A rite of passage to acknowledge the end of the marriage rather than what we currently do, which is to slink away in hurt and shame?
I was talking to a client whose husband left after 40 years of an enchanted marriage and she made a comment that I’ve heard many times before. She said that things would be so much easier if he’d just died. We got into a discussion about the difference between being left and being a widow (I’ve been both!) and I thought you’d be interested.
Grief
In both abandonment and widowhood, you suffer crushing grief and a profound sense of loss, but in the case of abandonment, she said, it’s a “dirty grief” - socially not the same thing. Nobody tells a widow, “You’re better off without him” or “I never thought he was right for you.” Widows are permitted space to grieve deeply and for a prolonged period of time, but little room is made for women who’ve been abandoned to experience grief.
That grief is confusing. You’re mourning your loved husband who no longer exists but, at the same time, hurt and angry with the man who is sending you lawyer’s letters. The grief is tainted - not pure. It keeps you in an emotional spin - grieving and then hurt and angry in alternate moments and that makes it hard to resolve the loss.
Memories
Widows tend to remember the happy times they spent together with their husbands. They can bask in the bittersweet glow of special loving moments and when they talk about their departed loves, they highlight the positive. Abandoned wives, however, are stuck remembering the recent traumatic events that triggered the loss. We all repeat in our minds the outrage and shock that lead to the end of the marriage, particularly the moment when it all fell apart. We steer away from remembering the happy times - how can you revel in the happy times when you are stuck seeing him as the liar or coward who hurt you so badly?
Financial stability
Often widows are in a good financial position after their husband dies, especially if he had life insurance, RRSPs or a pension that reverts to them. There’s no question that they will keep the house, cottage and car as well as any savings. Abandoned wives, however, are typically in a weaker financial position than they were before, having to fight for anything that they can get from their ex, while paying astronomical lawyers fees to boot. They often have to split the value of the house and move to a more modest home. They may have to go back to work if they were retired or had been a stay-at-home mom.
Family and friends
One of the topics we often talk about in my Hearts & Minds divorce recovery groups is the painful loss of family and friends. When a husband dies, the whole community rallies around the widow, bringing cakes and casseroles. She’s invited to any family events and remains a part of her late husband’s family. When he leaves her, however, she is often booted out of the family, even if she’d been integrated with them for decades. Her mother-in-law stops calling and even welcomes her ex’s new girlfriend for Thanksgiving dinner. Friends make judgments and take sides and it’s not unusual to lose a certain number in the process.
Privacy
When your husband dies, he takes your secrets with him to the grave. When your husband leaves, nothing is sacred. He’s building a case about why he had to leave to justify his actions and provides evidence to the world of your weaknesses or even secrets that only he knows. You lose control of your version of your story as he proclaims, loud and clear, his version of events.
Children
When your husband dies, you and the kids go through it together. You‘re typically all mourning their dad in harmony. You support each other through special events, like holidays and birthdays, missing him and reminiscing about good times from the past. When your husband leaves, however, your kids are thrown into a profoundly complicated position. They love their dad but may turn against him when they see him in a different light and know the hurt he’s caused you. If they’re young, they may go back and forth to his house with his girlfriend, knowing full well how much that hurts you. You avoid talking about him during special events - they don’t want to hear your pain. You worry about what the loss of the dad they knew will do to them.
Your Future
Finally, another big difference is that, when he dies, your pure feelings about your husband are not tarnished by rejection and betrayal. You smile thinking of him and get to keep the relationship you had with him forever. When a husband dies, it is not his choice. But when he leaves, he purposely did so without any regard for the repercussions. When he dies, you never see him again. But when he leaves, you watch him build a life with someone else.
Divorce Funeral
My client then suggested, why don’t we have a divorce funeral? A rite of passage to acknowledge the end of the marriage rather than what we currently do, which is to slink away in hurt and shame? I would certainly not suggest a bitter diatribe party against the ex but rather, a mindful moment to punctuate this turning point in our lives. We could get together with our friends and family and perhaps recount the story of the marriage, highlighting the growth changes we went through during that stage of our lives.
Light a Candle for Yourself
In my work as a marriage counsellor, there are times when a couple comes to the session wanting to talk about the fact that they’ve decided to separate. I always light a candle during those sessions, to honor the sanctity of their marriage and acknowledge that it meant something important. I ask them to sit with that for a few minutes before jumping into the chaos of separating their lives. That’s because, when you’ve walked a good part of your life with someone and the path comes to an end, either by death or divorce, in spite of all the differences, being married means something that you take with you in your heart.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
How long does it take to recover from Wife Abandonment?
If your happiness is dependent on you living the life you had in the past, then you will never be happy again because that life is over. But perhaps, you need to make a new definition of what constitutes your future life and potential happiness. Rather than focusing on all you have lost, can you tally up all you still have? . . .
What’s the normal recovery time from wife abandonment? One year? Two years? Five years? Eight years? The answer is . . . yes. The normal recovery time is the time that it takes for you to recover. Women who are still dealing with painful thoughts of their ex on a daily basis and anxiety around holidays and events years after the marriage has ended are often ashamed. But they shouldn’t be.
They feel that they should be over it already. Their friends and family insist that they should be over it already. It feels like the whole universe is shouting that they should be over it already! But they’re not. And there are good reasons for that.
There are a lot of complex factors at play but the one that has the largest impact on how long it will take for you to click into a new normal is your belief about your own future. If you’re telling yourself that you will never be happy again and that there is nothing to look forward to, it will be much harder for you to stop ruminating about the past.
I can hear what you might be saying right now: “Vikki! All that is true! I will never be happy again. I have nothing to look forward to!” I think part of the problem is that you are still defining your life in the terms you used when you were with your husband. If your happiness is dependent on you living the life you had in the past, then yes. You will never be happy again because that life is over.
But perhaps, you need to make a new definition of what constitutes your future life and potential happiness. Rather than focusing on all you have lost, can you tally up all you still have? Can you work on becoming agile and pivot to a new vision of your future? One that you define on your own terms.
Really true profound happiness comes from an appreciation of the very simple things in life. The other day, my client told me that she went for a walk by herself on the mountain (the city of Montreal was built around a beautiful “mountain” park). She said she was walking up the trail and drinking in the experience. She thought to herself, “I could be lying in a hospital bed somewhere but I’m here now, walking on the mountain”. She was able to feel how special it was. That felt good to her.
It takes practice to learn to really feel appreciation for the moment, for the simple things. You have to work on it. Practice trying to feel appreciation when you’re sitting at the breakfast table in your warm house with food on your plate. You won’t feel it right away, but with practice, you can get there. Practice communing with the trees outside your window. Feel their quiet energy. Tune into the small beautiful things that surround you. Construct a secret chamber in your heart where you can retreat in peace, just feeling good to be alive.
I believe life itself is a gift that we have to cherish whether things are hard or good.
When you can turn your vision from the past to your own future, whenever that is, the real healing will start. Your future may be small and quiet and different from what you expected but hey, it’s all yours. Make it beautiful.
What do you think about how long it’s taking you to recover? Add your voice below!
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
3 Tips to Help You Get Through Thanksgiving Without Too Many Tears
This year, the holidays are going to be a doozie. You not only have to deal with the pain of remembering happy Thanksgivings past when you celebrated with your husband and the family but you also may have to be planning a quiet meal with just the few people allowed in your bubble . . .
This year, the holidays are going to be a doozie. You not only have to deal with the pain of remembering happy Thanksgivings past when you celebrated with your husband and the family but you also may have to be planning a quiet meal with just the few people allowed in your bubble. No setting a big colorful table for twelve decorated with a paper fan of a turkey as the centerpiece this year!
Add to that the reality that your husband may be off celebrating with someone else - a real slap in the face on a holiday. You probably can’t corral your mind to stop thinking about him slicing turkey in some other woman’s kitchen, imagining that they’re having a jolly good time while you’re home, maybe alone, with the cat.
And, to add insult to injury, for some reason, the holidays are the time of the year when most runaway husbands fly the coop, so you may also be suffering from anniversary syndrome - the sadness that returns at the time each year when you’ve suffered a significant loss.
What a mess! Believe me, I know how much it hurts. But we’re all in this together so we have to come up with a plan to get you through the day without too many tears. What to do?
Here are three tips to help you cope with the challenge of Thanksgiving when your husband has left:
Don’t let yourself wallow. No matter how grim you may feel, do something a little bit special with the day. It may be a real effort to call a friend and take a walk or to bake yourself your favorite pecan pie, but just do it, even if it’s minimalist. The effort you put into any act of self-care will have surprisingly expansive results, helping to lift your spirit (even a bit). And you’ll feel proud of yourself.
Do something for someone else. Again, it doesn’t have to be big. But that phone call to offer holiday wishes to your elderly uncle or the book you’ve read and enjoyed that you drop off at your neighbor’s will take you out of your own suffering and expand your heart. It will do you good.
Remember what Thanksgiving is all about. It celebrates the first harvest after an awfully hard year for the Pilgrims - a time to appreciate what you’ve got. It’s normal to be focused on what you may have lost, but for a short time on the holiday, turn your mind to all the blessings that you have. You’ll realize that there is still so much left.
I’m thinking of you and sending a big hug. You’re not alone! Inspire us below in the comments by telling what you’re planning to do for the holidays to make yourself feel better.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
Want to Stop Feeling Like a Failure? Flip it!
You know who you are. You know your value. He doesn’t get to define you - no more, no way! Instead, flip it!
Tonight we had our second meeting of Hearts & Minds (my eight session online therapy group) and we talked about so many amazing things, I wanted to share some of them with you. The focus was on how to stop letting your ex-husband control you. He can say whatever he wants but if you can recognize that it is coming from a destructive place, you can turn it around and say, “I get to define myself - I’m not letting him define me any more!”
So often women feel like failures that the marriage ended and part of the reason you feel that way is because your ex had told you that you were a failure. Sometimes he even presents his wife with a list of all her deficits and being nice girls, we believe the garbage he’s saying. We let him remain in the position he was in throughout the marriage - the arbiter of what’s right or wrong. So when he outlines for you all the ways he thinks you’ve failed, It makes you second guess yourself - maybe he’s right!
One of the participants in Hearts & Minds tonight told us what to do when we feel like a failure - flip it! Rather than saying, “I must be a failure because I couldn’t keep my marriage together”, say, “I’m amazing because I kept a marriage going with such a deeply flawed person! If I didn’t take such good care of him, this marriage would have fallen apart years ago!”
Another participant came up with another way to flip it. Rather than to say, “I feel so badly that he sees me as such a controlling bitch”, say, “I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t appreciate who I am after all these years and instead sees me as a controlling bitch!”
Another participant suggested that we put his message to the test. Rather than swallow whole whatever he says about you, ask yourself, “Is it true?” Just because he says it doesn’t make it true. You know who you are. You know your value. He doesn’t get to define you - no more, no way! Instead, flip it and say, “He’s a broken man that makes him behave in this disrespectful, cold and selfish way and I don’t want that in my life.” You don’t have to be subject to his distorted assessment of you. So the next time he puts you down, flip it and remember that you don’t want to be with someone who is so blind that he doesn’t know you by now.
One way that I’ve suggested to women to flip it is the following. Instead of feeling so sad that you don’t get to spend your future together with your aging ex, just realize, “I had the best years of his life. It’s fine with me if she (the other woman) takes over as nursemaid in his dotage!”
Alice Sommer, who was the oldest Holocaust survivor before her death at the age of 110 said about her approach to life, “There’s good and bad in everything. I choose to look at the good.” So when you’re focusing too much on the bad, just flip it! There’s some good tucked away in there somewhere!
Hey, what are your thoughts on this? Let us know below in the comments.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
The One Word that's Keeping You Stuck - Why
The whys are buzzing around your head like a swarm of angry bees and you can’t get away from them. If only you could break free . . .
Why didn’t he tell me he was unhappy?
Why didn’t he want to work on it?
Why did he become so mean?
Why can’t he see that he’s hurting the kids?
Why is he so mad at me when he’s the one who left?
Why is he so unreasonable in the divorce process?
Why do I still miss him after all he’s done?
Why do husbands who are LOVED do THIS?
The whys are buzzing around your head like a swarm of angry bees and you can’t get away from them. If only you could break free but it feels like you can only break free when you can answer all the whys and that’s where you’re stuck because you just can’t. At least, not yet.
We humans are programmed with the need to understand our lives. When life is predictable, we feel safe. We keep an agenda so we’re prepared for what’s coming. When something unexpected happens, we need to identify the cause and might even make up some unscientific reason just so that we have some explanation - the need to understand is so strong.
Over the years, so many women whose husbands have suddenly left have told me that if only they could understand what motivated him, why he turned so mean, why he didn’t want to go to counselling, then they could start to move on. That yearning to understand how a loving husband could morph overnight into an angry stranger is normal and understandable. The problem with it is just that you may never get the answer you desire and deserve.
So how to move on without closure? How to move away from the whys? When I was a kid growing up in New York City, if I’d ask a friend “why?” about something, she might respond, “just because”. What does “just because” mean? It means, “I dunno - there’s just no answer to the why?”
The desperate need to peer into your ex’s mind and fully understand his motivation is keeping you stuck. My recommendation is to take a giant scissor and just snip off the why at the beginning of all those sentences and see what you get:
Why //// didn’t he tell me he was unhappy? becomes - He didn’t tell me he was unhappy.
Why //// didn’t he want to work on it? becomes - He didn’t want to work on it.
Why //// did he become so mean? becomes - He became so mean!
Why //// do husbands who are LOVED do THIS? becomes - Husbands who are LOVED do THIS!
When you eliminate the why, you can breathe. You start to accept that this happened, that he did what he did just because, and you can come to a place of acceptance.
Of course you continue to need to know why and over time, you will unravel the mystery little by little - I can help you with that. But it’s the relentless drive to know why right now that keeps you up at night, tormented by the swarm of bees. If you can accept that over time, the information that answers your questions will come to you naturally and that, over time, your mind and heart will evolve to be able to absorb what you’re learning, then the bees will slowly fly away so you can rest and continue on your journey of healing.
So the next time you’re struggling with a sentence that starts with why, take a big scissor and snip off the why and accept the declarative statement that’s left, or maybe just answer it to yourself with just because.
Take a sec and let me know your thoughts about this post down below in the comments!
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
What To Do When You've Lost Your "Go-To" Person
Apart from all the hurt, outrage, sense of betrayal, bewilderment and sadness that comes with Wife Abandonment, perhaps the most difficult feeling of all is the loss of that “go-to” person with whom you share all the little details of your life . . .
In last night’s Hearts & Minds group, we were talking about the feeling of being alone. Apart from all the hurt, outrage, sense of betrayal, bewilderment and sadness that comes with Wife Abandonment, perhaps the most difficult feeling of all is the loss of that “go-to” person with whom you share all the little details of your life.
Whether your relationship with your husband was glorious or mundane, he probably was the person who knew what was going on in your life better than anyone else. He was there when things happened to you and you naturally turned to him to talk it through. There’s a comfort in being able to tell your ongoing narrative to someone who has a stake in your happiness. The loss of that hits hard.
There are so many examples of when you might feel it. You take a walk and are delighted to run into your old college roommate, Sue, who just moved into the neighborhood. Typically, you’d come home and say to your husband, “Guess who I met on my walk?” but now, you have no one with whom to share it.
One high point in my life was when I was a guest on the Today Show. It was a big thing for me and I was high when I walked off the set after my interview. I so very much wanted to call my husband and say, “I did it!” and share the moment, but he’d already left. Of course, I could call a friend or my kids, but you know - it’s not the same.
So last night, at the group, we worked on what to do when you feel that need to talk to someone. Some said that, yes, they have friends or family they could call, but after a while, they worry about compassion fatigue. Our suffering goes on for months at the least and only very noble friends or family can take the ongoing working through that you need to do.
Of course, time does heal, but in the meantime, we came up with some suggestions that are within your power to do to try to help yourself. We talked about doing art as a way of expressing what you are feeling. You don’t need to be an artist to get a drawing pad and markers and just put down your feelings in line and color. It may feel awkward at first but you will get more comfortable if you keep at it.
Another woman suggested going for a run or doing exercise as a way of expressing yourself and getting your feelings out. And, of course, we love the idea of connecting with nature in some way.
Another suggestion, which has been proved to be very therapeutic, is to keep a journal and write it all down. When you got back from your walk, you can write down that you met Sue from college and she moved into the neighborhood. When I returned to my room after the Today Show, I could have written all the feelings about what it was like.
It’s a letter to yourself and although it doesn’t make all the hurt go away, it trains you to do something positive when you’re feeling the pain. You can become your own “go-to” person - someone who is always on your side, cheering you on!
These simple suggestions may be hard to put into place but every small step you take for your own healing makes a big difference, even if you feel it at the moment. I wish I could suggest the perfect thing that will do the trick and move you along. If I could, I would! But after a decade of helping women recover from abandonment, I know that it’s a complex process that needs the time that it needs, but I also know that making even small efforts are very important.
Share your thoughts below about what you do when you wish you had a “go-to” person in your life.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
We Will Muddle Through This Together with Courage and Grace
If you can stay in the present moment, do some exercise, don’t let yourself awfulize and remember that this is not going to last forever, we’ll all muddle through this. You’re going to have to be tough and not spill your worries on your children or any other vulnerable person in your life. You can do this! . . .
I’m struck by how this crazy virus crisis is the same as being hit by Wife Abandonment Syndrome. You’re going along, living your life, unsuspecting, and then something unthinkable happens out-of-the-blue. Your whole pattern of living changes in a short period of time, new revelations unfolding day after day. You keep hoping that it’s not true, that there’s been some mistake, but there’s no turning back.
You think longingly of your secure past, when the world made sense but now you’re living with an uncertain future. You don’t know if your finances will ever recover. You worry about how it’s going to affect your kids. You’re managing a sense of fear and threat all day long. The landscape of your life is unrecognizable.
Whew! Double whammy! For those of you who have newly experienced wife abandonment, I can’t imagine what you’re going through. At least, you know you’re not alone - you and everyone else on this planet are in the same boat! The coronavirus crisis most likely stirred the cauldron of emotion about your husband’s departure. You may be feeling acutely alone and worrying about who will take care of you if you get sick. It may have awoken your anger that he is with someone and has abandoned you to your fate.
Like wife abandonment, in the current crisis there’s no way around it - you have to go through it. It forces you to work on yourself, to be calm and not spiral out of control. It requires that you strengthen your mind and figure out how to tame your emotions.
You need to stay in the present moment. Most probably, if you had never heard of the coronavirus, you’d be more or less fine (okay - just dealing with the runaway husband). It’s spring and the trees are budding, the flowers are coming out here in the northern hemisphere. We worry about what will happen but if we could just stay in the here and now, it would help. We’ll deal with whatever will come when it comes. Like they say in AA - one day at a time.
This is how I’m coping. I’m quarantined and working remotely with clients so I’m pretty much home most of the time other than taking the dog for a walk. So I start the day early with a half hour meditation and that’s very important. It’s a mini-vacation for my mind.
During that half hour, I try to keep my focus on the meditation and as my mind wanders away like a frisky puppy, I summon it back. Some days it’s easier than others but I always feel better after meditating. And, by the way, there are sometimes other women from our Community meditating at the same time using Insight Timer (the link is on the Runaway Husbands website) and I love that! If you want to join, you don’t need to commit to a half hour. Start with ten minutes and slowly work up over a few weeks. Just do it every day. It will do you good.
Another thing I’m doing is some form of exercise - usually yoga. I tune into a YouTube channel called Yoga with Adriene. She’s a sweetheart yoga teacher who lives in Austin, Texas and has dozens of classes of all different levels and durations. It’s very low tech and you know she’s a good person. Her dog, Benji, is often just lying around near her yoga mat. So there’s another hour when I’m not thinking about the coronavirus.
I’m cooking good food and walking in the sun and I’m more in touch (remotely) with family and friends than I typically have time for. And, of course, I’m lucky because I’m very busy with work.
If you can stay in the present moment, do some exercise, don’t let yourself awfulize and remember that this is not going to last forever, we will all muddle through this. You’re going to have to be tough and not spill your worries on your children and any other vulnerable person in your life. You can do this!
It’s always important to strengthen your health, don’t eat or drink too much and quit smoking, if you smoke. And at some point in the future, you’ll say, “Remember that crazy time in 2020 when the world was reeling from the coronavirus? Wow! That was intense.” And life will go on.
Just know that I’m thinking about you. If you’re on our Runaway Husbands Community Facebook page, tune in to my Facebook live Q&A (7:30pm eastern on Wednesdays), when I answer questions and just connect with you. We’re a community and now, more than ever, we need to support each other with loving kindness.
Stay well and share your thoughts below.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
Runaway Husbands
He responded, “It’s over.” That moment marked my descent into the nightmare that I’ve come to call Wife Abandonment Syndrome which is when a man leaves out-of-the-blue from what his wife believed to be a happy stable marriage . . .
The fall of 2006 should have been the happiest time of my life. I had published my first book, My Sister, My Self, about sister relationships and had set out alone on a whirlwind book tour that took me 3,000 miles crisscrossing America. The trip was great but hard - 23 days in the car driving from bookstore to bookstore, eating practically all my meals at the wheel.
By the time I got to my last stop, San Diego, I was so looking forward to coming home to Montreal. I took the red eye back and fell into my darling husband's arms in relief when he picked me up at 8am at the airport. I was so happy to see him! He dropped me off at home and headed to work.
I spent the day getting organized but noticed a long dark hair in the bathtub when I took a shower. I didn’t think anything of it. I also was puzzled later that various dishes in the kitchen were in the wrong place. We’d lived there for years and we always kept the colander under the sink and the spatulas in the pot on the counter but now I had to search for them. Also a bit weird - but, no matter.
When my husband returned that night, I threaded my arm through his and said, “I bought fish” to which he responded, “It’s over.” I thought, weird, but said, “Okay, if you don’t want fish, we can have chicken.” And he said, “It’s over and I’m leaving you. Right now.” And he did. He moved right in with his girlfriend of six years who had been staying in my house while I was away.
That moment marked my descent into the nightmare that I’ve come to call Wife Abandonment Syndrome. Wife Abandonment Syndrome is when a man leaves out-of-the-blue from what his wife believed to be a happy stable marriage. There is typically another woman in the picture. One of the hallmarks is that the husband then turns angrily on the wife, blaming her and dismantling everything she knew as their loving joint history together. He seems to have no regard for his traumatized wife, even if he had been a loving and attentive husband days earlier, as mine had been.
After my husband left, I started researching this phenomenon and was amazed when I realized that it’s pretty common and that the features of how the men leave are almost identical from case to case. I started a study and interviewed women all over the world to whom this had happened. Based on the findings of the study, I wrote the book, Runaway Husbands, and launched the website, runawayhusbands.com. Very quickly we developed an international community of women supporting women through this terrible trauma.
This is not a typical divorce in which the wife may have seen it coming. In Wife Abandonment Syndrome, there are often no signs that the husband is unhappy or thinking of leaving, as was my case. When men leave in this way, their wives feel like they’re crazy and completely alone. When they stumble across our website, Googling in the middle of the night, they’re shocked to learn that it’s a “thing” and deeply comforted to be able to share what they are going through with others.
Recovery is a long and painful process. Initially, the wife is obsessed with understanding her husband’s motivation - how he could morph overnight from a loving husband into a cold and angry stranger? Once she’s been helped to see what was behind his actions, she will become freer to turn her focus from mourning her past to glimpsing her future.
I’m a psychotherapist so my goal in helping women in this situation is to guide them to a point where they can see this crisis as a springboard for change. The first year after wife abandonment is very rough, but with enough support, the wife left behind can start to see possibilities for her life as a single woman and hopefully, be able to flower into embracing her new life.
Over the years, I’ve developed therapeutic resources to provide help both online and face-to-face. The power of being part of a healing community cannot be underestimated - when women get together, they offer each other both strategies and support. We have a Facebook group, newsletter, online meditation group and what we call Healing Circles - where women can meet others locally in their towns to provide support. These exist in cities all over the world.
I’m able to work personally with women through online therapy groups where we can see and hear each other, just as if we were in the same room. We meet together in yearly retreats in Montreal and Sedona, Arizona and for those that need more support, private Skype therapy sessions are available. Our community is powerful, with active participants in Australia and New Zealand, India, Hong Kong, Nigeria and Ghana, Britain, Europe, Canada and the US.
I know how powerfully women suffer and grieve following Wife Abandonment Syndrome. I’ve been there. But I also know that this trauma can also be used for what is called post traumatic growth, in which women are forced to strengthen themselves so they can manage their thoughts and emotions and develop a profound new understanding of their lives. Although they can’t see it when they’re in the midst of it, they’re not always going to feel this badly.
Let me know your response to this post in the comments below. Did it touch you?
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
Hi! I’m Vikki and I'll be your guide in your recovery process from Wife Abandonment Syndrome. I’m a therapist but also an abandoned wife like yourself and I know what it feels like. I want to help you not only bounce back, but to discover a new you in the process.
