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Well after reading your story, Abetterday, I just have a few observations. First my sympathies for your present loss (divorce) and also the coming death of someone you loved.
However it sounds like you are doing what it takes to protect yourself financially as much as is possible, so no suggestions there. Also you are taking steps (seeing a therapist) to address why you got emotionally involved with a user .
This leaves your grief of having your world turned upside down. Be aware your grief is not for what you are really losing. Your grief is for what you wanted your marriage to have been. Thus you are grieving for a Fantasy. Fantasies are great fun, but when the cold hard light of reality shines, they tend to fade rather quickly.
No matter what you could have done will change the hard facts. However you can change how you feel about those facts. Take the positives as good memories and consign the negatives to learning experiences. You have a great new chance to start over. Armed with your new wiser self you will likely prosper.
honey, you need some real professional help - you are in over your head.
I am so sorry for all you have been thru and for his cancer, but don't keep trying to handle all this on your own - contact a therapist for the sake of your sanity. Best of luck to you.
I agree 100%....you have been handed a tremendous load, both emotionally and finacially; get some outside help for your own state of mind....I'm sorry for your pain
Prior the cancer , did he have financial problems. ?
Yes. With the second wife, he took out a home equity loan to pay down credit card bills. He said they both had run up their credit cards. Now, I wonder how true that is.
He claimed to have no savings before that marriage because dating is so expensive.
Everyone,
Thanks for your helpful responses. Many of your observations were very helpful and gave me food for thought and a game plan for trying to get over this.
No therapist should refute the notion that your husband is one messed up dude. Best to you. I hope you can move on from this horror and find something good in your life including a true partner.
While we were living apart, I got in contact with his medical team. For the second time his social worker advised me to get a legal separation or divorce to absolve myself of his financial obligations. In her 30 years of experience, she has seen many surviving spouses of brain cancer patients reduced to penury or declaring bankruptcy after their deceased spouses' creditors came after them. I had thought about this for almost a year and did nothing because I couldn't bear the thought of divorcing my husband while he was down. But with this second warning, I got legal advice which emphasized that I had no choice but to protect myself from certain financial disaster.
I haven't read through this entire thread, but I feel for the OP. I've seen first hand how people change (or perhaps reveal their true selves) when suffering from a serious illness. I chose to quote the above paragraph from the OP's first post to emphasize the importance of protecting yourself, even if doing so might come at the expense of your partner. I read an article recently about how the foreclosure crisis is contributing to more divorces, but not for the reason you might think. One couple featured in the article admitted that the only reason they divorced was so that the inevitable foreclosure would only damage the credit of whoever took possession of the house and the other person would walk away with their credit intact. While it's a high price to pay and certainly requires a great deal of trust on the part of whoever keeps the house, it illustrates why people sometimes have to do what's in their best interests even when it might not be best for their partner. In a case like the OP's, walking away from the marriage will obviously make the other person worse off. But the alternative is to let them continue dragging you down.
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