Dear VO,
My husband has just left me for a woman twenty years his junior. We are both in our mid-forties and married for over twenty years. I feel as if my shelf life has expired, and he is trading me in for a newer model. We have two young teenagers, and naturally they are very angry with their father. I feel deeply betrayed, and I am angry, hurt, bitter, depressed, vengeful, shocked – all at the same time. It’s only been a month since he left, and I feel like my whole life is destroyed, like my heart has shattered into a thousand pieces. I don’t know if I have the strength to help my children get through this great loss. I don’t know what to prioritize, as there seems to be so many things to deal with – keeping a happy face in front of others, figuring the financial and other issues with my husband, helping the kids with their grief, going to work each day…when all I want to do most days is to curl up and sleep for hours. How do I, how can I get through this?
Sad Jane

Dear SJ,
Separating from one you have loved is like pulling apart the ties that bind, the connections that have been forged over time and shared life experiences; it is at best an exhausting thing, and at worst is an ordeal that may descend to nightmarish proportions. Breaking up is hard to do, as the song goes.

But the song doesn’t describe the many levels of one’s life that falls apart when a relationship does. If you are the one who did not initiate the breakup, then everything you know about who you are may fall prey to self-doubt, questioning, examining, and judgment.

Did I do something wrong? Has he stopped loving me because I am older, less attractive, less desirable? How did I miss the signs?

It is natural that you would feel as if your whole world is falling apart, and in a sense, your external world – the roles and structures – will surely “fall apart” (i.e.) so that change can come and new roles and structures can emerge. But your internal world, while also changing, need not become undone. That is to say, your deepest sense of Self, the essence of who you are, can become even more assured and validated, even more actualized (i.e. reaching its highest potentials), depending on how you negotiate the troubled and rapid waters of change.

What you are experiencing, since it is still early in the process, are the beginnings of the stages of grief (denial/shock, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance).

These are your own, intra-psychic responses to the loss that you have experienced. You may experience them very intensely soon after the break-up, and less so as time goes on. These reactions are not neccesarilly linear or sequential; they may come up, diminish, and then resurface time and time again over a period of time.

Gradually, they will diminish substantially.
So that means it does get better. But in the meantime, if you need to curl up and sleep a lot, then find a way to do so. You may take time off work, or arrange for your children to spend time with friends and relatives so that you have more contemplative time.

You could journal, meditate, walk, dance, or work out – whatever it takes to move your emotional and physical energy. If there are tears that need to come forth, put on The Joy Luck Club or any other sad movie, and let it pour. Pent-up energy can go stale and produce effects that may work against you. Let it all pass, but do it in a healthy way. That means make choices that do not result in negative results for you or anyone else.

You may want to spend time with supportive friends, though a word of caution here – it is often helpful to share your feelings with friends, but you might want to focus on how to make things right and better for you and your children, rather than become stuck on answering unanswerable questions (like “Why did this happen to me?” or “How could he do this to me/our family?”) or how unfair the whole situation is (e.g. the bitterness you might feel that he now presumably is happy while you are not). Letting yourself be stuck only wastes your energy and festers negative emotions. You will need that energy to take care of yourself so that you can take care of your children.

If you are able to communicate with your husband, then try to be civil and work out the logistics of separation – child custody arrangements, child support, new living arrangements, etc. It is probably best if you also get legal representation to work out these issues in a fair and equitable manner. Your husband may have chosen to leave his relationship with you, but he cannot end his relationship with his children. It is in the best interest of your children (and I’m talking long term, forever here) that you do not use your children for the following purposes:

1. as emotional supports equivalent to friends or other grown-ups (i.e. confiding in them your deepest hurts, etc.)

2. to hurt their father for betraying you (i.e. turning them against him by speaking badly of him or his misdeeds – while it may be true that he has behaved badly, forcing the kids to choose sides will only hurt them, and for a long time).

3. to punish their father for betraying you (i.e. keeping them from seeing him or having a good relationship with him is another way that they can be damaged - he may be a lousy husband but a decent father, and just because he has hurt you doesn’t mean you should hurt them).

You must help your children to understand that nothing they did led to the break-up, and that they will have your support in continuing their relationship with their father, albeit under different circumstances.

I would also encourage you to develop a self-care plan that includes the following elements:
* Physical health – eat well, exercise and stretch regularly, walk a lot, sleep enough, vitamins & supplements.
* Emotional health – talk to a counselor, stay in touch with family and good friends, journal, meditate, join a support group.
* Spiritual health – re-evaluate your life’s purpose, perhaps even rediscover a passion that yoou can pursue, something to give your life meaning and connection.
*Financial health – get some financial advice, work out a budget and long-term financial goals. Don’t leave things to chance. Negotiate child support and other money issues with your husband, but don’t equate money with fairness or wellness. You have to decide what is worth fighting for, and at what costs.
Buddhist teachings have always advocated acceptance as the path out of suffering.

If we resist reality, i.e. things as they are, we will create unnecessary suffering for ourselves. Acceptance leads us away from suffering, while resistance leads us into it. But many people think that acceptance means approval. Well, how can I approve of what my husband has done, they may say? Or, how can I approve of betrayal?

In essence, acceptance really means acknowledgment or recognition, rather than approval or sanction. Accepting something means that I acknowledge or recognize that this is the reality, though I may not like it or love it. In fact, I may even be deeply hurt by it. Betrayal sucks! But it is what it is, and recognizing that, I can decide or choose an appropriate response, one that will be self-preserving and self-enhancing. If I resist it, insist that it shouldn’t be, deny it’s impact, and so on, then I will be spending my energies on fighting something that already exists, whether I approve of it or not.

The truth is that you can get through this, and you can become stronger as a result of it. Consider these lyrics from a Leonard Cohen poem:

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.

You did not cause the break-up, but perhaps somewhere along the line you ignored the signs that tell of trouble in your marriage. This does not make you weak or at fault for what happened; rather, it may provide some sort of meaning to what has happened and what might happen in the future.

We all participate in creating the outcomes we get, in some form or manner. Learning about the ways in which you’ve participated in your relationship will help you avoid the same mistakes in a future relationship (yes, there will be one, when you are ready for it).

You can choose how you will rise up and respond to this very painful time in your life. Tend to your heart and spirit, but also tend to your body. The whole works. This is a time for an overhaul, and keeping your focus on these self-care tasks may make it easier to get through the harder moments. Talk, cry, pray, walk, read, but also get a new wardrobe and hairdo. Maybe even a tattoo.

Do not try to be normal, for this is an extraordinary time. Be outrageous on your own behalf, but focus on You rather than him. Something went wrong with your marriage. Don’t blame anyone.

Instead, learn from it and choose to make it right for yourself. Though you don’t know what the final outcome of this story will be regarding the relationship, you can decide what your own outcome can be about. You are now the author of what that future could look like. Will it be Goddess Rising or Heartbreak Hotel?

Let the light in, despite these troubled times. You cannot know what will happen in the future, but know that whatever happens now will lead you towards it.