I don't know how much longer I can hang on...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This is long, but I really need to get it out - please bear with me.

About a month ago I started this thread about a couple who are friends of mine and my husband’s who are getting divorced (please read to help to understand the situation…it’s not long, but explains it better). Well, the girl (We’ll call her H, and her husband T) parents were in Europe when this happened, and she was stuck alone in her house, with no family to turn to. She has a history of depression and self-harm, so I insisted that she stay with us as long as she needed, so she came over.

Well, that was over 3 weeks ago, and she’s been here the entire time. She’s a great friend and I feel it helped her a lot to be here, but or place is very small and the lack of privacy began to strain me & Mr. AFG’s relationship. I found I never had the time for private talks with him or just plain alone time. We didn’t want to discuss our problems around her for fear of making her feel worse than she already did. She helped us out tremendously with money and food while here, but I was still stressed out due to the lack of privacy and from trying to keep her happy constantly. Mr. AFG started a new job recently that’s pretty stressful, so he’s already been on edge lately, and he’s been feeling torn between H and T because they are really good friends to us both, and he wants to keep contact with both of them without causing upset.

Last night everything blew up. I had a rough day at work and really just wanted to take a nap, but H had been alone all day and I could tell she was feeling lonely, so I felt obligated to stay up and keep her company. This kind of frustrated me. When Mr. AFG came home and H had gone to pick up coffee, I told him that I had been frustrated lately and I was wondering if he had an idea of how much longer she would be staying with us. He completely exploded, telling me I didn’t care about her and that I was a “selfish bitch”. This of course upset me terribly and I started crying, and when that happened he yelled, “This is it! I want a divorce! If H can get rid of T, then I can get rid of you!!” And he shoved past me and left. A while later H came back and saw I was upset and I told her what happened. She said she had overstayed her welcome and she wanted us to be alone so we can work it out, so she arranged to stay with her brother in Toronto.

I thought Mr. AFG was just overly upset and waited for him to cool off and come back. Well, he didn’t come back last night. When I woke up this morning and saw that he still wasn’t there, I got worried and called all of his friends and family, but none of them had seen him. Then I remembered that he had to work today, so I called them, but they said he hadn’t shown up. By then I was really afraid that he had killed himself, so I ran out to the forest and searched for over an hour to see if he was there somewhere. I came back and was hysterical so I called my mom and she came over to help me. Then. Mr. AFG’s mom called, saying he had just called her somewhere from a payphone, saying he was ok and he wanted to come stay with her. So she came over here and picked up some clothes for him. She said he just needs time to “cool off”.

This is horrible - I just don’t understand why he did this. My mom stayed with me most of the day and it helped a bit, but she has bad back problems and had to go back home.

I’m completely alone right now and terrified. I have no friends I can call for comfort. I’m afraid to do that anyway, because I realize it would be selfish of me. My husband just abandoned me and I’m so scared he will never come back. I can’t handle the emotional overload and the loneliness right now…I just want him back. I couldn’t take the shame of a divorce. I was always the ugly fat girl that guys never liked, and the thought of being alone for the rest of my life is too much - I’d rather be dead.

I don’t expect responses, I just really need to get this out. The typing is keeping me from remembering how easy it would be to down a bottle of pills, or step out onto the busy street. I’ve got no dependents. It would be very very easy. But I don’t want to hurt my parents. I just don’t know what to do right now…I just wish I could go to sleep and not wake up for a long long time. Waking up and seeing his space in the bed empty just wrenches my heart all over again. I just wish I had someone who would hold me and let me cry.

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I’m so sorry.

3

AFG, I don’t even know what to say. Just know that we’re all out here and care about you. Please keep us updated and share more if you need to.

GT

4

…There is no good response to this except hugs. So {{{AFG}}} there you go.

5

I’m so sorry to hear this. I hope things work out for the best. {{{AFG}}}

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Amazon Floozy Goddess, before you consider doing anything foolish, please readposts # 41 & 42.
Give yourself a break. You’re going to be ok.

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Amazon Floozy Goddess, you have no email address posted in your profile, but if you’d like to email privately or talk on the phone, please email me at flaminghippie@gmail.com

In your other thread, you wrote: “She tends to internalize her problems b/c she’s afraid of “inconveniencing” people by telling them - to which I’ve told her many times to not be silly, friends are there to listen -” You are just as worthy of my time as she was of yours. I’ve never seen your face, but I consider you a friend nonetheless, and I’d be awfully, awfully upset if you hurt yourself.

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AFG, how hard for you.

First of all, you’re not completely alone. You have a whole lotta Dopers who admire and respect you and long for more silly toons. Yes, we’re greedy.

Both you and your husband have obviously been under a lot of stress. He said some things that he might have meant, or he might not have meant. He might not even know if he meant them or not.

I wish you well.

9

The ground is shifting under you, but put on your heavy shoes and hang on tight. You can do this.

I’m not very good at hugs or saying the right thing, but I’ve been known to have a logical and rational ear and a pretty absorbant shoulder. E-mail is in the profile and I’m a perpetual insomniac.

10

Is there any way you could go stay with your mom? Or she with you?

11

I’m not psychic, but I’m absolutely certain that hubby will come back and all will be well. It sounds like you have a good marriage, and good marriages don’t break up over small stuff like this. Everyone was under a LOT of stress, and hubby exploded. He probably really needed to. Right now he’s probably starting to feel pretty foolish and trying to figure out how to come back home without feeling like a total fool.
Do something to take your mind off your hyped-up emotions: read a book, watch a movie, make a dream catcher – and be ready to welcome hubby home with wide open forgiving arms when he comes back.

12

Bullshit. It’s selfish if you don’t reach out. There are tons of people here who think the world of you. It may not mean anything to you right now, but you’re an incredible person. I’m quite smart, so you must take my word for that. :wink:

Email me if you’d like, or any of the other people who’ve posted here. I mean that, sincerely. It isn’t an empty offer, and I want you to take me up on it. All of us want you to get through this. Hopefully, you’ll be able to look back at this hiccup with Mr. AFG and laugh.

I don’t know if this helps, but my parents have been married nearly forty years. Some good, some bad. My mom told me that, about a year ago, she and dad got in the worst fight of their marriage and, for the first time ever, he walked out on her. Just took his car keys and left. She went on with her life: finished her homework, made dinner, read a book, went to bed.[sup]1[/sup] When she came home from work the following day, he was there. He made dinner**[sup]2**[/sup], brought her flowers, and he apologized for running out. He’d just gotten in the car and driven until he was tired, then found a motel. The next day, he came back – after all, he said, where else would he go, after thirty-something years with her?

This is more than likely just a hiccup. Don’t do anything foolish; email one of us, send us your phone number. I’m a million miles away from you, or I’d go get you right now. Just hang in there. This will get better. Do you have any therapeutic chocolate?

[sup]1[/sup] I guess it’s a hallmark of a long-term marriage like that; she said she knew he’d come back eventually – where else would he go?
[sup]2[/sup] Steak. No sides, no salad, no bread. Just steak. But he did set the table.

13

Oh picunurse, I’m so sorry…what an awful thing.

I think I’d be too chicken to do myself in…also I really don’t want to hurt my parents.
But it’s the loneliness, the threat of losing the person I want to grow old with, that terrifies me. If I was alone I think I’d totally and completely lose my mind.
I just want him back…that’s all I want. I want to make everything better, I want him to hug me. …am I selfish like he said? My mom said wanting some privacy is not selfish, especially since H was with us every day for a month. But Mr. AFG said I should be thinking only of H, not myself, because she’s having a really hard time.
I do feel like a bad person for that.

14

I’m a little too choked up right now to type much, but I echo the sentiments expressed by so many others.

{{{AFG}}}

Bo

15

There, there, AFG. Stress tends to make people explode and do stupid things. Let him stay with his mom for a while, if he needs to. Please don’t do anything rash. Just stay calm and take care of yourself. And know that there’s a fat chick in Alabama who wishes she were closer so you’d have someone to talk to. Be strong.

16

You weren’t being selfish, at least not in any morally deficit fashion. You can’t change your own need for privacy, and not recognising it would just lead to more problems in the end. The thing some people need to realise about altruism is that even if you hold that everyone else’s needs are more important than your own, you need to tend you yours first in order to be able to tend to theirs effectively. Sure, it’s good to be able to give support to your friends, but I’ve been there and I know I certainly can’t be of any help to anyone else if I’m not feeling right myself.

That said - more hugs. {{{AFG}}} We can always do with more hugs. I hope everything works out okay.

17

Well, I have seen Amazon Floozy Goddess’s face – granted, only in a photo – but the rest of what WhyNot said in this sentence is true for me as well. And, as jsgoddess so aptly mentioned, AFG’s creativity and sense of humor have made this thread one of the all-time highlights of the SDMB.

I’ve been involved with my sweetie for about four and a half years now, and there’ve been a couple of times when I became frustrated and wondered if the relationship was worth continuing. However, I came to my senses on both occasions, and realized that I’m more “complete” and happy now than I could ever be if Long Time First Time and I were to go our separate ways. I hope you get your husband back, AFG, and I hope he realizes that he wants to hug you just as much as you long to hug him again.

18

Hang in there, AFG. It really does sound like a stress blow-up. He’s probably just as afraid of losing you as you are of losing him.

Add me to the list of “email if you want to talk.”

19

AFG, does asking a friend to stay with you for as long as she needs to in your small apartment and only bringing up the idea of when she might leave after a month sound like something a selfish person would do? Nooooo no no.
If it were a month and a bit from now and I were in Ontario, I would totally drive over and bring hugs and ice cream.

… if I had a car, which I won’t. And if you didn’t live in some ridiculously remote location in Ontario, which you might.

I am worriedly peering at your name on my ICQ list right now - I went and found the password to that account just for you. So you know I MUST be willing to talk. :wink:

20

Thanks so much all, for the kind words. It’s helping me to read them.

Cuddle-time with my rats is at an all time high right now. They are perpetually happy creatures and they always manage to do something to make me laugh…I’m glad I have them around.