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Grief and anger- finding out about cheating and other thingsafter his death


Salina

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I know this long but ive been finding it hard to get all of this off my chest its been a rough day.My boyfriend of 10 years died from liver failure just 4 weeks ago at the age of 35(i am 29). We had no idea how sick he was til he turned yellow he only lived 6 more days after arriving at the hospital most of that was in a coma. i stayed in contact with an uncle he talked to all the time and let him know how he was doing. We live in Texas while his entire family lives on the west coast. He had spent several of the 10 years helping out his family so we were long distance off and on till 2 years ago when he moved in with me. Shortly after he moved in he told me his dad died and i grieved with him but unfortunately we were unable to get there for a funeral of his dad as i was the only one working and we were barely getting by. Flash forward to day 2 at the hospital I found out his dad is very much alive and was making the medical decisions which was how it was until the day for before he passed away when he told the hospital that i can will make the final decision about his care. I was absolutely devastated but knew we would make him as comfortable as we could. 4 days after his death i was looking though emails for a form from his job that had information i needed for funeral home while going through i found emails telling some woman in the Philippines he loved her and times that they planned to talk on the phone. These messages started 6 days after my birthday in Sept. last year and went until February of this year. I was so furious i drove to work and vented to my best friend/boss about it. I decided the only way to get past it was to forgive. Now 2 weeks after his death his family finally got in touch with the funeral home by this point they had named me the one to sign documents because they could not get ahold of anyone else during that time. For the first time i spoke with his sister, who is on drugs half the time, for 30 minutes and she yelled at me saying i shouldnt be making the decisions because thats her brother and i had no rights basically even though the hospital in the end and the funeral home saw us as commonlaw i wasnt asking for any money and was willingly to pay for his entire cremation since he had no life insurance. I did not speak with her again after that night. I did however get a message from her and another woman. His sister told me i was a bad person and she couldnt forgive me for taking her brother and the whole family hates me. The other message was from a woman who says she had been with him 14 years they apparently broke up before he moved with me. She also told me i was the 3rd girl she had found out that he cheated with and i would need to give her back his 3 year old dog and had no right to say i was his commanlaw wife. This all happened last week right before Independence Day. With all of the going on my anger just keeps growing and it makes it hard to full grieve and honor his memory. I feel like im in a constant state of anxiety and haven't cried much the last 4 weeks which is very unlike me as i am an emotional person. I havent answered either of those messages nor have i actually spoken with his dad still. I love him dearly and i know i need to forgive him because he is gone but i dont know how i can. I don't feel like i can tell my family about all this because they all loved him and i dont want that ruined.

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9 hours ago, Salina said:

I know this long but ive been finding it hard to get all of this off my chest its been a rough day.My boyfriend of 10 years died from liver failure just 4 weeks ago at the age of 35(i am 29). We had no idea how sick he was til he turned yellow he only lived 6 more days after arriving at the hospital most of that was in a coma. i stayed in contact with an uncle he talked to all the time and let him know how he was doing. We live in Texas while his entire family lives on the west coast. He had spent several of the 10 years helping out his family so we were long distance off and on till 2 years ago when he moved in with me. Shortly after he moved in he told me his dad died and i grieved with him but unfortunately we were unable to get there for a funeral of his dad as i was the only one working and we were barely getting by. Flash forward to day 2 at the hospital I found out his dad is very much alive and was making the medical decisions which was how it was until the day for before he passed away when he told the hospital that i can will make the final decision about his care. I was absolutely devastated but knew we would make him as comfortable as we could. 4 days after his death i was looking though emails for a form from his job that had information i needed for funeral home while going through i found emails telling some woman in the Philippines he loved her and times that they planned to talk on the phone. These messages started 6 days after my birthday in Sept. last year and went until February of this year. I was so furious i drove to work and vented to my best friend/boss about it. I decided the only way to get past it was to forgive. Now 2 weeks after his death his family finally got in touch with the funeral home by this point they had named me the one to sign documents because they could not get ahold of anyone else during that time. For the first time i spoke with his sister, who is on drugs half the time, for 30 minutes and she yelled at me saying i shouldnt be making the decisions because thats her brother and i had no rights basically even though the hospital in the end and the funeral home saw us as commonlaw i wasnt asking for any money and was willingly to pay for his entire cremation since he had no life insurance. I did not speak with her again after that night. I did however get a message from her and another woman. His sister told me i was a bad person and she couldnt forgive me for taking her brother and the whole family hates me. The other message was from a woman who says she had been with him 14 years they apparently broke up before he moved with me. She also told me i was the 3rd girl she had found out that he cheated with and i would need to give her back his 3 year old dog and had no right to say i was his commanlaw wife. This all happened last week right before Independence Day. With all of the going on my anger just keeps growing and it makes it hard to full grieve and honor his memory. I feel like im in a constant state of anxiety and haven't cried much the last 4 weeks which is very unlike me as i am an emotional person. I havent answered either of those messages nor have i actually spoken with his dad still. I love him dearly and i know i need to forgive him because he is gone but i dont know how i can. I don't feel like i can tell my family about all this because they all loved him and i dont want that ruined.

Wow, that is a lot for any person to take in at once!  I'm sorry you are going through this, sorry he died, sorry you're having to deal with these other issues all at once.  First off, you shouldn't have to give anyone his dog!  You were his GF ten years!  As for him "cheating with you", she'll have to take that up with HIM!  I would not even reply to her, or to his sister.  When people are grieving, they sometimes take it out on others and it seems that's what his sister is doing.  Best to distance yourself from her, you don't need that, right now especially!  Protect yourself from people who are toxic, surround yourself with supportiveness.  Do you have a good friend you can confide in?  You need someone to talk to!  If not, you have us here.

I've ran across this before, where the person died, leaving secrets behind that were discovered and their SO grappling to deal with it when they can't get answers from him because he's gone!  My husband came to me three weeks before he died and confessed he'd been using Meth.  That was hard enough to deal with but at the same time I discovered my daughter was raped when she was four, and my work computer's hard drive failed and the back ups failed to restore...I had to reenter everything for two companies for the year plus re-create data bases.  In the midst of all this he died.  With drug use comes lies/theft, and over the next year I put two and two together, one thing after another.  A year after his death I discovered he'd gone up to see his XGF behind my back, shortly after we were married...not cheating on me, but he lied to me about it and I felt angry with him about it...but couldn't talk to him about it as he was dead!  It's harder to work through when they're already gone, but it can be done.  Are you in grief counseling?  One of the things that helped me was to not see him as just one way or another but the WHOLE of the man, and to realize we are all multi-faceted.  He loved me more than anything in the world, I knew that.  He was right for me, I knew that also.  But was he perfect?  No.  But he was perfect for me.  I don't sugar-coat him or put him on a pedestal, I try to see him realistically, but all of the love that we shared, what we were to each other...that's still there.  It's been 14 years, I still love and miss him each and every day.  And I've no doubt, had he lived, we would have worked out all the hard stuff, we had a very strong relationship, but I don't kid myself, it would have been tough.

Try not to focus on his relationship with others so much as what the two of you had.  Let them deal with their own situations, they aren't yours to have to figure out or answer.  I hope that helps a bit and you can work through this with the knowledge of what you had together, intact.  Any time you want to talk, I'm here, you can message me, or if you just want to vent, we're all here, okay?

Right now I just wish we were in person so I could give you a big hug and tell you, you're going to get through this.  I don't know how, but you will, you'll figure it out, your way, your pace.

I wrote this at about ten years out, the things I found helpful, I hope something in it speaks to you now, the thing that helped me the most was taking a day at a time.  At 14 years out now, I still have to stay in today.  And there's been many benefits from that, it not only keeps my anxiety more manageable, but it helps me to notice the good that is here, today, right now, sometimes that takes some looking for, but I've learned to embrace whatever good there is, nothing too small to qualify...and that has been a life-changer for me.
 

TIPS TO MAKE YOUR WAY THROUGH GRIEF

There's no way to sum up how to go on in a simple easy answer, but I encourage you to read the other threads here, little by little you will learn how to make your way through this.  I do want to give you some pointers though, of some things I've learned on my journey.

  • Take one day at a time.  The Bible says each day has enough trouble of it's own, I've found that to be true, so don't bite off more than you can chew.  It can be challenging enough just to tackle today.  I tell myself, I only have to get through today.  Then I get up tomorrow and do it all over again.  To think about the "rest of my life" invites anxiety.
  • Don't be afraid, grief may not end but it evolves.  The intensity lessens eventually.
  • Visit your doctor.  Tell them about your loss, any troubles sleeping, suicidal thoughts, anxiety attacks.  They need to know these things in order to help you through it...this is all part of grief.
  • Suicidal thoughts are common in early grief.  If they're reoccurring, call a suicide hotline.  I felt that way early on, but then realized it wasn't that I wanted to die so much as I didn't want to go through what I'd have to face if I lived.  Back to taking a day at a time.  Suicide Hotline - Call 1-800-273-8255
  • Give yourself permission to smile.  It is not our grief that binds us to them, but our love, and that continues still.
  • Try not to isolate too much.  
  • There's a balance to reach between taking time to process our grief, and avoiding it...it's good to find that balance for yourself.  We can't keep so busy as to avoid our grief, it has a way of haunting us, finding us, and demanding we pay attention to it!  Some people set aside time every day to grieve.  I didn't have to, it searched and found me!
  • Self-care is extremely important, more so than ever.  That person that would have cared for you is gone, now you're it...learn to be your own best friend, your own advocate, practice self-care.  You'll need it more than ever.
  • Recognize that your doctor isn't trained in grief, find a professional grief counselor that is.  We need help finding ourselves through this maze of grief, knowing where to start, etc.  They have not only the knowledge, but the resources.
  • In time, consider a grief support group.  If your friends have not been through it themselves, they may not understand what you're going through, it helps to find someone somewhere who DOES "get it". 
  • Be patient, give yourself time.  There's no hurry or timetable about cleaning out belongings, etc.  They can wait, you can take a year, ten years, or never deal with it.  It's okay, it's what YOU are comfortable with that matters.  
  • Know that what we are comfortable with may change from time to time.  That first couple of years I put his pictures up, took them down, up, down, depending on whether it made me feel better or worse.  Finally, they were up to stay.
  • Consider a pet.  Not everyone is a pet fan, but I've found that my dog helps immensely.  It's someone to love, someone to come home to, someone happy to see me, someone that gives me a purpose...I have to come home and feed him.  Besides, they're known to relieve stress.  Well maybe not in the puppy stage when they're chewing up everything, but there's older ones to adopt if you don't relish that stage.
  • Make yourself get out now and then.  You may not feel interest in anything, things that interested you before seem to feel flat now.  That's normal.  Push yourself out of your comfort zone just a wee bit now and then.  Eating out alone, going to a movie alone or church alone, all of these things are hard to do at first.  You may feel you flunked at it, cried throughout, that's okay, you did it, you tried, and eventually you get a little better at it.  If I waited until I had someone to do things with I'd be stuck at home a lot.
  • Keep coming here.  We've been through it and we're all going through this together.
  • Look for joy in every day.  It will be hard to find at first, but in practicing this, it will change your focus so you can embrace what IS rather than merely focusing on what ISN'T.  It teaches you to live in the present and appreciate fully.  You have lost your big joy in life, and all other small joys may seem insignificant in comparison, but rather than compare what used to be to what is, learn the ability to appreciate each and every small thing that comes your way...a rainbow, a phone call from a friend, unexpected money, a stranger smiling at you, whatever the small joy, embrace it.  It's an art that takes practice and is life changing if you continue it.
  • Eventually consider volunteering.  It helps us when we're outward focused, it's a win/win.

(((hugs))) Praying for you today.

 

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Salina
I want to say I'm very sad for you.My heart is with you.
Kayc said everything perfectly and there is no way I can add to that.
Thanks Kayc you said that beautifully.

Sent from my LG-TP260 using Grieving.com mobile app

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Hi Salina , 

 I am from Tx originally but have lived on the west coast for a very long time. I am going ( and have been going  through the last 18 months ) through some of the same things as you are . My husband had a very difficult time leaving his home and in death it caused a lot of problems and alot of extra grief .  Alot .

 His mom and sister and most of his old friends do not recognize our marriage because he was MtF transgender and were not on good terms with them at the time of his/her death due to their dislike of me . I am still not even sure what happened to him because they say it is none of my business ( he died at his moms house ) . 

 The last 10 years of our life has just been erased / it never happened /who are you / go away now . So yeah I totally get where you are coming from there . His sister and he were on such terrible terms that we never saw her once during the 10 years we were together  but as some here already know , they have tried to even ban me from his public gravesite in a public cemetery . Which is just outrageous .

 It IS very hard and it makes grieving very hard too . These guys are sometimes very complicated . Very . We are all very complicated . 

I found off and on over the years where he'd made a profile on a couple of site looking for Russian women as a man  . His mom encouraged this as for various reasons this would have worked out for her too and he would have had to live as a man again- and my Kat would never do that again  .  After talking with KayC here and looking everywhere for further evidence I decided there really was nothing but a profile, some general comments he made on a forum , and that publicly , all over social media and to our friends that I really was the love of his life - and he mine. DO forgive , you know what you two had . You were with him in those final hours just like I had to be over the phone , the last thing he said to me was I love you and I believe it . I have to hang on to that .  I struggle everyday with the relationships he had with is family - not thinking about it is still very hard . Time will help you alot . I am going to start grief counseling very soon for all these complications that have arisen . It IS hard to discuss these things when they are gone . You have my utmost sympathies  in this . It was actually bothering me alot today . You don't have to have any discussion with these women at all . just don't even engage .

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I know that finding out lies and stuffs after a partner/spouse is really hard, especially when there's already enough to deal with the heartbreak, there's more anger and feeling of being betrayed to deal with. 

I also found out some lies that my boyfriend left behind after he died, although it's nothing compared to what you are facing on another hand I cannot understand why would he tell such silly lies, but I felt very hurt for quite long time. (well, long, I mean weeks) however when I confided here, I found out that this seems to be a recurring theme too of grieving spouses /partners. 

That made me think, we all keep something not known by others, these things however silly they are would float up when one dies, and we rarely thought of that. One of the reasons I felt so hurt was that I suddenly felt like I didn't know my boyfriend all that well, but maybe there really wasn't enough time for me to know him as a whole. 

At the end I could just consider if I can accept him as a whole, him being dead or not, so I guess I would have to forgive or at least put it aside. After all he's not here to take care of this emotional consequence that is his fault, I don't want to let myself suffer from it because it's not my fault. My way of thought is, when we met again he'll have to take care of it and make it up, for now I just decided that I won't punish myself for something not my own fault. 

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@Salina  I am so sorry you find yourself here.  What a horribly painful experience you have been and are going through.  I want to make sure you know that in coming here, you have found a kind and caring community of people who "get it" in ways no one else can. No one will judge or admonish you or your love.  We are here to listen and help where we can.

I can only imagine how angry you must be.  You have every right to be.  Please, I urge you to let it out!  In the privacy of your home, yell at him; tell him how hurt and angry you are; ask him how he could do these things; and say anything else that let's you express your emotions.  That you are angry and that you yell at him in no way diminishes the love you share.

In my case, I have to watch myself from turning my husband into some sort of mythic hero.  He was a good man, the best I've ever known, but he was not perfect.  None of us can make a claim to perfection.  What you are facing now is the discovery that the man you love was more imperfect than you realized.  And I have no doubt it is devastating.  Please keep in mind that none of his faults are a reflection on you.  His sister, family, and this other woman are wrong and cruel. 

I want to ask you to find out about Common Law Marriage in Texas.  I know it's fairly straight-forward, but have no idea what legalities are involved (time living together, formal declarations, etc.)  It's entirely possible that you do have a common law marriage but again, I am not a lawyer and have absolutely zero experience with the subject.  But it could be important because common law marriage gives you rights that his family cannot take away.

Please come here to cry, to question, to rant, and just anything that feels right to you.  We will be here for you.

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8 hours ago, chincube said:

At the end I could just consider if I can accept him as a whole, him being dead or not, so I guess I would have to forgive or at least put it aside. After all he's not here to take care of this emotional consequence that is his fault, I don't want to let myself suffer from it because it's not my fault. My way of thought is, when we met again he'll have to take care of it and make it up, for now I just decided that I won't punish myself for something not my own fault. 

What a healthy way of dealing with it!  

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I have to say I'm sorry for everything I you are going through. But this also hit home for me. I haven't even started to tell my feelings and issues after my boyfriend passing. It's so bad until I'm just focused on getting past the first problem. His murder. But I pray you find peace and you will here alot of don't focus on the women just think of good times. And I can truly say that's easier said then done when it's in ur face. B back

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How are you doing? Reading your post again and I can relate to the anger you're feeling. You're being bombarded with some much drama and toxic people. And of course angry with his past. It's a very thin line which you're being pulled towards trying to grieve him with the life and love he gave you, and also keeping a cool head with other BS going on. 

My advice is to focus solely on your relationship with him. He was with you, living with you. The women don't matter. Love him no less then before and cherish those moments you had together. I hope your feeling better today and a clearer outlook then prior to the last post you made. 

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She hasn't been back since the day she posted.  I've tried messaging her a couple of times with no response so not sure she set it up to get notifications...I'm afraid to try again for fear she'll think I'm a stalker!  I do wish she'd check in, I think it'd be comforting to know people care.

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