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The Surviving Divorce Podcast is a place for you to find hope and healing during and after separation or divorce.
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I discovered your podcast a few months ago & found it as helpful & in some ways, more helpful than the 3 therapists/psychologists I’ve been seeing for over a year, both with & without my soon-to-be ex-husband. In our case, he was a secret alcoholic and womanizer, facilitated greatly by his profession as a traveling salesman, which took him to his sales territory away from home 2-4 nights/week for 30 years. We will have our 37th wedding anniversary this summer, and have been together 40 years this May. With the help of my psychologists, I’ve discovered my husband was a narcissistic womanizer, addicted to alcohol. A terrible combination. The narcissistic side was evil, in the sense that he played the perfect husband to perfection for all of those years. I put my complete trust in him, & when his alcoholism could no longer be hidden, which came to light when I had to call 911 Memorial Day weekend 2015, over the next year, I slowly learned of a lot of things about my most trusted friend that blew me away. This element of betrayed trust over the course of a 40 year relationship, which was seemingly a wonderful marriage by all who knew us, including me, seems to be the most damaging part of my trauma. I’ve been forced to re-remember our marriage knowing now what I didn’t know then. Well, it has been awful. Listening to this podcast, you only briefly touched on the possibility that I was blindsided, but most of it was spent on talking about the children (very important) & also if we knew our spouse was addicted, why did we choose to stay. In my case, he was a supreme actor, as I’ve learned most narcissists are, and I was that one in a million (I don’t mean to exaggerate) who was in fact, blindsided. This trauma of betrayed absolute trust is a shattering thing. I have always been a strong & smart woman, & this is simplifying things, I know, but discovering this about a 40 year relationship destroyed me. I have the support of our 2 beautiful & smart adult daughters. They, of course, do not know everything about their father, but they know some, and they are a great source of comfort to me. Thank you so much for your podcast. It is excellent. I found DivorceCare (which I didn’t know existed) immediately after you mentioned it, & I just want to thank you for it. I have recommended it to my psychologist & at many DivorceCare meetings.