Kingdom of Knuffel

I'm awfully sorry to hear that... is there no way to get a place of your own, to move away and create some distance between you and everything that keeps you weighing down like a block of cement in that house?

Hmmyeah, we just have to keep trying right, who knows what the future holds for us :)

i'm financially stuck here right now because my current job doesn't pay me enough to move out. since i am job searching though, i might be able to land a job that pays me enough to live independently. if i am offered the bookstore job again i'd be able to be independent too!

yeah. we just have to hope that good things might happen.

Than let us hope for your independence. Just read through it all since my last post.

Woke up this morning thinking it would be a good productive day, instead my best friend came over for our Monday lunch walk and calmly informed me that she and her partner of almost 17 years are divorcing.
If there was ever a couple in my life that I thought would be the annoying old people together in nursing care it would have been them. Except he was apparently no longer feeling it.
She told me not to think too much about it, so it was all I have been thinking about today. :}

17 years is a long time. how is he not deeply attached to someone who was his partner for that long? how is she not super important to him? how does he not value their relationship anymore? and i don't mean this in a sunk cost fallacy way. i mean that the friends i have had for that long are people i could never imagine my life without. so i can't imagine someone having a life partner for that long, being happy with them, and then just losing interest.

Dream-Baby wrote: She told me not to think too much about it, so it was all I have been thinking about today. :}

oh dear, i feel you. it's shocking, it affects someone you care about, and it reinforces one's cynicism. perfect for the brain to obsess over.

Dream-Baby wrote:Than let us hope for your independence. Just read through it all since my last post.

thank you so much for the good wishes!

i hope it goes as well as possible for your best friend... or as well as can be hoped. i wish for her to be happier after this.

That is another thing; they have 2 kids aged 9 and 7, they lived in their home for almost 8 years, he has made tons of friends being more social than my friend. And his reason to end it and move away to where he grew up is that he has zero deep attached relationships here.
I could tell this hurt my friend deeply, as it basically told her that nothing they build up here was more important than whatever he thinks he can find in the town he grew up.

At least they are doing their best keep it civil and avoid a fight-divorce.

Your feelings are the same as mine. I could not and do not want to think about losing those that mean the most to me. And having it happen by them telling me I mean nothing. I'd break. :}

this is heartbreaking all around. i wonder what a deep attachment even means to him because i cannot understand.

and you don't mean anything to someone that means so much to you, that destabilises your life, your identity, everything.

sometimes i wish humans weren't social creatures

True, our need to be in masses has cost/caused more than is good for this world.
Right now I'm going to concentrate on being a good friend to her, and not mess up my own life while doing so. :}

Dream-Baby wrote: ↑Mar 15th, '23, 21:53 Right now I'm going to concentrate on being a good friend to her, and not mess up my own life while doing so. :}

good caring for her while also caring for yourself is the way to go.

Mynah wrote: ↑Mar 14th, '23, 07:15 17 years is a long time. how is he not deeply attached to someone who was his partner for that long? how is she not super important to him? how does he not value their relationship anymore? and i don't mean this in a sunk cost fallacy way. i mean that the friends i have had for that long are people i could never imagine my life without. so i can't imagine someone having a life partner for that long, being happy with them, and then just losing interest.

I'm not sure that's entirely fair, you don't know his side of the story. Leaving someone does not necessarily mean you don't care about them, especially after such a long time. When you're in a relationship you're both still seperate humans who grow, evolve, change. Sometimes you change in different directions and just... no longer match. That's something you have zero control over. When that happens you have two choices: pretend everything is okay and live the rest of your life being unhappy, which is bound to reflect in your spouse and kids as well, making all of you unhappy in the long run. Or face that it happened, hurt big time for a while, but set everyone free to live their lives eventually, hopefully staying friends in the process. It may not have been an easy choice for him either, after such a long time it probably wasn't at all, but it's possible this actually is his way of showing he cares.

And as someone who has a lot of trouble finding the right words at the right time themselves, I think putting it as "she means nothing to him" may be a bit black and white

That being said, I don't know him so he might as well be a giant dick. Either way it sucks.

I get where you are coming from. I can only relay what I got from my best friend, who is not known to embellish her stories, but who knows what his side of the story is. Not me, he and I never got close enough to be more than acquaintances.
All I know is that when he did say that; my friend did take it as her not meaning anything to him, period. But, yes, those are my friends feelings. Which are also valid. :}