SadHeart

So basically you replaced him first and told him first that the marriage was over. So he took you at your word and filed for divorce and found someone else.

It sounds like if it weren't for your hurt ego at being replaced so quickly, you'd actually feel better off without him. Focus more on the positives of having him out of your life (a nice person you are now spending time with; better sleep, calmer life) and try not to think of the negatives (you've been so quickly replaced, etc...). The more you look at the positives, the better you will feel--and the positives will be yours and be real, unlike his negatives (you've been replaced by someone who doesn't make me drink and with whom I want to spend time with) which are iffy at best and most likely nothing more than jabs to hurt you.

If you focus on the positives, you are in control. If you focus on the negatives, he's in control. Just something to think about.

What did you really expect? You told him you found someone else and could not be with him if he drank. He had no intention of not drinking; there was no point in consultation or conversation.

I know the speed with which he found someone else and the age of the woman bothers you--but these are ego things and not important. There is NO WAY he's going to be with this woman 26 years from now. And she's wasting her youth on him. Really try not to mind, they don't have a relationship of any meaning. They are just two people exploiting one another.

One thing you might look at--and I'm not saying you did--but if you told him about someone else in your life and you can't stay with him if he drinks as a challenge and an ultimatum with the expectation that this info would 'jolt' him out of his bad behavior. It would be natural to try this when you are coming the desperate end of a relationship, but most of the time this sort of thing backfires.

This is not to blame; but to look a little deeper at yourself. Maybe the layer under the superficial ego hurt was you trying to find a way out of the marriage that was so hurtful, without having to actually play the 'bad guy'.

I did something similar: I was desperate to get out of my marriage, but just couldn't seem to up and go. Then he had an affair and yes, I was so out of there. Not saying you did this, but I wonder if maybe you forced the issue with an ultimatum because you didn't know how to fix the marriage otherwise, and couldn't face going from your relatively pleasant life overseas back to the hell that was your life with your husband.

In other words, maybe some of your hurt is a feeling of powerlessness, but in reality if you look more more closely, you might feel better if you recognize you had more control over the break up than it looks on the surface. Not saying this is the case, just offering a suggestion that might make you see how you aren't and haven't been as powerless as you feel right now.

After 26 years of marriage, your lives are of course entwined, and that doesn't untangle overnight. Even if the entanglement is unhealthy, the separating still is strange and sometimes hurtful. Bad habits need to be replaced with healthy ones and maybe you are just in limbo between the old sick life and a new healthy happy one. You abruptly stopped the toxic tango, and now need to learn the beautiful walz.

It may be in hindsight, you might realize that this abrupt 'cut off' is actually the best gift he could have given you: the surgery that cut out the tumor, the quick rip bandaid.

It sounds like you envisioned a different reaction to your announcement of another man and your unwillingness to continue in your marriage as it was. You might have expected him to fight for you, cry, negotiate, try to win you back---and he chose to take you at your word and give you what you overtly asked for. Your shocked that your expectation wasn't met, but just the same you got what you wanted--out of a marriage with a man who hurt you and wouldn't stop drinking.

That he finds it necessary to make such a point of cutting you off, finding a replacement so quickly, touting her superiority, rubbing your nose in the fact that he treats her better all indicate that he is hurt and angry. He's hiding his hurt at your rejection of him behind her.

He says, he says, he says.... you are talking too much to him and listening to things that are designed to hurt you. You might want to consider cutting off his insult-pipeline by not communicating with him.

He WILL make sure he spends time with her; he WILL take trips together...all things that will happen in the future, if he has money (not usually abundant during divorces), and if he has time, and if he makes the arrangements, and if you are paying attention enough so that it's worth his while to actually do these things. Would he really take her on a trip if you don't know about it or aren't hurt by it.

And what's to stop you from taking your own trips?

Please don't compare a 26 year marriage to a 3 month relationship. Believe me, in 26 years if he's still with her (and he won't be), her marriage with him will be worse than your marriage with him.

So what if he does go on to live a second perfect marriage? What's to stop you from going on to have your own perfect second marriage?

(and he's not going to have a perfect marriage with her or anyone as long as he's drinking and abusive).

Also reconsider your characterization of your marital break up as him having dumped you. It sounds like you dumped him: you left (for whatever reason), you started another relationship, you decided you couldn't go back to the marriage as it was. That sounds like you dumped him. If you reframe it that way, perhaps you won't feel so rejected.

In any case, I'm glad you are going to Al-Anon, they are very good at helping people focus on their own new lives and focus less or not at all on the lives of the alcoholic whose moving into oblivion. Good, good things are ahead for you. You just have to visualize and believe it. Good luck to you!