A little about me, so you can choose to read or move on: I’m a gen-x female Taurus with a Pisces moon and Sagittarius rising. I am divorced and mother of a Gen-z Cancer daughter. My ex was a Virgo who passed away at Christmas.
It took me a long time to physically leave my relationship with my Virgo ex. When a Taurus is done, they are done, but for me; I left emotionally long before I was able to end material support for him (his addictions and mental problems caused by addiction). Now that my ex is gone, I am cleaning our marital home, readying it for sale. I alone am sifting through memories and tangible evidence of how a relationship disintegrated . I am considering how our relationship fell apart and how we both struggled with being unable to communicate with each other. I went quieter and quieter during our marriage. He got louder and louder. I could not be forced to put time in on our marriage when it became clear to me it was over. I became sober nine years before I was finally able to leave. The effect on our daughter was that she went further inside her shell. I sought therapy and support for myself and our daughter. I let him free fall.
I regret that I gave up on him and once that switch flipped on our relationship, there was nothing that either of us could do to bring it back. I wasn’t angry. I was vindictive. It was very important to me that things end amicably. Very important. After our divorce hearing, i took him to lunch. But in the two years after the divorce, I could not make myself even drive past our home where he chose to stay. I when it was over, it was over. Until he died by his own hand, leaving me to clean up after him again. I do the work for our daughter, who is a junior in college.
In this work, I have seen glimpses of the man I fell in love with standing right next to the adversary he became in his addiction. I have sorted his childhood photos and felt anguish that i couldn’t get past his defense. But I have not felt any remorse for our divorce. What was done was done. I don’t know if these words can truly describe how I was literally powerless to go and be done with him when my higher power helped me clear the way to a new life. And yesterday after months of working through cleaning and organizing, I donated what he left behind to community service organizations to help families, homeless female veterans, and gave his camping gear to a boy-scout group.