What was it all for, Divorced in my 50s after living a life for everyone else"
I worked long hours for years. Kept a roof over everyone's head, never missed a payment, did what a husband and father is supposed to do. Then the marriage ended anyway.
For a long time I kept asking myself what it was all for. I'd done everything I thought I was supposed to do and it still wasn't enough. There's a specific kind of quiet that comes with that not dramatic, nobody's calling a helpline, just sitting there most nights wondering who you actually are underneath the roles you've been playing.
I'm on the other side of that now, not because someone fixed me, but because I had something real I worked hard on to bring me to a place I am at now. I don't really have the words for how much it's changed things.
Now I spend a lot of time here reading and talking to men going through the same thing, because I remember what it was like to have nobody who really got it.
If any of that sounds familiar the "what was it all for," the not knowing who you are without the roles, I'd genuinely like to hear how you're finding your way through it.