DEAR ABBY:
I am a 59-year-old man. My 50-year-old fiancee lives in a nice home, but after a 15-year loving relationship, she decided last week to be with someone else. She had recently lost a great deal of weight, bought a new car and started to do things I felt were not age-appropriate — although I never said anything adverse about them.
She’s now staying in a weekly rental motel room with him. It leads me to believe they both left relationships and had nowhere else to go. She didn’t give me a chance to fight for us or even a heads-up that she was unhappy. One afternoon when I got home from work, I found a note from her saying she was sorry for not being able to tell me in person, but she was doing this for herself.
I have always been an honorable person in any relationship I have had. This is hard for me to understand and move on from. I have never been this hurt and emotionally drained. She will not communicate with me verbally, only through emails and texts. I feel desperate and lost. Please give me any encouragement that there is light somewhere at the end of the tunnel.
I’m close to my sister and happy to have her near me, but I’m not sure how to handle the situation with her spouse. I try to minimize my time with him and ignore him when he speaks, however difficult it may be. My husband no longer wants anything to do with him, and I can’t say I blame him. But I don’t want to cause a rift between my sister and me. Advice? —There are two ways to handle this.
Better than a text!