Going Through A Family Seperarion OTR - Coping??

As the title suggests, our/my (whatever I call it now) is separating due to irreconcilable differences. Has anyone ever gone through something like this while living an OTR lifestyle? I basically have till the end of August/beginning of September to move out completely (which I will comply with fully).

Fortunately I have a mutual family friend who is letting me move in with him and his wife so fortunately I am not homeless. But this recent turn of events has been a gut punch to an already insane year for me. I lost my mom not even a year ago and her estate is in a messy probate. There is money there it’s just waiting to get to it, plus transitioning form Oregon to FL and now culminating into this.

On my end I will own up to my angry responses to certain grievances being a cause to things ending up the way they have. There are two sides to every relationship. I am just trying to own my side of things and move forward. The biggest challenge I have is being OTR and not at home everyday (which is probably a blessing at this point) in order to take care of things (moving etc blah blah).

It’s the emotional stuff that is hard to manage out here. I really don’t want to have a lapsed moment and have an incident or something.

Anyone ever been in a spot like this and how have you coped?

I should clarify that this is the relationship between my brother and his family and I. Not a marriage.

Thanks

I think we’ve all been in your situation before, that is, dealing with a variety of and charged emotions while driving. You’ve got to be able to multi-task while performing this job. It’s not much different from being in a spot where you’re in inclement weather, driving downhill, while recognizing a challenging merge situation developing on your right while you’ve got traffic on your left… a variety of elements to deal with simultaneously, the expectation being that you’ll drive through it seamlessly because you’re a professional driver and that’s what we do. You have to compartmentalize your feelings… don’t allow them to override your behavior while driving, and work out stuff while moving down the road. You’ll learn the times that aren’t appropriate to do this… while backing, driving in city traffic, etc., but you should otherwise be able to think through your situation while driving without letting it affect your driving. It’s just one component of our OTR lifestyle. Very sorry to hear you’re going through this, good luck dealing with your brother and his family.

Sorry to hear what you’re going through.

Unfortunately I do have some life experience in this area. I was OTR when I went through my divorce several years ago. My wife at the time and I had a conversation about divorce the day before I hit the road after home time. That next week was awful. I couldn’t sleep and my mind was constantly wandering while I was on the road. I called my boss and told him I had to come off the road before I ended up zoning out and hurting someone and he found me a local position by the end of the week. Working local was a life saver for me while I was going through that. I truly don’t think I was in the right frame of mind to be on the road.

Another situation, one I’m not proud of, involved another relationship years later. It was another breakup and it hit me hard because there were children involved. Instead of taking off or dealing with my problems appropriately, I threw myself into work HARD. Without going into detail, I ended up making a pretty big mistake on the road that led to me being fired. I don’t blame my situation but I do blame myself for not dealing with my problems the way I should’ve.

Mental health on the road is important. If you can’t compartmentalize then you might want to take a couple weeks off and deal with things at home and see if that helps.

Sorry for the difficult situation, Moe. Driving can be tough on relationships, no doubt.

My mantra for difficult times and situations is the old cliche “This too will pass”. Older people usually understand the meaning of that more so than young people. In all probability, the negative thoughts and emotions that you are dealing with will be much easier to manage in 6 months or a year from now.

I have friends, a man and wife, who lost their son by suicide some years ago. I’ll never forget a conversation we had several years after the suicide. I asked them how they coped with the loss of their son. Larry said that they will never get over it, but what happens is that, with the passage of time, they have learned how to manage their grief. It’s like a wound that heals but leaves a permanent scar. We all have scars, both physical and emotional.

Hang in there, man, and let the passage of time do it’s work.

I feel for you. Hang in there. I've gone to a therapist at times like that, and found some helpful tools. I also took some time off when I was going through it, I started to get sideways a bit at work and taking a break helped alleviate that.