My late wh also did the same thing to me, always wanting to buy me things to make up for his poor choices of chasing after other women, and having affairs with them. Drinking all of the time, and staying away from home just so that he could live his double life.
I'm also 62 years old and have been alone for over 4 years now since his death.
One thing for sure is that I have a lot of peace now and not so much worry anymore. When he was alive, our lives were in constant chaos, and I was always upset, confused and crying all of the time. Because of him!
And it's good to always remember the truth of who they really are (were in my case), and to not resort to some fantasy who we want them to be in our minds. And if this is the case for you, then you are not seeing him clearly for who he is. And this isn't love.
I can now clearly look back at our lives together and see how wrong our marriage was. I very rarely catch myself making him out to be a saint that I portrayed him to be and he portrayed to the others.
I don't miss the chaos or disruption he caused me but I sure do miss the companionship and our dreams of traveling. We had just ordered our 5th wheel and 6 months later he was gone.
But I know it would have been hellish traveling all over the U.S. with him because he went back to drinking and he never changed or even admitted to the truth anyways. Except for saying that he only had one affair which was so untrue. Try like at least 10 affairs, or maybe even more. He was a liar and our marriage was a lie.
And now I'm pretty sure that our time together on the road would have been about the booze and him seeking out and flirting with other women (and probably seeking out other women to sleep with), and not caring if he hurt my feelings.
And sure, sometimes I still fall into the thought pattern, of how things were "supposed" to be. But the truth is everything was just a dream, a myth of how I thought our friendship and marriage and companionship should look like. But reality was my late wh was a cheating, lieing, drunk who would buy me things to placate me into submission and accepting his lies.
Good times or memories don't make up for what he did to me, and put me through. Not even forgiveness is on the table, nor will ever be. Acceptance is but not forgiveness, because he knew what he was doing over and over again for 34 plus years. Changed me forever.
Karma does exist but still won't bring back those precious years lost to someone unworthy of my love. Just think about it. I no longer hate my late wh but I also see the truth in who he was. And it took a lot of hardships to finally get this place of acceptance in my mind and in my heart.
I feel for you. Lots of hard decisions for you to make. It's already bad enough having to babysit a manchild your wh appears to be.
[This message edited by Hurtmyheart at 9:50 AM, Thursday, July 18th]