Hmm, I still feel very hurt but it's now more than 3 years since he went, and I'm too busy to dwell on it too much. I feel as though a part of me has gone and I can't get it back...but the first few days when he went, were awful, awful, awful - I felt blank and empty and nothing.
I remember leaving Ds (then 18 months old) with my mother, walking to a bench in the middle of a field, in the drizzle, and just tears pouring down my face. I wanted to die and didn't see how I could ever live without him.
Perhaps that indicated an unhealthy attachment on my part, to someone who in reality was not good for me (it was what he could have been, I suppose - and was sometimes) but nevertheless it was very strong. I cried in the street many times, or stopped as I was hit by an overwhelming grief, and had to pull myself together and keep walking to get home with Ds.
I have since had another child, am no longer with the father, and am so busy that it has turned into a memory rather than an actuality iyswim. It's kind of at the back of my mind. Ex is now remarried.
I went to see him last December and was glad that I no longer cared what he thought of my clothes, hair etc. Priorities have changed. He hasn't changed - well he seems smaller, weaker, pale - he's haunted by all sorts of things I think. (It was complicated)
Anyway yes, it gets easier My dear. Just allow time. Somehow you do carry on.