Tom, I'd like to introduce myself.
I have read all your threads over the last few weeks, but was not in a place where I could respond, because of my own difficulties. This is the place I come to read about other people's experiences, because they illuminate my own and have guided my own path. I previously posted about my H's affair under another name, but no matter; I had read enough and listened enough to take the advice of others, as these situations are - sadly - universal.
What is prompting me to post is that I identify with your 'bundle up a mountain' analogy. After twenty years and four children together, I felt - as I would feel about most other people that fail in life - that H had lost his way and needed a rescue mission. I was not necessarily saying that I was the St Bernard dog with the brandy flask, but I wanted to hear everything, own the knowledge, and equip myself with the facts.
Since I asked H to leave last November (ie threw him out, after a rogue email revealed an affair that had been going on for months, despite counselling), I have listened, listened, listened. And talked some. And listened more.
Through all my pain and burden, I listened. I was waiting for the truth. I was waiting for The Reason. Or Reasons. I was waiting for the confession. In fact, what I realised was that, having meticulously and excruciatingly pieced together 95% of the unforthcoming truth through online receipts, analysis of the family calendar, and other right-in-your-face resources, I was getting mealy-mouthed utterances that added nothing except sourness and disappointment to my already-shit life. But I didn't want to shut off H without a chance to say something - anything - the one thing - that might indicate he could change.
Well, what a waste. It is ME that needs the rescue mission. I need to not be sitting at the back door smoking and drinking Rioja and dragging myself bleary-eyed out of bed when the youngest ones bounce in. I have not been looking after me. In truth, I find it harder to look after myself than I do to look after lovely, lively, bouncy kids (all under 8.5), an elderly mother, a broken and upset mother-in-law, and a pathetic, flawed exH.
Please, look after yourself, and show me how to do it too. You sound like someone who has clarity of mind; I thought i had it, but I do not have clarity of action. I fear I have broken the Mumsnet rule of 'projecting', but if there is any affinity in what I say, please grab on to it and let me know. Who knows: I could save you a few months of 'listening' and you could show me the way out.
I wish you the very very best.