Like many, I have been following this post since your first one and feel your anguish through your words. The advice you have been given is magnificent and I wanted to reach out.
This happened to me 3 years ago, although with my husband, I honestly thought he was going through some kind of breakdown. He wanted some space and moved into a friend’s house for a couple of months before finding his own flat. He put the entire breakdown of our marriage on me, and like a fool, I spent months beating myself up about what a terrible person I was, and continued to pray he would come home.
It transpired, after a year, that he had been having an affair and soon after moved into his new partner’s house. It was heart-breaking when he lied to me and pretended he was taking his stuff to his new apartment.
Name, I totally get it. I was absolutely blindsided. It is so very hard to reconcile the man that you love is the same man that is destroying you. I spent hours and hours trawling on the internet for what I could do to save our marriage. divorcebusting.com was a godsend. It is full of people that are going through the same thing as you – people who want to save their marriage. In hindsight, it was futile as he had already checked out, but it has some good advice on there.
I had to take things one minute at a time. Literally. I exercised, I didn’t eat (the divorce diet is real) and I felt like I was completely out of control.
This cognitive dissonance, when you believe two things at the same time, i.e. I love my husband, he is everything to me vs. who is this new cold-hearted stranger was what I found most difficult to cope with. I too, would be defending him and his break-down, loving him, wanting beyond anything for him to still want our marriage.
I got a therapist who saved me and started on anti-depressants. I’m glad to see you are starting on these too – hopefully they will kick in soon.
3 years down the road, people are correct. I hated it when they told me, but time does help, although you don’t feel like it possibly can at the moment. I’ll be honest, the betrayal and abandonment still consume me at times, but that’s because I have to work with the ex and see his new partner when she drops off her kids. It still kills me.
I liken it to a huge hole in front of you. Every day I would fall in. And then slowly I would learn to carefully tread around the outside. The hole will always be there, but I don’t fall in so much these days.
You too, will find your step.