Don't apologize for your feelings; they are yours, and no one can deny them or criticize you for feeling them. The danger comes in not recognizing them, but you don't seem to have a problem with that. Many people do, so this is actually good for you. It doesn't feel like it, but it is. Time may help you see this. One of the best part of Susan Anderson's work is in mapping out the stages of abandonment, and noting that we cycle back and forth into various stages. It's not a linear process of detachment. More like a cyclone that eventually burns itself down, or out. I find one of her key points to come late in the book when she describes lifting WITH your feelings of pain. We learn to heal and acknowledge the pain at the same time. The alternative, of trying to move on without feeling the hurt, only sets us up for failure in future relationships.
Take this one step at a time. What you are describing sounds very typical. I know that doesn't make your life easier right now, but you seem to be showing common signs of abandonment grief. There is a way through this if you are willing to be patient and do the work on yourself. Right now, you need to take care of yourself both in terms of immediate, day-to-day things like diet, exercise, GAL, etc. but also continue to work on the deeper stuff that Anderson and others suggest needs to happen.
Your W sounds so much like mine. I too don't know what to do with her, except to live my life for me as if she's not coming back. That's hard, but right now it feels like the only way to live. As so many on these boards have noted, we grow when we learn the lessons we need to learn. It's easy to run from them, but try to see this as an opportunity. That's a bit of a cliche, I know, but I feel it's really true. We all have work to do.
I just finished a book by James Hollis, who wrote that one of the best things we can give another person is to work on our own issues. He has this powerful passage where he describes how when we got married each of us was "surrounded" by the issues from our past. Imagine them as clouds, or demons, or whatever image comes to mind, swirling about you and your wife's bodies as you stood at the altar. Neither bride nor groom was probably very aware of them, but they were there. Those clouds then came into the relationship. Growth/freedom, and a better relationship (either with the current spouse or someone else) will come only when we see the demons and work to minimize their impact on our lives. Hard, but necessary.
I also like a bit more upbeat message I read recently online, which talked about how we usually do the best we can with the knowledge we have at the time. Most of us, myself included, simply didn't know another way. No one showed us, or we didn't bother to learn ourselves. So we repeat patterns unconsciously . The key is to become more self-aware, and to learn some of the skills needed to make for a healthy relationship. Forgive her, and forgive yourself.
That takes two, and it sounds like your W isn't there. She sounds confused about you, your relationship, and herself. You can't help her out of that fog. She has to come through it herself, if she ever does. Your choice is how long you are willing to wait around to see if she does come through. Of course, she may walk out before even making the effort. Do you really want to be with that type of person? I know that's a blunt question, one I still have a hard time dealing with. I know the type of person I want and need to be with, and in many ways my W was/is not that person.
Still, the pull of history pulls us back, or makes it hard to walk away, doesn't it? It's as if part of me knows it's time to move on and take what I've learned in search of a better relationship, yet part of me still holds out some hope (naive?) that the old relationship can be transformed. I see transformation in myself, and read a million stories about transformed marriages, and want to believe it's possible with us. But I also know that many situations don't end that happily. Our wives are on their own journeys, and we must continue on ours.
