Hey Frank - I think I get you. I think I'm a lot like you. As I said before we've been around here for about the same amount of time - only difference is I've had an extra 2 or 3 years living without my ex.
I had the devils own job detaching. It took years. In the end I accepted a job in a remote Aboriginal Community in the outback, 3000km away from home and lived as the only non-indigenous person in a 4th world cross-cultural economy for 18 months. I was 400km by dirt road from the nearest regional town and 1500km from the nearest reasonable coffee. No cell-phone coverage, limited satellite cover and a completely dry (no alcohol)area - so there was no risk of drinking and dialing!! As a form of detaching - self imposed exile is right up there!!!
The point I'm making (in my favourite it's all-about-me style) is that regardless of how much you know you have to "detach" it's hard, and it doesn't happen by osmosis. We have to make it happen.
I also know that it's terrifying to detach - sometimes the "attachment" we have to that old marriage feels like the only thing we've got left.
I'm here to tell you - as terrifying as it is, when you walk through it and start to come out the other side - you wonder why it took so long. Reawakening from years of sadness and grief is the most amazing feeling you can imagine ... and it's within grasp for you my friend.
Come on through to this side of the pain. Accept the gap in your life left by your wife. Start to fill that gap with new life (I'm told there are less extreme ways to do it than exiling yourself from everything and everyone and I'm sure you're the man to find them).
One day you wake up and the huge gaping hole you thought there was in your life is a thin line of light reminding you that the difficulties of these years has made you into the man you are ... and you wouldn't have it any other way.
V
Never make someone a priority, who makes you an option.
