Heartbroken and needing help!

[irishblessings]

I promise I am absolutely listening to ALL of you - and so, so grateful. I feel completely alone and I am struggling so much to try and put my "game face" on to get through work or to be strong for my kids. I feel like I am a foreign land! I will sit in some restaurant or park and all I see are married couples! It breaks my heart!!! I HATE that this is now my life!! I have lost my best friend - the person who I have done EVERYTHING with for 28+ years.
I know everything that has been said to me on this board is true - but I have become this person who feels unless I am doing for my family then I am being self indulgent. I have worked so hard my whole life to avoid becoming like my parents and I find myself living in the exact same horrific dysfunction they created!
OK - enough whining! Mach is right about me needing to answer the questions he presented - so here goes:
How do YOU feel about what happened ? - I feel like sh_t! I have always been a "turn the other cheek" kind of person and doing this made me into something I have never wanted to be - vengeful and lacking compassion.

How could YOU have handled that better/differently ? - I should have sought first to understand - why would he be claiming to be younger, thinner, etc. - he is in pain from his own lack of self esteem.

How much of that was the old YOU, that YOU want to change ? - I don't want to be REACTIVE, especially not OVER REACTIVE! I want to be thoughtful, in control of my own reactions. I want to be better than I am.

I am scared - scared of failing / failing everyone, failing my husband, failing my kids.

I know I need to follow Cat's guidance - I can't waste another day avoiding it.

Thanks all for the tough love!