How should I proceed now? Is there hope?

[NotCrackingUp]

Thanks, Soleil. Michele's book and some replies have said the same. I realise this is right, in theory. However, I also realise just how much I always focussed on him and on the children and on their needs, to the point that I really don't know where to start with focussing on me. I miss him so much (not this alien, the man I married and knew until May this year). I left my own country for him, adapted myself to his family and needs, was content to be his wife and the mother of his kids. I do have friends, but they have their own lives (husbands that stay put, children...). I feel very isolated with this. It is only now that I realise to what extent I had built my life around him. I feel like I'm standing in the ruins of something.

I know that if he does come back, things will have to change. I must "get a life" and meet him as an independent person. i must make room for myself in my life. I must get back to the person I was before I let this man rule my heart. I just don't know where to start.

I still want to hope he can find the feelings he's lost for me, that all this coldness and anger directed at me can stop. I tell myself that he's angry at himself, that he's ashamed, but maybe I'm just deluding myself again.It seems to correspond to what Michele and others have written about the mid-life crisis. But then I was reading some posts on the MLC archives, where some members seemed to think the MLC is just a comforting delusion favoured by those newly coping with a spouse on the way out the door.All I can say is that the man who came here today to be with the kids while I was at work only faintly resembles the man I used to know. New clothes, new "things" he shows off to the kids, no eye-contact, no smile, a cold, ironical tone... When I came home, he didn't even greet me, just started in about my new school timetable. I only ever see his profile (on the computer) or his back as he walks away. Why this sudden metamorphosis?
NotCrackingUp