Punkin, the financial settlement in some ways is the hardest bit isn't it?
I would sit down down with someone you like and trust and review your options. Staying in the marital home was never an option for me, as we had to sell it early on - I could not afford to run it alone. I lived in an apartment we owned for a while but even that was too full of memories.
I have now moved to a wreck of a house with great potential and am restoring it slowly. It keeps me busy, and I am creating my own future, and a new home for my adult children to come to. I don't want another relationship - my h was the love of my life, and I haven't met anyone else I would want to spend my life with.
Sometimes the reality is bleak, other times it is exciting. I hate the fact that my long, and to me, happy marriage was reduced to dollars and cents, and a division of assets, but there is nothing we can do about it. Decide on the life you want, and the person you want to be, and move towards that goal. Give yourself some time to feel sad. It is an index that you are human and normal. No sane person walks away with no regrets. I have never encountered a MLCer who came out of it who thinks they were happy while in MLC, and if your h was truly happy with OW he would be bending over backwards to be kind to you, and make sure you were financially OK. The fact they want to gouge us, in addition to all of the other humiliation they have tried to put us through is a sure sign that they are in a very bad place.
You know all of this. I do not think there is a magic bullet that puts us right, and it is a long and hard road we have to walk. A lot of laughs along the way, but quite a few tears.
But, I can look at myself each morning and feel respect for the person who looks back. I am doing my best in hard circumstances, and so are you. I would not want to be my h looking at himself every morning, however good a financial deal he thinks he got [and he did!!] I consider myself work in progress, not healed yet, but getting there. Hugs
