Tad, I am not going to say anything to you that anyone else has not said. You are stuck, going over and over things that your wife said, it is like an endlessly playing tape, that you need to find a way of shutting off. How do I know? Because like most of the posters here I have walked the same path and felt the same things. Getting past the bomb, the separation, and eventually for some [including me] the divorce is really really hard. Don't think we don't know that. Remember that every person who takes time to post to you has felt your pain. And they are still living breathing and [mostly] enjoying life, if not radiantly happy. Some are on their own, others have found someone else, and some have reconciled. But they are all OK.
Please read Brooklyn's thread and her account of her latest [hilarious] conversation with her xh. This is how she has chosen to replay it - detached and she makes it funny and sad. Your interactions with your wife hurt you. She is pressing your buttons, and you are jumping all over the place. Do you really want someone in your life who says 'You just missed your last chance' all the time? what kind of person does that? Ether a mean or a crazy one, and I prefer to think that my xh is crazy, and that is why he is doing mean things. I do not however let him influence my life or try and adjust my behaviour or thinking to his crazy one. .
Who do want to be Tad? Others have asked you this question, but surely it isn't whoever your currently crazy wife wants you to be? When you see a movie do you admire the person who constantly accommodates to everything the other wants, or someone who considers others, but does what they believe is necessary.
Tad, you have to find a way of letting go - 'The Journey from Abandonment to Healing' by Susan Anderson might help. It helped me.
It doesn't matter a rat's a** what your wife thinks about you or anything else right now. She is all over the place and will be for a long time. That is the truth which I suspect you are fighting. There are no quick fixes and no guarantees. She didn't get to be this way overnight. None of us saw it coming but the seeds were sown many years ago for all of them and they have to fix themselves in order to make it through the rest of their lives. Some don't make it through, and some do. You cannot change her or help her much. As I said the most helpful thing you can do is to be the best person you can be for you and your kids. Love her, but from afar and in your heart, wish her well and let her go.
