A therapist that I know told me that when they hurt our kids it is a different pain from their abandonment of us. It is hard to see the two strands, because we feel initially, one huge hurt.
While I agree AFRICA is a good thought, actually to a depressed and hurting person pointing out there are people worse off than them can sometimes intensify the depression, because then they feel guilty about feeling bad!
But what I think 25years was doing was to try and reduce what you are feeling to something more manageable in the greater scheme of things.
If you can separate your h's actions towards you from those towards his kids and deal with them separately it might help. I have been dealing with this a long time, and my xh is still treating his kids inappropriately - and it still upsets me. When people hurt our children we feel very strong emotions. You are dealing with abandonment and hurtful behaviour to your children, and it is hard to get by this.
i agree totally about dividing things up into manageable bits - like cleaning a house. - a room or a corner at a time, It does get better, and we do grow, but we have to work through the pain.
