New here; husband left

[Accuray]

TMC25,

I am very sorry to hear about your situation. I too had a WAS, and know that it's just the most awful pain in the world, and it does feel hopeless and out of control.

It would seem from your posts that you are panicked, or having issues with your anxiety. That happens to all of us, but when we're "there" it's hard to get perspective, and we just want things to be fixed quickly. Sometimes it helps if you realize that you are panicking, because you can do something about it. When I got that way, it always helped me to pick up the phone and have a heart-to-heart with an old friend. Someone who is a good, sympathetic listener. By the time you hang up, you will feel better.

In terms of advice, it's hard, your situation sounds very difficult, so I certainly don't feel I have hard answers for you, all I can suggest is some things that might help:

1) Your living situation: What do *you* want? I read about the pros and cons you laid out, and thought it might be better to get H back if you stay, but what does your heart tell you right now about where you're living? Let your intuition inform you, it's rarely wrong.

2) Your state of mind: You are in a rough place right now, establish a support structure outside of H. You need someone you can call at 11:00 at night if you need to, to connect to a trusted friend. Make those connections and use them. If you have a "recently divorced / recently separated" support group or social group in your area, check it out and see if it's for you.

3) Your plan: Read as much as you can. Read other threads on this forum, there is lots of good advice dispensed. For books, read "Divorce Busting" and "The Divorce Remedy" right away. I also liked "The Sex Starved Marriage" and "The 5 Love Languages". I read a ton of relationship books. I think it helped me because I could identify with many of the examples, and it helped inform how I got here. Once I understood it, I felt I had the power to avoid it in the future

4) Your H: The reality is that there's not much you can do immediately to change the situation. You can't change his mind, you can't change how he's feeling, and there's nothing you can do right now to convince him of anything through words. You need to try to surrender to that. Tell yourself that it is out of your hands. Do not "own" it, because it will own you. If you have 33 days left, you have 33 days left, there's nothing you can do about that, so forget it. At the end of 33 days, what then? You still have the chance to reconcile, or you may decide to move on. It's not *really* a deadline at all, it's just an event. You will live your life up until that day, and you will continue to do so afterwards, and your goals may not change even though that day has passed.

The DB strategy is effectively as follows:

a) Give space -- when you pursue, your WAS will flee. By trying to convince them to come back, you push them farther away. The goal of give space is to stabilize the situation, and let WAS breathe, let them collect themselves, take the pressure off. Stop them from retreating ANY further.

b) 180 -- the things you know you did that hurt your relationship you just stop doing. If there is something you would have done in the past that annoyed your spouse, do the opposite. If there was a behavior you would complain about, figure out a way to support it, or change your perspective to see if it's coming from a place of fear or hurt, and then sympathize with that. The point is to stop doing the behaviors that were destructive. This proves to your H that change is possible, you are proving it through action, not through promises.

c) Get a Life (GAL) -- Start living for you. Get out and do things that make you happy. See live music, join a book group, join something on www.meetup.com. Meet new people, visit new places. This has several goals -- first, it gets you in a good place *for you*, so that no matter how things work out with H, you are happier than you were before. Second, it takes the pressure of H, because he is no longer solely responsible for your state of mind. You become happy with or without him. Third, it makes you attractive. People are attracted to happy, confident people who know how to have a good time. If you're out having fun and smiling, H will notice, and that will seem like a good thing to be a part of.

d) Act as If -- The three things listed above are super hard. They go against our instincts and our desires, no one pulls this off perfectly, it's extremely hard work. When you can't do it, you need to fake it. If you fake it for long enough, you will find yourself doing it without realizing it, and then you are no longer acting, you're just doing.

There's a lot more there, I don't want to plagarize the whole thing, but since you are panicking, and I know how that feels, I wanted to give you some things to think about.

Finally, we are here for you, WE KNOW HOW YOU FEEL. Although you feel like you're going through hell alone, you're not, it happens every day, and there are lots of people here you can support you and share their stories. Post often, we are here for you.

--Accuray