I understand your feelings, I’ve lived them. I will say that my family wanted to come in and offer support early on. At first it seemed like the right thing to do but after a few weeks I did not want to hear how she will regret it, all the “flaws” that they saw in her, which were not there when we were married. It did not take long for me to realize that family will do what family is suppose to do; protect their own. I wanted my decisions to be based on me and my feelings and not be influenced by others. So I told them i did not want to talk about her and I would take my own time to heal. They backed away and gave me my space. I am glad I handled it that way. Surprisingly one of the first books I read was DR and that was in the first week of November I did not go to the boards till January.
I fought and fought and I did everything in my power to save it. In the end I found and learned a lot of things. I healed myself or at least began the process of healing, I must say it is still a work in progress. You are still holding onto the hope that your marriage will be restored. There is a willingness to change anything about yourself or doing anything and that if you could just get it right, your spouse would return. The important thing to learn during this stage is that you can’t control the thoughts, desires or actions of another human being.
You can’t seem to settle your feelings and thoughts. You swing from being hopeful to feeling utter despair. You will try to intellectualize what has happened, at least I did. If you can only understand what is going on then the pain will go away and all will make sense again.
You will tell yourself stories to try to make sense of it and your imagination will run wild. You will wonder if there was more you could have done, or if there is anything wrong with you; for months and months I beat myself up and on ocassion I still think this way. It is funny how I perceive this now. I made many mistakes in our marriage and I maintain that my X is a good woman and was a good wife and for some reason we messed it up. I know what I did and what I need to address but I don’t beat myself up for it I simply acknowledge it and hopefully learn from it. Time will tell.
There is a lot of mental re-hashing that takes place. You will fill as if you can’t control your thinking and find yourself obsessed with the failure of your marriage. Depression is a danger at this stage and you may cry at the drop of a hat. I was depressed for months I cried often but one thing I never did ( partly because I have my daughter with me full time) I did not lie in bed. I did not sit on the couch and stare at the wall. I stayed busy or as busy as I could stay. It was hard, still is.
One thing that is important is for you to wake up one day and know you did everything you could and when the smoke cleared there was nothing left for you to do. This has helped me a great deal. It helps me look in the mirror and know I hadled myself with class, love and dignity.
