Lou - this is hard. Don't beat yourself up because you think about your xh - some people do and others put it out of their minds. Our feelings are our own.
I just wonder what sort of relationship anyone can have long term that is built on deception and lies, and I always wonder at the sort of person that can have an affair with a married man.
As you know, time is a big factor in all of this. The other thing is the learning to be complete on our own. Not needing another person to make us feel OK about ourselves.
It is normal to be sad, and to grieve. Fwiw, and opinions differ here, I believe that men process this stuff differently. From Jane Austen onwards, women have been pointing this out! We are different. We love as much but we love differently.
Widowed men marry (on average) far sooner than widowed women, even adjusting for smaller numbers of men at the age when most are widowed,.
Quote:
“All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone!” ― Jane Austen, Persuasion
