Thank you Sandi, your posts are always so well written and informative. Yes, it hurts terribly. It's a god awful gut wrenching pain to know what I put her through for all of that time. It literally made me sick in the beginning when I started thinking about things from her point of view. Looking at things from her point of view really opened my eyes to what I had done to myself, her, our marriage, and my relationship with other family and friends. It was absolutely deplorable what I had allowed to happen, all the while not even realizing the true magnitude of it. It was at this point that I realized that I will need help...serious help. I went to a therapist and unfortunately she turned out to be just awful although she did at least give me a few things to work on. It took me a few weeks to get an appointment with another therapist and I go to her tomorrow. I'm really hopeful that she will be much better fit for me. Looking at how complacent I was, and with all of the reading that I've done, it seems the general consensus is that I will most likely need "maintenance therapy" for the very long term regardless of the outcome of my sitch.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that W moved into her new apartment on Sunday. There has been very little contact since then, and the very little that there was seemed to be profoundly politically correct and "professional-like". I suppose that is just the way it will have to be for a while, and there's not much I can do about that. I truly do wish it didn't have to be this way, and honestly I don't really think it has to be this way but we all have our opinions on this. The first night alone (Sunday night) was pretty rough but thankfully I was exhausted so I fell asleep pretty quickly and slept for a few hours which was nice. Once I woke up it became all to real again that I was there without my W and I was not happy at all about that.
Last night I went and grabbed a few groceries which was strange to only be buying things for me. Other than that just played with the dog and watched some TV and spent more time reading self-help sites. Fell asleep pretty late again and only slept a few hours, and woke up with the same feeling as before. This night was the first time (I think) in 12 years and 3 months that I haven't gotten to say goodnight to my wife or at least lay next to her as we fell asleep. It was very surreal...and not in a good way. I do often wonder if she thinks about me during this time, or think about these things like this. Also, there is still quite a bit of stuff in the house that is hers or at the very least reminds me of her, so I think that makes it pretty tough too. I have thought about just gathering it all and putting it in a closet until she moves home or we decide this will be a permanent separation.
I should be interacting with W very minimally today just because she had some things delivered to the house for her new apartment (before she moved into it), so we will need to get her those things. I'm not sure how that will go, but I hope it will be positive.
Tonight the plan for me is to go buy some clothes because none of my clothes fit me since I've lost 34lbs (180 to 146) since all of this started. Luckily there is a store in the mall that has a really good sale until tomorrow on really nice clothes. I would love for W to go with me to help me pick things out seeing as I have ZERO fashion sense, but I know it would be wrong of me to ask her to do this. So hopefully the employees can help me out.
