I posted to you a while ago. Not sure if you recall or not. I'm having a quiet evening with a nice glass of cider after a long tough day and noticed your thread again and your question.
The road you are walking down, which I have myself walked on a similar path will be the toughest you ever do. From occasional browsing of your thread I see you asking the same questions I did myself 2 years ago. "Do they realize what they did", "do they care".
As is often written here - this is indeed a marathon and not a sprint - and to for you, to an uncertain destination. Both your and your W's destinations are unmapped.
Since she moved out a bit over 2 years ago I've had minimal contact with my now ex-wife. That didn't stop me and doesn't stop me from wondering what she's thinking or if she has regrets. We project on them our own worries and love, but they have changed and those projections don't stick.
My ex-wife left to chase after a slightly better off man and to pursue her "happiness". The last recollection I have of her in person last November and on security cameras when she went through the last pass through the house this past March (if memory serves) was of a beaten down and very angry woman. I think that this is somewhat typical.
I have mutual friends who pass on to me from time to time impressions of the life she leads - living in a small apartment over a liquor store - occasionally going on excursions with OM partly funded I am sure with the support payments I make. She is a sad and angry woman. But her sadness is all about her condition and not about those she left behind. She hasn't seen her daughter since 2015 when we were still together and our son who lives with me she sees maybe 3-4 times a year despite her living only 10 minutes away. See Irish's thread for an even more extreme example of how that path can lead.
I'm at a point now and have been for a while where I recognize how dysfunctional our marriage was in several ways. There was little reciprocity - in many ways I carried the relationship for both of us.
A "giant" of a man who was here who I am humbled by his postings to me - Jack_Three_Beans - once requested that I take off my rose coloured glasses and look at my former marriage honestly. Have you done this? I can wait while you do so. Read back in my own threads if you have a lot of patience for nonsense and drama. But there are many many pearls of wisdom kindly posted by others to me that may be helpful for you.
From my occasional browsing of your thread I've seen that you've learned the lesson that you can't change or affect your W nor the path that she has set her feet upon.
I expect you can accept my comment that for now that it's all about her and her issues and that you as the "left behind family" are at best in a cracked rear-view mirror. Mostly she sees herself. In many cases if she does see you, she sees you as the cause of her problems.
Tough words to swallow I know.
One thing that Jack wrote that resonates with many of us - check out Westo's thread please. She is a lovely lady who has become a dear friend. I'm going to paraphrase because I'm too lazy to pick up the exact quote. "The path back doesn't come as a revelation. It starts as a whisper of doubt".
What I realized moderately early on, but it took me a very long time to accept was that my ex-wife did not and does not have the courage to walk the path of humility that would be necessary for me to accept her back. The choice was mine to tell her that I was done waiting for her to make up her mind. The choice was her's to not walk that path.
I am walking my own path.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
