It's the hopes and dreams you're robbed of as well, your innocence, trust in others, trust in yourself...so many things.
When I went out with the heavy drinker (briefly. He was my first date after it all happened, and mistakenly on my part we ended up going out for a short while)...anyway, when we went out and had sex, it was such a disappointment. The heavy drinking and the great deal of smoking he did really affected things. I remember thinking 'is this it?'. And shortly after, a few months into our brief R, he just seemed to lose interest in it all. I remember thinking that I didn't want to settle for that sort of level of disinterest. It was like he'd done the necessary to involve me with him on that front, and just stopped bothering.
So maybe that's an area for you to explore and have fun with at some point in the future? I'm not talking like next week, or next month, but you can have it as something that you want to have some fun with at some point.
The rage thing, yup...I feel that too. It's a useful source of energy I discovered. I use it to carry on taking me in the opposite direction to XH, as far and as fast as I can go. If I feel myself flagging, I go for a run/to the gym/read CL.
Have a think about the sort of future you want for yourself. I remember making a picture story board, with pictures and words cut out from magazines, that showed the sort of life I wanted. Ha...I'd actually forgotten I did that. It was so early on in the whole process. Anyway, I loved doing it. Some of it was total daydream stuff, and some of it I've actually done (just on a smaller scale to what was in my story board). Some of it was purely visual l and some of it was to do with how I wanted to feel. You don't have to show it to anyone, it's just of for you.
Something that's helped me a lot too has been to find what I am grateful for that's right under my nose. At the beginning it was really small stuff, like the conversation I'd had with the shop assistant when I was buying some groceries that afternoon, or that I could still take my time and enjoy putting makeup on. I still try and end the day with this sort of thing. It helps me focus on what is good in my life right now, as opposed to what I feel was taken away.
One thing, I do this stuff religiously. Every. Single. Day. There's no room for slacking or falling back on this, the price of that is way too high, and I'm not willing to pay it. Ever again. So every night I think about the stuff that's happened that day that I feel grateful for. Every morning I try and think about my day ahead, what I'm going to do and how good I'm going to feel at various points in the day.
I do get distracted by stuff, thinking about other people, how well they seem to be doing, or whatever...occasionally XH and the amazing life I think he's probably living with his much, much younger, more successful OW. But then I'm like, meh, they're totally welcome to each other. I deserve to be treated so much better than the way he treated me - which was ultimately a reflection of who he was. And then it doesn't bother me. And then I feel gosh darn lucky not to have to put up with any of that **** any more.
You have your beautiful children, your health, your future, and yourself. We lost ourselves in these crappy situations that we were in. We lost who we were. Isn't that a terrible thing to happen to a human being? So do the opposite: find yourself and in doing so, heal yourself.
