This is a common thing, I think. When we're in a marriage, we do our best to consider the other person's needs and wants and make decisons based on that. Some of us are so codependent that we only consider what our partners needs, and in the midst of doing that get so lost and churned up and resentful that the relationship is damaged.
Others of us have been very bad at considering what our spouses want - perhaps they've been the codependent one, never saying what they need, and going along with plans we thought were joint ones, building up their own resentments. Perhaps some of us were selfish and neglectful at times, or for many years.
But whatever the history is, once the marriage ends - and they do end on BD day, whether we want them to or are emotionally detached at that point or not, we have to start making decisions in our own and our children's best interests, and setting our spouses free to do the same.
Some of us carry on putting the WH or W first, and considering their needs, then getting nothing back for it. Others of us go ahead and act single, and make our own decisions, then get a lot of flak from the WH or W for doing so. It's a common pattern. I know I've found it extremely hard to put myself and my children first, mainly because when I do, H gets annoyed about it. It's taken a good long time to make my own decisions, and let him have his feelings about them one way or another, and do nothing about that. He'll have to start doing that too - and I won't like or agree with all of those decisions, and my feelings about that will be my problem and my responsibility to process.
It's a huge change, in our internal and external lives, and it doesn't happen overnight. I doing well at it these past few days, but no doubt I will go back to old habits.
I do think though, that a happy life as a single person or as a married person involves being able to figure out what is best for me and my children, and cope with the fact that someone who is important to me might not agree, and have negative feelings about that. Even if we did R, I don't plan to spend my life pleasing him any longer. He can learn to be pleased with who I am, or he can enjoy his life unencumbered by me.
I hope you get to this place soon. I know it's so much harder when there is an OW involved. My H had an EA but the kids never knew about it, and as far as I know (and I could be wrong) he doesn't see her anymore and there's no-one else he's involved with. If he is, he's keeping it private and not involving the kids at all - and I am glad about that.
I wish you well. Be positive. It's a new skill you are learning and it will take time!
