HesAble: I have been working on dropping resentment, having zero expectations and not feeling self-pity for about 18 months now. Some days I still fail badly at it (like even yesterday). And the 'finding happiness' I always reframe as 'I feel miserable and am running away from responsibilities to see if that makes me feel less miserable because the pain is unbearable'. That helps me, not sure if it might help you? Because the best way to decrease resentment is to have compassion for the pain of your spouse. Yes their method of trying to escape is hurting so many other people including you, but they feel compelled to do it, it's not deliberate. And I have compassion too for the time when they wake up from their fog and realise the damage they have caused. If you are a half decent person then the guilt must be terrible, at least in our pain we know that we have conducted ourselves with dignity and with love and compassion for our loved ones, they don't have that consolation. And if they never wake up, well living in denial for your whole life is a pretty awful place to be. My MIL has been like that ever since she abandoned her family, and now she is old and lonely and not loved by anyone including her kids. Karma biting her hard.
