Yeah so like I said messed up pretty bad. I hear what all you are saying and I know your info is really valuable. Im really trying to wrap my head around it logically I get it. But my emotions are another story. Someone said to research detachment more. I've been trying, alot of what I'm finding finding is about getting over ex's. The key tenants from those articles seem to be to erase. Accept that you can't be friends, don't contact, remove all the stimulus that associates you to them (which would be litteraly everything I own by the way). Obviously my goal isn't to forget about my wife just to have healthy distance from her so I can be happy with myself either way. If anyone has some better research material for this step please share it with me. Or if I am completely off base with my belief in how that may work let me know.

Just gonna journal for a bit

I took off shortly after her last night. The heat was driving me crazy and I couldn't be in the house anymore. Just kinda drove around and pitied I guess. I remembered my sister was supposed to have people over so I went over there thinking I could just play some board games and distract myself. Plans ended up getting changed so no one else was there. Decided to stay any way and had dinner and watched parasite. If your into some strange heady movies and don't mind subtitles I'd definitely recommend it. Went home around 10 being alone really messed with my mind. It did before all this as well I'd just get lonely easily but now it's a whole different kind of thing. Tried to talk to a friend online but he was heading off. Messed around with my bass for a bit and watched some TV eventually tried to sleep. Woke up every hour or so. Haven't really been motivated today just feel empty. It's 1:45 now wife is still gone. Was trying to not bother but around 1 finally texted to just see if I was going to cook or not. If she wasn't coming back I didn't want to go out of my way. She took awhile to respond but eventually said we'd just figure it out separatly because she didn't know when she would be back. Writing this stuff out I guess helps me clear my thoughts at the very least it puts my mind on a task. Not sure if that what journaling is about or if I should be trying to pry deeper into my feelings about these things. Was walking around the house earlier and noticed on a painting my wife made of a beach there was a heart in the sand with our intials. I don't think I'd noticed it before. Almost broke completely down. My parents text me to ask if we're all right. I use to make a point to come over at least every other week if nothing else to see my brother. And I haven't been answering calls from them either. I still don't know what to do about that. My wife doesn't really care other than questioning me about how I'd tell them. She doesn't want people to think this all because of an affair according to her. She doesn't want to be the bad guy. That this is about our problems for a long time how she felt because of me. Infidelity is like a wright of passage in her family. Practically everyone there has a story. But they are almost all still together also so I don't know. I think part of her problem with discussing it with people is she doesn't want to be compared to say her mother who she cants stand. Also she is afraid to lose my family forever. She's mentioned that she doesn't want to lose them a few times now, it's one of the few things that still bring out emotions from her. But at the end of the day she says it's up to me when we tell people that I'm the one clinging to a hope. I guess that's kinda it for now. Haven't eaten today I guess I should do that. Have dishes and laundry also.