I know it is hard to believe given his actions but your H doesn’t dislike you Stella. He’s just deeply unhappy and he thinks 1) his marriage to you is the cause and, 2) he will feel better with someone new. Not because they are better than you in any way but because with a new person, HE is a new person…in his mind (which is the only perspective that really matters when it comes to our own feelings about ourselves). And those new feelings of infatuation and risk taking (drinking to excess in his case) are as strong of a drug as heroin to his brain. That is what you are up against currently.
Deep down, however, he knows what he has done to you, he knows that you are suffering… so he sends you pictures of things that you share in a misguided attempt at comforting you and also to ease his guilt a bit by maintaining a connection. That’s it. He’s not THINKING about what he’s doing…he just doing what he FEELS like doing in the moment. The most likely scenario is that, at some point that morning, he was looking through his pictures and saw a pic of you and your cat so he sent it to you…maybe because he thought you might want it? He was not thinking about the effect it would have on you. So please don’t drive yourself crazy by trying to make sense of it.
FYI… re: anti-anxiety/anti-depressant medication… I highly doubt that you would take one pill and then experience suicidal thoughts because of it. My understanding is that these medications need to be taken for a period of time before you experience effects (good or bad) unless you have an allergic reaction. Also…doctors tend to start you on a really low dose just to make sure you aren’t allergic so it won’t have much of an effect in the early days either way. I’m not doctor, though, so KML (who is a medical doctor) may want to chime in here. FWIW…I started taking Escitalopram about three months post BD and I think it really helped take the edge off as I started to improve after that. Could have also been that enough time had passed and I was just naturally moving forward.
BTW… DnJ is right on the money when he says the person that is behind most of your suffering is you. Yes…your H left but you’re the person who chooses your brain’s focus and your activities. You have more power than you think you do. (((HUGS)))
