1 month in, still lost - MLC, OW, WAS

[Sunflyer]

I haven't been single since I was 19 and now I'm 45. One relationship of 3.5 years led straight into one of 23 years. No idea how to occupy myself so GAL is hard but I'm doing it. H left home at 22, straight into a shared house and was there a month before I'd also moved in and we started a relationship. So neither of us has ever lived alone, nor been solely responsible for a household. He will be moving out to a shared house again before eventually moving in with OW.

Sorry if I was unclear in my previous post. When I said I was alone for most of my life before meeting W, I meant without a woman, not living alone.

I didn't live with the girlfriend I had before meeting W; I saw her once a week. She lived in a different state but not far, and it was an easy commute for me. Sometimes she would come to meet me, and I'd book us a nice hotel room for the weekend since there wasn't really room for her where I lived. However, I always lived with somebody, be it family member or W, for my entire life up to now. (When we moved in together she was still my fiancee).

But for most of my younger years, I was solo, so I knew how to find things to occupy time without a relationship, and I can certainly do that again. (In fact, I already am). So this is going to be the first time I've lived by myself as well.

I've spent the last 7 months working on myself to understand where my marriage went wrong. I feel I now understand myself and my H far better than I ever did. Now it's time to learn to live alone, GAL and build my relationship with my kids. I think my H desperately needs time by himself to work on his long list of problems but I suspect he'll hang on at home as long as possible so that he moves straight from one surrogate parent to another.

It is excellent that you have done this. I am doing the same. Boy, were there some bad, unhealthy things going on that I didn't think were issues at the time but really stick out now. Complacency, codependency, and bad habits on my part, plus a tendency to try to avoid conflict to "keep the peace." (This translates to me letting her keep my b***s in her purse). For her part, there were lack of financial discipline, a horrendously bad self-image (particularly embarrassment about her body), and a heavy dependence on her mother for support (which wouldn't be bad if said mother hadn't become a difficult piece of work that periodically drives W's father and brother up the wall, and unfortunately W resembles her more by the day).

I told him I need to mourn the death of this relationship first and take time to decide what I want from life.

Yes. It may seem odd, but the spouse who gets left behind often comes out better off than the one that walked away, particularly if the one that walked away saw only what they couldn't stand about their partner without figuring out what their own issues were. These people go into new relationships and end up doing the same bad things all over again. The ones who were left and face the ugly truth about their relationship learn how to avoid falling into the same traps a second time.