My heart goes out to you. When my H left, I struggled to live from one minute to the next. My older children rushed home from college and sat up with me all night just like it was a wake. We talked about the most personal things and did some intense bonding. Without them, I truly don't know what I would have done. Approximately 72 hours later I was talking and reminising in a totatally unthreatening way with my H. I found myself doing all the right things to show him how pleasant being with me could be. We were heading home down an interstate highway (after having moved one child out of college accomodations). He was so involved in our time together that he missed an exit he's routinely used for years!
I had felt so incredibly weak and incapacitated. Several weeks later - after he'd come home- I found out unexpectedly one morning that there was an ow. Simultaneously, I learned that ow was a mutual friend who is a leader in our church and involved in most of our social activities. Suddenly, all the strength went out of me, and I sank in a shapeless heap onto my kitchen floor. I have never before or since known such anguish. Mercifully, I was alone for the next few minutes until I could breathe again.
Within minutes a course of action presented itself to me. Temporarily strength came back although for several days I know that I functionned purely from years of habit. Almost miraculously the answer had come for us.
We never know when the answers will come to us. For me the right course was revealed to me during the deepest moments of my despair and desperation.
Again, I'll ask that you take care of yourself so that you'll be ready and able to respond when the time is right. Also, nurture your relationship with your other family members.
Without my children, I could not have lived through pain of those first hours when he actually left home. Incredibly, when I found out about the ow (whom I'd suspected in my gut for some time without any logical reason that I could identify then or even now), the pain was even greater. But it was at that time that relief came to me. I do understand that you are truly suffering now, and I wish that I had the right words of comfort for you.
I hope that your family will be supportive and encouraging. Your feelings of weakness, emptiness, and inadequacy have nothing to do with the real you. They are products of the horrible ordeal you are experiencing. Just hold on.
From my own experience, I have become a true believer that "the darkest hour is just before dawn."
