Hey Broken,

I'm so sorry you are going through this.

Please understand that your focus, counterintuitive as it may seem, should not be on fixing your marriage. That relationship is gone (along with your wife, replaced by the alien before you).

It should be on fixing yourself.

I hear many opportunities for growth. You've touched on several of them:

1. Anxiety (about?)
2. Co-dependent on WAW for sense of self and emotional equilibrium
3. Insecure/sensitive/took personally when significant other wanted to do stuff with other people
4. Isolated with no other social network/support system here
5. Low self confidence
6. Controlling
7. Selfish
8. Strong willed/stubborn
9. Stagnated in some ways exploring your self and creativity

What is your plan to work on each of these?

Also, in your introspection, go a bit deeper -- you said -- "I had her back at all times." But, did you really -- if you did not have her back for the "everyday small things"? They may have been small to you, but they were every day to her. It's important to accept the full magnitude of where we went wrong in order to change them for future relationships.

And, while it seems to you that she changed overnight, have no doubt that she did not. There were months or possibly years of her feeling mistreated. She may not have voiced it, or maybe you did not hear it.

Also consider that your very desire to get back together at this time is also selfish and controlling, since she is not showing the same interest. It's about what you want. Would you want another loved one of yours (daughter, mother, friend) to rejoin a relationship that she was trying to escape from?

You also mention resentment that she walked out and left you high and dry, that her family has not checked in on you once, that how can she be so caring and insensitive, and that you want to turn this around and have her notice.

Do you see how all of these are about how YOU feel and what YOU would like to happen? We ALL came here for that selfish reason -- hurt and wanting to stay married, when our spouses no longer wanted us. I get that it can be so hard not to indulge these negative feelings, because they feel suffocating -- such profound loss and traumatic breaking of a self-defining attachment.

A big part of healing from the bomb is not indulging these feelings because they can interfere with us moving on and growing. Setting them aside helps us to more clearly see our part in breaking the relationship and also to understand, accept, and validate our WAWs POV. And, we can then be more honest to change ourselves through action.

While I get that it can leave you feeling more drained than when you started, one of the useful aspects of developing new relationships and getting a life with others outside the home is that it not only distracts you from the setbacks and negative emotions, but it also will allow you to work on the above aspects of yourself. Consider that many of the weaknesses that you have identified in yourself relate to the way that you relate to others (many coming from a place of anxiety or low-self esteem).

It will be hard to work on these weaknesses alone when many of them are in how you relate to close others.

You can work alone to understand your sources of anxiety and alternative ways to cope. But, in order to prevail in your circumstance you ultimately will need to change your ways of relating as well.

And that takes practice.

Also consider that you have no social network/support system here because you have avoided building one due to your introversion and co-dependent relationship with your WAW. So, it seems that working to build a social network would be a 180 that would address a weakness you've identified. It does not mean that you need to become an extrovert. In fact, there are Meetups and Facebook groups dedicated to introverts.

You can do great things to better yourself now. Go deeper than a different scent. A different self.

You can do this.