I know you are all right - thank you. You keep re-enforcing what you are saying and I really appreciate it as it allows me to see from different perspectives.
I have been reading others posts here for a while now and I see how common this situation is. There is so much pain and anguish in all that I have read here on the forum and you guys give out so much wealth from your experience. It's difficult to search for posts and for some reason I can only search for the past 3 months using the search function, so if it's possible to point to anything that may be similar or worse, than my situation I would welcome the read.
As far as my stbxw is concerned, I am still in disbelief at her change of actions. If this is truly just an act of selfishness, then it has to be one of the worst extremes of it that I have witnessed in anybody in my entire lifetime. Yes, if I had been a b@stard husband I could have fully understood her actions, but I wasn't and in my mind I haven't deserved anything that she's dished out, seemingly for no reason. I do not like and will never like the changes that I have seen in her. She is obviously that person deep down and will therefore play out those characteristics again at a later stage, but they have either been hidden since I've known her, or she has established them in recent years. I know that it's not about me.....
Wayfarer has such a compassionate way of writing that hammers things home. I really wish that I could spend the time GALing more. I have so much on my mind to get sorted out that I haven't got the time to concentrate on anything else too much, but I do. I spend an hour each day at lunchtime in the park reading - to learn, to relax while having lunch, to unwind as much as I can. It's like I'm working a full-time job at the moment and my head feels the worst it has in years due to my condition being triggered by too much stress, wearing reading glasses for too long and sitting in one spot on the PC searching for houses.
Detaching I can see is the goal here and I just wish there was a switch in my mind to switch that on, just like there seemed to be a switch in hers that kicked in this sudden change of behaviour. GAL is part of the detaching process I would assume. I am in the process of trying to build a new life somewhere else and I don't seem to be getting anywhere too fast and there is lot of red tape to go look at houses - they can't confirm with the landlord if they would accept a year payment up front as I can't show an income, until I have had a credit check. I can't get a credit check until I have submitted an application and I can't submit an application until I have had a viewing of the property - seeing as they don't do virtual viewings, I have to drive almost 300 miles there and another 300 back, just to look around a house. It's madness, especially in 2021, but maybe it's part of GAL? Not sure if I'm staying up there as I don't want to pay too much for a hotel, but I do wonder if a night away would do me good - I don't fancy it alone though.
Stress and Anxiety is the hard bit. I've had a day and a half where things have been a bit better, then like a high-speed train it hits you, with the piston in my chest firing at full speed ahead and making my body feel weird. Yes I need to get a handle on that and I do try. Speaking to people helps calm it down. I can try deep breathing until I'm blue in the face but it triggers my neurology and makes me spin. I shall have to do more research to get a different method as I cannot even force myself to sit still for any more than 10 minutes. I was meditating at the beginning of all this when she first left, but when she said she had somebody else and then as time's gone by and all the other things have been uncovered, it's no use. Now she's admitted adultery, I can't close my eyes for a second in silence before images of her and some OM come flashing on the screen in my mind. I've had my 3rd Hypnotherapy session tonight, it's helping.
Yes I am hurt and it feels like I'm in some sort of dissociated virtual reality and walking around in a daze and other people's live's just continue to go on around me as if I wasn't there. I sit and watch as couples spend time together, people are with their children or sitting with their friend chatting about stuff. It feels like I'm on the outside looking in - I've never felt like that before, I've never felt so alone. Even the town I am in isn't familiar as I've only been here a small amount of time and that makes the hurt, hurt worse.
The rewriting history bit that SteveLW mentions, and various other people also, I am seeing unfolding in-front of my very eyes - and it does unfold. It starts small and gets bigger and more elaborate as time goes on, as does any lie.
I don't want to blame and that's not my intention, understanding is but as you say I won't be able to .. not yet and that's the part that I can't/don't want to accept, but I must as I know it's true. Trying to make sense out of something you can't make sense out of, is senseless - if that makes sense? And I can see it's futile.
What makes it worse is this condition I have. The stress makes it so much worse and when it's that bad I find it hard to move around too much. My brain feels like it's being clamped in a vice and spun in a washing machine, my neck is really uncomfortable, my eyes are so blurry and my tinnitus is excruciatingly loud. It hasn't been this bad for a couple of years and it's made worse by stress, as the engagement of the limbic system pushes it into overdrive. As far as my hormones are concerned - who knows - all I know is that the tumour on my pituitary gland makes them go weird when stressed. It has also been responsible for decreasing my sex drive and probably makes me feel fatigued a lot of the time - and that's probably part of the problem I face now. It's a shame I've got this as it makes things so much harder. It would be nice to see the back of it one day.
"Get some distance, you say?", well.....Here's the good bit:
I have arranged to go and see a couple of potential properties about 260 miles away or so (4.5 hours). It's in a colder part of the country which is a shame as I have lived in one of the best parts of the UK all of my life and I dislike the cold, but it's much too expensive to live here and too close to my stbxw's work places (scattered all over the county 30 mins - an hour in every direction), plus wherever she is living, which I don't have a clue. I don't want to risk bumping in to her/them as I know it would kill me and I don't want to keep looking around or getting tempted to just "pass by" her work - not that I would and I haven't yet (well I have but not specifically for 'that' reason), but I don't want to be in that position. Moving away will be a clean break and if it's the wrong area, then I'll have an entire year to find the right one. So I have arranged this for Thursday.
I have also had a rough quote on removal costs as I can't do it on my own and it was cheaper than I thought too! They also pack for you, but I shall do most of that anyway.
A woman I was speaking to on Sunday told me that there was a clothing sale at an outdoor shop just outside of town and the savings were up to 70%. I thought that things would be expensive anyway, but I went up to have a look. I got over £200 of clothes for under £70! 4 T-shirts, an autumn/winter jacket and a pair of casual trousers. All high quality branded stuff that I would never have brought before as they would have been out of my price range. The jacket alone was priced at £67 and was just £22.99. This is the first time I have been shopping for clothes on my own for 20 years and it was both lonely and quite refreshing - not having to ask anybody's opinion, no validation apart from my own to consider. Is this type of thing GAL? I think so and it made me feel nice having some clothes that fit, however few.
In a selfish way, part of me is glad that other people have travelled this road before me as they/you have been there and you know how it really is. They know the territory and what to expect. I respect that. It will have to get better though as I can't get any worse (I hope)?
Detaching is all well and good if there was a method to do it, but as I eluded to earlier, I guess it's just working on GAL and working on me. It will be nice when I can go out somewhere, for a walk or a drive and not have to wonder if I will bump into her or not. I don't want to. Even the girl in the coffee shop told me that my stbxw was in the other morning. She knows us. "Ah", I replied. Told her we split up, she asked why, I said she left me for another bloke. She couldn't believe it as "you always seemed really close", she said. "I thought so too", I replied. That was the end of that conversation - I want a different one. Too many memories, such a small town and I need to get away, as you said, put some distance between us ... it ... them.
Hopefully physical distance will turn into emotional distance and the scars can then begin to heal and detachment can really start to work its magick.
Sorry about another long post, it's taken me ages to write over the course of the day. But I just wanted to work through what has been shared. I know you are right, both of you ... all of you. I hear you all! I just couldn't see it as clear and now it's becoming slightly clearer. My focus is on finding a place to live and I think that this will be the turning point for me. I'm not like other people and it takes me a while to work through things since I've had this condition, so please forgive me if I'm coming across resistant. As wayfarer said, I'm just hurting.
Thank for all of your input and for listening.