What the **** just happened?

Thats very prejudiced of you. I'm glad to hear it.

 

You know what I want to know? Who are the 2 people who voted stay. I mean one is obviously your ex. Misery loves company. That's easy. But the other? Unless she is schizophrenic. Yeah, that must it.

 

well one was me, when I wrote the post I so desperately wanted some frikking way of staying with her and fixing the relationship. sad huh? sad lonely and depressing. two thumbs up !

 

It's not so sad, Tipo, just normal. In my own divorce, something I'm keeping in mind that seems to help is how I've seen other people throughout my life who were going through the same thing.

Only a bare handful have seemed really sad to me: the ones who'd been kicked to the curb after 20+ years of marriage, traded in for a newer model, never having seen it coming. They were devastated. For some reason, that seems to happen to women more often than men, but sometimes it's been the other way around. The worst case I've known of was the other way around.

To me, most of the divorcees I've known have seemed more like Phoenixes about to rise from the ashes, but maybe that's a lack of empathy on my part, I'm not sure. In the end, however, that's what most of them turned out to be.

Anyway, it hurts like hell, I know. My ex hurt me like hell. Writing about it here has definitely helped. Reading the posts of others, like you, who are going through similar hardships has been beneficial. Reading about grief and loss has been even more rewarding. There's a good summary of the process here. (I actually already knew this stuff, but it's helped to refresh it.)

Something that's important to remember about those initial five stages...

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

...is that they don't necessarily occur in order, and passing through one doesn't mean you won't come back to it. It's more like a loop that plays over and over, usually in that order, but not always. Denial is generally the first to manifest itself, and the first to become less and less frequent until it finally peters out and leaves the picture. Acceptance is generally the last to manifest itself, and becomes more and more frequent until it's all that's left, then the real grief work can begin. At that point, as the website I linked to indicates, the process is...

Acceptance
Numbness wears off; feeling comes back
Adjustment to new life
Building a new reality

...(You'll notice I re-phrased those a bit; I think the "T.E.A.R." acronym is kind of clunky).

I get the impression you're still coming back around to the "bargaining" phase in the first list from time to time, but I'll bet those episodes are becoming less frequent for you. Watch out for the depression: it's the killer. Everything you're feeling is normal. You're not stupid. You're not pathetic. Thinking you can fix it is NORMAL! But if you back away from yourself and objectively imagine what it would take for you to get your trust for your ex back, you'll probably see the answer is "nothing." You'll never trust her again. If you tried to make things work, all it would take would be the wrong word from her at the wrong time, the wrong incident, the wrong event (say she has a flat tire and arrives home late), and you'd go through the ROOF! In your sweetest irrational dreams, you probably imagine her becoming someone else, becoming perfect, folding to your every demand. That's what it would take to "fix it," and that's not going to happen, ever. She is who she is. You fell in love with an illusion.

At least, that was the case with me. Maybe I'm being presumptuous to say your case is similar, but from what I've read, it seems to be.

I think you're going to be just fine.

 

I think you have tried it all and you have to admit that who you are in love with does not exist anymore.
So she has abused you-this ass hole has abused you and now you are doing it to yourself.
You need to start thinking about YOU and why you are putting yourself out in the line of fire and taking all the hits.
I'm not being mean and have been in your shoes and got on my knees and begged and I thank god everyday I left and did not look back. It's 10 years later and my ex has pulled the routine on over 25 guys who all ended up just like me.
I on the other hand have moved on and lead a great life.
If she did this to you - she will do it to every guy she's with Bro.
Hang in there and have a relationship with yourself for awhile.
Peace