The agony and pain is horrible. It takes time but as hard as it is to believe, better days do eventually come. You have to process a lot of grief and take a hard look at yourself.

Good luck to you. It is hard. By far the most difficult experience I have ever had. You will be OK one day.

BE gentle with yourself and take care of yourself. I know everyone tells you that and it takes quite a bit of time to figure out what that means.

Karen, how long did it take for you just to have a week of life without the pain? When do you stop missing him? when do you stop thinking of him? The damage he did was so great that I feel at time I can't fix it!

Everyone is different! For me I had 6-8 weeks of intense head on grief. I did not drink, do drugs (prescription or non prescription) over eat or under eat. I just faced the grief head on and thought it would kill me. My kids were scared and shocked--they could tell I was just going through the motions of being alive. I think looking at them is what helped me process.

I wrote a lot, prayed to my understanding of a God, reflected, went to therapy, called a few friends at various odd hours of the night--I live in SE Asia and with the time change there were a few close friends who got desperate calls from me because I just could not get through the morning.

I was also fortunate to have a really supportive head of office where I work who just left me alone and told my supervisor to just leave me alone. They had no expectations.

After feeling like I was about to die--I guess in a way a part of me did have to die in order for a new person to be born.

Then I went through a stage of intense reflection on my life, mistakes I made, rebuilding my life. Now some 7 months after making the decision to end my marriage, I am in a much healthier place. I still have down days, but I can handle them.

I did make the decision to go on anti depressants which has also helped, but has been no shortcut for doing the hard work of reflection and dealing with my own issues.

I have many more techniques that as I started to heal worked for me which I am happy to share. But right now it seems like you are in the really raw stage. It has only been one month.

My final word, don't compare yourself. While I made it through relatively quickly, not everyone does. What we all can promise you, despite our different, but so similar stories, if you want a better improved life, it will come to you with lots of hard work.

But first, you have to grieve and mourn the loss. There is no shortcut.

You are welcome to private message me when you need specific support. Lots of people here helped me. This site helps--just reading other experiences and knowing that you are not alone, you are not crazy and having others farther along in the process sharing their journey helps a lot.

My counsellor kept telling me ''you will be OK;; For a long time I thought she was just plain not seeing what I was seeing. But the truth is we will be OK, but we have to courageously be turned upside down, inside out, put in a tail spin and learn to be really truthful with ourselves.

Good luck. Many, including myself, are here for you!

Take care and know that you are not alone...

Thank you so much each day it gets harder for me not better! I feel as though he is a drug that in the end will kill me! I just want to forget all he brought to my life!
This last blow that I cheated hit me hard it just showed that He never cared, he never meant anything he said! I don't know what to think but that my life meant nothing. He told me that people were disposible and that I was the first person that was not disposible in his life...... I simple was no different and that hurts after the year I put everyone through trying to give him another chance!