It sounds like you are in a lot of pain, and while it sounds like you are taking the steps you need too, you are still not actually going anywhere. Perhaps I am reading my situation in to this as well. Hang in there, breath, sleep, eat. Laugh, find reasons to laugh, LAUGH hard and long. This will allow you to start moving on. Laughing can cure most things these days. Be safe!

I would ask you a couple of questions....what would make you leap out of bed every morning? Would it be going to an ideal job? If so, what would that be? Be very detailed. Would it perhaps be a non-profit that you would go to and volunteer your time and talents? Perhaps you used to paint and you could find a charity that works with underprivileged kids to teach them to be creative in positive ways? Perhaps you are good with money and you could partner with a local organization to teach financial classes to local charities or groups? Find your inner passion, and concentrate on bringing it to fruition! This will bring joy to your life and a sparkle to your eye!! If you would like more guidance, I would be happy to have a conversation! I wish for you more gratitude, abundance, and passion!

Love Consultant: Like many women, I got caught up in maintaining a household and a family during my marriage. My life became a never-ending list of tasks to support this (ie, grocery shopping, house cleaning, making meals, packing lunches, laundry, etc) . So, in reality, my life was all about taking care of everyone else except myself. When the STBX left, I felt that I was left with no purpose. He, of course, had maintained his hobbies and friends over the years and just continued on with them with the OW. I am honestly struggling to find my inner passion. Right now, activities that should be joyful feel forced just to fill in time. I'll have to put more thought into what it will take to get excited about getting out of bed in the morning. Thank you for your ideas.

26years, I feel very much the same way about not being able to enjoy a lot of things which I should enjoy. I am still too caught up in the pain and anger and shock I guess; it clouds everything. I am just hoping it will pass in time.

I also realized recently, though, that even before the end of it all - divorce talk, finding out about the cheating - I felt very similar in the marriage. Things were on autopilot, life was too routine and boring, endless chores and tasks, and even hobbies/interests seemed dull to me.

I certainly relate to feeling overwhelmed, too. I am not changing jobs, but I am in the midst of trying to sell a house, move into my own place, while battling stbx over divorce related issues, sharing custody of my daughter, dealing the the "gap" week between school and camp, living with my parents - some days it's all just too much.

I know how it feels to force yourself to do some activity because you think you should, because it's what you're supposed to do to keep healing, but to just not find any joy in it. Although sometimes bits of joy do leak through the haze. So maybe that's the point - keep doing it and allow those occasional bits of joy to get through; until they become less occasional.

One thing about your situation is that you are separated, not divorced. I don't fully get the concept of separation, unless there are thoughts of possible reconciliation on both sides. To me, if there are no reconciliation hopes, and if both sides aren't actively involved/discussing it, then separation just prolongs the pain and disruption. I'd rather get the divorce over with sooner and try my best to move on. It might help you to take that next step in moving on.

"I just want to feel better and find some joy in life again."

Me too. I am hoping that as the divorce and decoupling processes move forward, it will help me move forward. Moving into my own place in a couple weeks will be one of those steps. Then the divorce itself (not until September at the earliest, unfortunately - I want it done!).

All you describe sound normal to me. Time is the only thing that helps with this. If you are already doing the right things - keep doing them. Missing him is natural - sometimes also what we miss is not the person but the dreams and hopes we had - our mind plays a big factor here. when I missed my ex - I also made sure I remember the things I no longer missed. Relationships end because they are no longer good - perhaps it might be for one person, but not both - so when the missing piece comes in - remember what being with that person was really llike? what caused the break up? - do you miss those things?

Over time as you keep a realistic outlook on how things really were, you'll stop missing him - but the key is TIME.

Be well.

I'm sorry to say that what you're feeling and how long its taking is perfectly normal. Some experts say that it takes 1-2 years for every 5-7 years of marriage to heal. I tend to agree with that. Of course everyone is different.

I worried for the first 3 yrs about having enough and being able to make it on my own. But 10 years later, I have enough. Believe it or not, I'm now living on less than half of what our combined income was. My financial future isn't what most people would call secure, but I have a plan in place and I'm trusting that it works. That's because I worried about it for over 3 years and didn't have much fun during that time. Now I focus on the present, do what I can to plan for the future and then trust that it will take care of itself so that I can enjoy the Now.

I made it thru the dark tunnel of grief, despair & worry to the other side. It took several years of intense therapy and a multi-faceted approach. You're already doing a lot of thing right things. But there are a couple of things that helped me that you might want to do in addition to what you're doing now.

FOCUS ON THE NOW. Easier said than done, especially because our society is so focused on multi-tasking, but it can be done moment to moment. Just don't expect perfection. :-) Worrying about the future and ruminating about the past keep us out of the present moment. Anthony DeMello, in his book, The Way to Love, says that when we stop and sit in this very moment, we will find that we have everything we need. And its true. He also said (and this is key) that the reason we are unhappy is that we are focusing on what we don't have instead of what we do have.

That brings me to gratitude...

PRACTICE DAILY GRATITUDE. I started and stopped so many times, I've lost count. There were days that the only thing I could find to be grateful for was that I woke up. Then there were days I wasn't even grateful for that. When I was able to write things down (like my car & a roof over my head), I found I kept repeating the same things day after day, so I would give up.

Then I came across a suggestion that I write at least 10 things down every day without repeating anything. That just about did me in, lol. Then one day everything shifted. Something that most people (including me) would consider very insignificant happened and I found myself being very grateful for it. That's when I realized that its not the big things that we need to focus on. It's the tiny moments. A rainbow, a child's laughter, a flower, a walk in nature, etc.

The more we focus our gratitude on even the little things, the more we find things for which we can be grateful. It takes a concerted effort, but it really does work. It has a profound effect because what we think about expands. So, if we focus on all the crap in our lives, we keep finding crap. But if we focus on all the good stuff, we just naturally look for more.

One more thing that helped was going to a Rebuilding workshop. www.rebuilding.org. It's very inexpensive, but they offered some excellent speakers and gave us some really great coping tools. Plus it gave me a chance to meet others in my situation.

~healing hugs~