The Ruminant,
Thank you for your response and the time and effort you obviously placed into the communication. I feel validated and heard. I found a few of your points very interesting. Love not being therapy certainly rings true. I am actually a therapist and have often if my desire to help her heal is part of the problem, especially when she is unable to see her own brokenness. Another very interesting point; the mention of narcissism. Yes, I firmly believe she is not a little bit of a narcissist, but a severe narcissist. She actually meets all of the criteria for narcissism in the DSM, and only a few of them are needed to make the diagnosis, yet she meets them all. That has both helped me realize I can’t control this situation and actually have very little influence on it, and also caused so much more pain for that very fact – I cannot change this. This leads me to another very important observation you made – I am trying to go backward, to get back the peace I had before. That isn’t possible yet I am working my fingers to the bone to get there. I suppose I should mourn the loss, but to be honest she still hasn’t told me she isn’t going to work to save us. I know the answer will be this she is gone, but we haven’t talked yet so in still holding out hope. Maybe delusional on my part. Oh, and about the house, it’s her home, has been for years before me and she has a young son, so moving wasn’t a surprise for me. It was painful, but the logical step since she had decided to discard me.