How long before it starts to feel better?

JellymanKelly

I've been separated all of 2 days, but I'm just so sad I can barely function. I know that I have to hold it together for the kids, and I'm doing a good job of that, but inside I feel like I'm dying. When does that feeling go away? I'm keeping busy, but every now and then the thought will hit me that he isn't coming back and I'm sick all over again.

 

Here is my LONG backstory:

I posted here in January that my H had asked for a divorce out of the blue. He claimed I had been treating him so badly that he felt I was slowly killing him. I had been suffering from PPD, but hadn't talked to him about it because he thinks depression is a bunch of crap. I found out he was "seeing" someone at work (they rarely got together, but talked on the phone and texted A LOT, and eventually set up tumblr accounts so that they could talk back and forth without me having access (real mature, right?). I still loved him (still do) and since I've been a SAHM for 5.5 years, I didn't know what I'd do if we split, so I convinced him to give it another go with me. I took the blame for all of the shiit he had done. He stayed, we moved with our kids 2300 miles away for his job with plans to be back home in December when this particular project was over. While we were there, things were GREAT, but he wasn't traveling (always a big stressor for us), and we were together all the time. We got along really well while we were there with only a few fights.

In August, we decided that the kids and I should move back home so our older DS could start school here. We had a bad experience at his school where we were living, and since he has some major learning disabilities, we wanted to give him the best shot. It was a hard decision, but he vowed to work through any problems that might arise as a result of it, and I (STUPIDLY) trusted him...after all, things had been going great for several months. Almost immediately after the  kids and I moved back home H started acting weird. He was annoyed by having to talk to me about struggles I was having as a result of taking care of the kids alone, and he got to the point where he wouldn't answer my calls a lot of the time. If I would get emotional at all, he'd just flat out refuse to talk. That, of course, made me crazy and we started fighting a lot again.

 

Two weeks ago he went to a football game with some friends. Prior to the game, he was ALL OVER ME via phone and text, but afterward it was like everything changed. I suspected he had met someone, but he denied that he was seeing anyone else. The next night, he told me that he didn't think he wanted to move back here, so I started brainstorming ideas about how we could all move back to where he is. It turns out that he had no plans for us to do that either. He wants to stay there and wants me to stay here. He agreed to think about it and work through it with me, but when he was here this week visiting the kids he told me that he had met someone he was interested in. He hadn't seen her again since the day they met (at that football game, of course!!), but he had been calling her from work since he had been back in town visiting us. I asked him to please stop this before it turned into another affair and he refused. He packed his stuff yesterday and headed back to where he's living, which is a day earlier than he had planned. I've heard nothing from him today, even though he usually checks on his kids at least once per day, so I assume he went right to new woman's house once he got home and isn't checking on them because he is with her.

I don't want to be married to him anymore, but this still hurts SO BADLY. I miss him (even though he is a colossal POS), and I am sad that he has left our sons in favor of someone he met two weeks ago. He's giving me sole custody without a fight (since he doesn't want to live with them anymore anyway), and I am happy not to fight with him about it, but how can he do this to his kids? As far as anyone outside the 4 walls of our house knows, he has been a great and attentive dad. How are our kids (5.5 and 18 months) ever going to understand this?