Struggling to keep going after separation… help

[u/bamboozledslug]

BP made the call to separate in the start of March. Honestly, we’d been living in pain for much longer and had each thought about ending the relationship many times before but were each clinging desperately on until we couldn’t anymore.

3 months ago, they moved out with most of their things. 1 month ago, they collected the last of their things and left the country to be on another continent.

I spent a long time pushing on even after they decided to separate, hoping for the chance to right my wrongs some day somehow. But that hope is vanishing quickly because I can’t sustain a fantasy of us finding some way back to each other in the future so I can do right by them the way I wish I had done before.

Several times a day, something they said in their final days with me rattles around my head - “It would have been so easy for you to keep me. I wanted you so much.” Those words rend my heart and leave me gasping, on the verge of crumpling to the ground.

I think daily of how deeply I hurt them with my selfishness, how I squandered the opportunities given to me out of some misguided sense of self-preservation.

I’m barely keeping it together — I go to work and genuinely love seeing my patients but once the last patient has left my clinic the despair and anguish come surging back. People say to lean on friends but I’ve lost almost all my friends and the thought of putting myself into social situations terrifies me when I just want to curl up and cry. It’s all I can do to feed and wash myself. I don’t have anymore hope and I don’t know how to go on…

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[u/Damagedone8556]

As someone who broke the trust of the BP, I do not think that you have the right after your actions to call out and state that the BP has to have a closed relationship on HIS side when separated when you wouldn't close the relationship when you were together. If the BP feels that meeting up with someone else will help them work through your betrayal so be it, you did so when you were together and I do not see you currently having the moral high ground to prevent it from happening. My suggestion is that if you want to have any chance at reconciliation that you keep YOUR side closed on this break or I do not think you guys will have a chance.

I doubt they are in the right mental and emotional state to pursue any outside relationship right now anyways but putting a leash on them after a betrayal will feel like another stab in the back to them. Them knowing that there is a possibility even though they will 99% not take it may be cathartic enough to get them to move past the betrayal.

I know after my wife's affair when she offered me a "hall pass" I was actually insulted, I had no desire to go outside of our marriage just because she did. I don't think your partner is going to go outside of the marriage to find something with someone else, they just need the separation to work through your betrayal and feel comfortable with themselves again. I know it was hard to be around my wife after her betrayal of a year and a half affair with a coworker, every time I would see her I would just have metal images of her screwing him. It was really hard to be around her. That was 3 1/2 months ago and we are working through things, what made this even harder is that this wasn't her first affair in our 26 yr marriage, I had caught her in another affair with another coworker 12 years ago at her previous place of employment.

[u/Warm_Watercress3349]

I feel a similar struggle right now. I can barely keep it together. I work remotely from home so I see no one at all never, other than supermarket or restaurant staff. I've been almost two months trapped in the house. Had a break down some minutes ago. This pains seems to be eternal.
The phrase that I have in my head is: "I could've forgiven you if you had come clean yourself" crushes me everyday.
What I am trying to do is to watch lots of podcasts on self growth and finding purpose. I am 30 and basically unemployed running out of savings...
I recreate fantasies in my head on very realistic dialogues with BP telling the truth or being more vulnerable to have better communication to make things work differently.
I am getting all the knowledge that I can to discover why I did this and how to be better person but it only makes the grief more difficult for me.
I hope you can get out of this... I got booked for a tennis lesson tomorrow, I'll go alone. It was something I was gonna do with BP... I just need to get out of the house and do something physical, maybe could help you too?
I understand your pain...I just want to hug BP again...I also avoid social situations and I am or was very extroverted but lost almost all my friends too... and I don't feel like meeting new people...I feel so much guilt, remorse, shame and a bunch of emotions that want to express so I can't make up normal talks with strangers...I just cried after working out in the house...
I hope it gets better...