Thanks everyone-- I'm glad this is a thread that resonates with others but I've gotten so much from reading what you've all shared too in here so thank you...
AH said to me tonight that he misses the woman he fell in love with and instead of blaming him for changing I told him I was sorry bc that woman wasn't real. That woman was someone who was afraid to say what she wanted bc being needed and thought of as a martyr mattered more. I told him that who I am now is who I've always been, I just didn't show it and that he's right to be confused. I told him it was not intentional to "fool" him but that I understood if he felt that way. I think that while I'm grieving not having what I hoped we'd be (which was something healthy), he's grieving realizing that the doormat who worshipped him is most definitely NEVER coming back. He'd be okay with me reverting back to being the delusional full on codie, enmeshed, sick person he married and I'd just as soon be water boarded before I'd start acting like that again...
I think for a while I thought that if I could stop being so angry I'd feel a lot better but I don't. I'm not angry so much anymore with AH but just so so sad and it hurts a lot more I think than the anger did... I guess that's to be expected huh? I know as a kid I tried to hide being sad and that manifested itself as my coming off as angry a lot of the time... I guess I felt anger was safer somehow and apparantly have continued to think this as an adult... Here's to hoping that moving through the sadness means that it will lessen the more I move through it. I can't imagine it getting more painful than it is right now...