FindingAmy, I have so much empathy for you in these times of wrenching grief. I had a similar life, finally leaving my then alcoholic cross addicted narcissist abusive husband of almost 20 years.
My time is very short this morning, so let me make two suggestions. First, there is a book called The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships by Patrick Carnes Ph.D. that I found breathtakingly insightful in just the situation you are in.
Second, I think that your emotions and your intellect are working at cross-purposes right now. Your emotions are real, genuine, and they are what they are. But I think that your mind is mis-interpreting them.
For me, as my marriage ended, and as I went through the divorce and all the feelings it released, there were distinct stages.
First, and there was much truth in this, I felt that the problems my husband and I had were because of his abuse and his alcoholism which caused me severe harm and trauma. I did not and could not see much of my role in the unraveling of our marriage. I was too beaten down, and too traumatized and I just needed to get out, get free.
Second, and this was ultimately much harder and yet profoundly liberating and healing, I began to see my role in the downfall of our marriage.
At this point in time, I was flipping back and forth between seeing life, and our marriage, through my own eyes, versus taking his point of view and seeing from his perspective, as I had done for many years in our marriage.
At times I would berate myself and blame myself for ruining his life, even though the evidence was clear that I had suffered just as much at his hands. I was used to taking all the blame on myself. That was what he had required and demanded for many years. I had sunk into being less and less of myself, and more and more of what he projected me to be.
He was running for a small political office, and I wrote on SR that by filing divorce for cause, I would ruin his life because everyone would know. People here straightened me out, time and time again, and I would recover and stabilize my sense of self only to fall back into the hole of "it was all my fault" and I had "lost the best man in the world".
This was one of the most painful stages of growth for me.
Then as time went on, with counselling and a lot of introspection, I moved on to where I could see that yes, I did have accountability for my behavior and the failure of the marriage, but so did he. The rational part of my mind began to grow and stabilize, and the raw excesses of grief and blame began to dissipate.
Right now, I think you are feeling the ravages of loss and grief mixed up with the trauma of abuse that you suffered in your marriage. And your mind is attaching guilt and blame and self loathing to those raw and powerful feelings because that is the level of understanding that you are at now. You are labeling yourself and your emotions in the language of your marriage because that is as far as you have gotten in understanding and freeing yourself from the emotional construct that your marriage bound you in.
That will change. Your mind will begin to comprehend that, in the end, blame and guilt in such an overwhelming way, is not true. The truth of the failure of a marriage is very complex, and the more your mind can grasp, the more you can see your true role in its downfall, and the more you can heal and grow beyond it.
Have to go now, hope this makes sense. I would suggest reading my posts from the beginning forward, and I think you will see a similar set of feelings in my experience, and the progression through and beyond them.
There is hope, and it is your right to have it. For me, life is immeasurably better, joyful, and fulfilling now, and that awaits you.
ShootingStar1