Reaping,<p>A couple of things hit me in your last post… first the drinking thing.<p>Usually I have about one alcoholic drink and month. Not much of a drinker. One of my favorite drinks is vodka on the rocks with olives (yes I prefer my liquor straight). The week after d-day I drank a fifth of vodka and ate a lot of olives. That just about all I had to eat the week. Did a little better the next week but still drank far more then I have since my college days. I do not smoke either but I kept bumming cigarettes off of people. By the end of the second week I realized that I was self medicating. It was pretty scary. The only time I felt half human was when I was drinking, smoking or both. And this was new to me… I was compelled to do this. Can see how people become addicted to things.<p>By the third week I went to see an doc and got some anti-depressants. The need to drink and/or smoke has never returned. <p>The point here is that your going over board drinking sounds a lot like this. And you seem very depressed for this being 9 months later. Have you considered that you might have a very serious depression? Anything that lasts more the 2 weeks is considered a clinical depression. Yours has lasted 9 months. Maybe it’s time to stop thinking about him and take care of you.
I am also familiar with how everything falls apart. That’s because your are preoccupied and don’t have the attention/energy to do the little things that make a big difference.. again another sign of depression.
You are going to have to give up on the remorse issue. He is never going to do that. IMHO a WS cannot have true remorse until they are out of the fog. The fog will not lift until hey return to the marriage and start recovery. So if this never happens, he will never have the opportunity for reality to challenge his fantasy/fog.
I think the fact that he shows no real remorse, not just for what he did to me, but what he did to his children, blows me away.
Don’t lament and agonize on what looks like their good life… did you not yourself say that your life with him was not very good from almost the get go? He is repeating that pattern. He will be unhappy with this new OW too. You on the other hand have a chance to grow from this, to learn what makes a good marriage and to move on to a happier, healthier life. Take it and run!!!!

I swear to you, Reaping .... your description of your H is so much like my x-H it's scary ... truly, truly scary. <p>My x-H is/was a master manipulator, but if ya met the guy, you'd say he is sooo sweet and genuine. A real wonderful person ... loving, caring and charming to the hilt. Especially with the females. <p>My x-H is very much like that MM in that long OW letter I posted here for you. My x-H thrives on sympathy, he makes himself out to be that struggling artist thing (musician), and no one understands him. I guess it worked pretty well on me, I married him and stuck with him thru a real mess of his, babies made outside our marriage. <p>I just want you to know that what you've been thru will get easier as time passes, it's a stupid cliche, but it's true. <p>In the meantime, lean on us for help and someone to vent to. We do understand the pain and your struggle.<p>Thanks for letting us know you're all right.<p>Lv,
Jo