I have been an absolute wreck do to the complete blindsiding, discovering her affair and the depths/duration of her deception, loss of nearly my entire social structure, and living 3000 miles from my family.

I have been going to work which has been very accommodating. They can’t afford not to be because there aren’t too many surgeons eager to work in rural Appalachia. Especially for this amount of pay.

I’ve been doing twice a week therapy which has been very helpful. Probably the biggest realization is that I had been emotionally and physically abandoned in our marriage for years and that was a major component of why I was depressed. I wasn’t letting myself see that and I was using our busy work schedule and the death of her only brother to justify her abandonment.

My depression was one of the reasons she cited as a reason for fucking other men (for likely 8 of the 9 years of our marriage). I now realize that she is a professional gaslighter and lies with so much ease. She also gaslights herself, if that’s possible.

The last month, I have been stuck and falling back into denial and fantasizing that she will come back to me and we will work this out and I will be able to forgive her and our family can be whole…I shared this with my therapist who beat the shit out of me by hammering back all the objective information we have and then peppering in all the circumstantial evidence of horrendous long term infidelity and lying.

I still wouldn’t stop fantasizing. My therapist tried an experiment. She had me download a dating app and make a profile. I told her I wasn’t ready to date and didn’t want to date. She said that wasn’t the point of the exercise. We made a profile and holy shit, the number of women that want to meet up with me is insane.

I texted a few. I exchanged some information. I have no plans to go on any dates at this point in my recovery process, but for some reason feeling desirable to women HUGELY changed my emotional state.

I still feel how I feel about my STBX and find myself slipping off into fantasy and denial, but for some reason I feel better just knowing that there is an abundance of other and hopefully better people are out there for me down the road.

Court date at the end of next month and move in day for my new townhouse the week after.

My STBX lost a really good dude when she asked for a divorce. I finally believe that. Fuck her. Fuck her for blowing up our family. She’s disgusting and selfish and I’m pretty sure a sociopath with complete lack of empathy. I used to think her lack of emotional response was an asset, now I realize it should have been a huge red flag.