Today is six months since I discovered the affair. Tomorrow will be six months since I asked for divorce.

In that time, I wanted to die. Every day, in fact, I want to die. I think about it often. I don't do it, and I don't have plans for it. I am surviving. I am surviving because if I die, then my story becomes hers. I can't allow that.

In that time, I've seen a therapist. Things are fine I suppose, in there. Once per week, she asks me how my week was. What happened. She pries. She asks questions. She agrees with me. I have to beg her to tell me hard truths, to be honest, to be willing to hurt my feelings, my ego. She's soft. But she's part of how I made it here.

In that time, I moved into a friend's. He was kind. As was his wife. But every other day a dog shits in the house, the apartment is cluttered, and their relationship depresses me both in its deeply flawed nature and in how they have each other, and I have no one. I need to leave. They "miscommunicated" and my end date in this place has moved from June 2025 to January 2025. I am scrambling.

In that time, I worked out. All of you said to. It's the mantra, the way. It's how you survive. My body is changing. I'm healthier, younger-seeming, more energetic, more muscular. I spent too much money on clothes to try and feel attractive again. When someone compliments me, I hate it. I want to punch them. I don't know what I want. Everything. Nothing. Less than zero.

In that time, I took up guitar. I always wanted to, but always made excuses. Now with nothing else in my life, I filled the time and made swift progress. I can't bring myself to paint anymore, and I am glad to have found a creative outlet, a means of expression.

In that time, I thought of her every day. Sometimes I carry out conversations with her in my head. I feel rage, pity, disgust, confusion. I feel love, and affection. I think of the little things. How through a quirk of her iMusic account the same song always came on when she started her car. I found myself absently humming it as I drove today. Realized what I was doing. Realized she had worn a place in my soul shaped like her. Maybe that's why I'm writing this.

In that time, she has made no move to sell the house (mortgage and deed is in her name). I left for my own sanity. In that time, starting this month, I stopped helping to pay the mortgage. She stopped responding to my emails. I worry we are inevitably, invariably heading to court. I do not want that. I want my freedom.

In that time I started seeing other women. Distractions. Ways to pretend my life wasn't really happening. It hurts. It felt good. I'm afraid I'm mistreating them by exposing them to me and my insanity.

I don't think I'm going to be able to care for my dog. She will have to keep him. Another loss. In a long line of them.

So there is my update