I've been going over the events of the past 4 1/2 months during which most of it I've been in a deep state of depression. When I break it down it seems like it may just be that I'm experiencing normal grieving for many losses over an extended period. Not sure if there's a difference. Each time I start feeling a little better about my situation, something else comes up and I slip back into darkness.... Here's the progression:

Jan 9 my wife and I separate as per her wishes. For the next few weeks I'm really angry and don't want anything to do with her.

Around week 3 I start to realize this is wrong and need to work on getting back together. The next week she leaves for a week long trip.

A few days after her return we get together to talk. I tell her I want to work it out and she says no, she wants to stay separated for a long while to figure it out and she wants to get her own place.

A couple weeks later we take a hike together and talk. She says she feels she made the right decision- I still want to try. I ask her about a guy I suspect she likes after seeing how she sparkled when she spoke to him (that used to be my sparkle). She said yes she likes him but he has no interest in her. (more on him later). In the car on the way home she tells me she thinks I might have to separate from her company which I've been a part of since its beginning 4 yrs earlier. I just completed the design of her new first of its kind facilty.

****Time starts to blur for me here*****

A week or so later I suddenly have no involvement in a company for which I designed the first logo, built the first website, made the first lables, designed the first and upcoming facilities, and designed a lot of the equipment to run them.

Week or 2 later we discuss selling the house and decide I should try to keep it for the stability it provides the children. I also have by this time realized that I've lost 1/2 of the precious short time I have left with my children and all of the interaction with her family during important events- none are local to us and I adopted her family as my own many years ago.

In another week or two I'm denied the loan for the house without some very creative financing and it would really be a struggle financially. I decide to let it go. The kids and I are heartbroken.

During the next week or so I decide to drive through a neighborhood on my way to work at 6am to look for houses for rent. I see my wife's car and recognize the truck parked next to it. She's at the house of the previously mentioned guy... at 6am. I drove away both stunned and furious. The guy in question is the one who will be building the facility I just designed for her. I spent several months working very closely with this guy and really liked and trusted him. I little while later I called my wife to ask her about it and she said they only started developing a relationship a week or so prior to then. I called him and met with him to discuss it and he had the same story. And they both said they wern't sleeping together and my wife said she's being very careful about the decisions she's making and really thinks he's a good guy.

Last week I was tasked with repairing some things at the house to get it ready to sell.... All the while thinking that she has been seeing this guy for about a month and I'm pretty sure their relationship has been progressing. So all I can think about is my wife being intimate with another guy. She had to go on another trip and returned this past Saturday. After her return, she wasn't reachable from Saturday afternoon until noon on Sunday. I've only been imagining the worst.....

So here I am, a little over 4 months after we separated wondering why it all hurts so bad and I can't just move on. I"m coming to see that opening the next door to my life isn't so easy when the existing ones keep closing and many are still just swinging in the breeze.

So maybe this is just normal mourning?...

This whole story is so much different than the fairy tale first half of our story- the one where we met on a dance floor on New Year's Eve and ended up selling all our belongings to travel the country and then the world together.....