Hello JOn99: I see this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral... from the Skeezyks! I hope you find whatever amount of time you spend here to be of benefit.

Well... I don't have any experiences similar to this I can share with you. But I have a whole laundry list of recollections I'd like to blot out... that give me that shiver of revulsion you mentioned. I have a whole lifetime of extremely bad choices to my discredit. So there's lots of material to choose from.

In an effort to deal with this, & prevent it from becoming overwhelming (again) I follow a Buddhist practice called "compassionate abiding". Simply put, this involves allowing difficult emotions to come up, leaning into them, breathing with them, perhaps even smiling to them, then dropping the story line after a few breathes & then continuing to stay with the raw emotion, allowing it to fade away at its own pace.

My experience, over the years, has been that trying to bury, avoid or run away from difficult emotions just keeps them coming back stronger. It is possible to learn to hold one's ground in spite of them. They are like ugly little trolls. But they have no power over us beyond what we cede them.

The passage of time itself will presumably help to soften the impact of this experience. However, if you & your wife continue with the process of splitting up you may, unfortunately, have more distressing experiences to deal with. At some point you may want to seek out some therapy for yourself. Bottling this stuff up can be a prescription for ongoing unhappiness. There's nothing wrong with what you did. The alcohol you drank simply made it possible for you to externalize the overwhelming emotions you feel inside. What's important here is to realize you are suffering & to find a way to resolve it. I wish you well...