When it was getting close to termination time with my T, I got the brilliant idea of "bridges". Get from before to "after" with a bridge. If you stagger activities and have something to look forward to "after" whatever, that can keep moving you forward.

I joined a women's group that, theoretically, would still be meeting after we had terminated. I planned a major trip (you should have gone on your trip now :-) I was looking forward to for a couple months after we terminated, to Switzerland, and months before started taking German lessons with my husband, etc. Other things to focus on in the future. I retired and moved months afterwards so was busy packing and planning and furnishing a new house, getting new routines, etc. I also got an online therapist specifically for the "transition" between termination and feeling better.

My favorite bridge when my T went away over Christmas was ggetting individual little University testing booklets (they only have 7-8 pages so 14-16 in all) and writing a different one each week and mailing off to T's office, each booklet at the end of its week. But I had a couple distince habits for days when I saw T and I'd "continue" those habits (mostly related to handfuls of large Wintergreen Life Savers to eat during the long drive to/from T :-) on those days.

Do you have any patterns you've seen in other absences? Things like having more trouble "now" than after she's actually gone and the deed is done? That was an interesting/suspicious one for me to look at. Something like that could make you a little more comfortable now knowing that next week, after your "protest" doesn't work to get her to stay, you know you'll feel a bit better (or resigned). I was able to give up my protesting feelings now a bit sooner when I saw a connection like that. Knowing and being able to write out the scenario kind of takes some of the drama out of it? "And now, here's the spot where I decide my husband is the Devil incarnate. . ." it becomes a "play" and loses some of its dramatic effect and deflates a bit.

The first time my T ever went away for an extended period was one of the worst experiences in my life but I had enough "Watcher Self" to get good help from reading to "distract" myself. Of course, the themes in the books would remind me of my own problems and of T being away and it got to be almost funny to me how my mind would stray and keep working on my therapy/loss problems and how my Watcher would catch that straying. Another thing I've done is start recording all my dreams while T is away and entertained myself with their content (and "statistical" things like noticing how the night before a day when there would have been a session or the night of the day when there would have been a session, how the dreams were similar or different from one another and/or other nights both while she was away and versus when things are "normal" and we're meeting regularly).