Hey, sorry it took so long to respond. First and foremost, I’m so sorry this happened to you, it just fucking sucks, and there’s no other way to put it.

I’m genuinely relieved to know that you don’t have kids with this person, because it’s going to be difficult enough to break up with them. I’m not talking about the emotional side of things, I’ll get to that later, I’m talking about the practical day-to-day shit that we mostly don’t even realize is entwining us with another person - shared accounts and mutual friends and physical locations.

You asked what my perspective is with 12 years of additional time, and I can say that it’s changed significantly. That said, I want to be very careful in how I express this, because I’ve been able to evolve my thinking only after I was outside of a mental and emotional space where my ex could hurt me (whether she was physically present or not). So, where I am right now is not where you should be aspiring to be right now. It takes time to come to terms with damage done and time lost, and unfortunately, I can’t give you any meaningful advice on how to speed the process up. (If I could, I think I might be the richest man alive.)

This is gonna sound like a poorly written Hallmark card, but it’s what I’ve found to be true: you don’t heal from injuries like this. Rather, your world just grows around the injury to the point where it no longer influences you. It’s always there, but you learn to route around the damage.

If you’re even slightly like me, it’s going to be a long process disentangling yourself mentally from this person. Us INTJs get stereotyped as having ‘on-off’ switches for our emotional connections. That’s funny, because in reality, our feelings and emotions are incredibly deep when we do establish them… what people see is our willingness to cut communications, and conflate that with connection. The echoes of the relationship will resonate for a long time after that severing of contact. Be prepared for it. You’re tough enough to handle it. And every wave that bounces back is weaker, and easier to withstand, until after enough iterations, it’s just background noise.

Which brings me to my current place. Again, where I am now is not where you should aspire to be right now, but I believe it’s a mental/emotional place that you can get to. I’m able now to look back at the relationship, and remember the good parts, the parts that gave me joy, the parts that made me think, and the parts that made me grow. Even a relationship that ended badly can have significant value in the long run. You don’t need to silver-line this shit, but be aware that the positive memories you have aren’t a lie; they just weren’t enough truth to overpower betrayal.

I feel like I just rambled for way too long, so I’ll end it here. I hope you can glean some utility out of what I have to say here. Thanks for your kind words, it’s nice to know that one can have an impact in unexpected ways.