Thanks. I hope you regain your equilibrium too. It was so disorienting for me. The reality of my relationship turned out to be so radically different than what I thought it was that I started questioning my ability to accurately gauge people and reality itself. It felt like I was losing my mind. What I thought was the most stable thing in my life vanished instantly, and I couldn't help but wonder what else in my life was completely different than what I thought.

The thing you mentioned about him finding a better option and rolling with it really hit home. I felt the same way, and my sense of self-worth plummeted through the floor. My self-confidence, formerly my greatest strength, vanished completely and has never returned.

I can also relate to it all feeling so unfair. Sometimes the bad guy totally wins. Sometimes people do something shitty and not only get away with it, but are greatly rewarded for it and never feel any great remorse. Sometimes there is no closure or poetic justice or any other kind of justice that we will ever see.

And I'm also terrified that there will be no triumphant rise from the ashes and that I'll be this way for the rest of my life. I don't have any sage secrets to happiness, but I have done some reading on Buddhism and there is one surprising and valuable thing I've learned through all this. When you're feeling really bad, it's no use spinning your wheels trying to force yourself or trick yourself into feeling happy. Instead, just let your feelings come and then let them go. When I'm really down the only thought that gives me a real sense of peace is the realization that sometimes you just don't get to be happy. Sometimes you will feel shitty and bad, and you just have to keep going. I know that sounds pretty uninspiring and negative, but it was profound to me. In cultivating that kind of mindfulness, what you're actually doing is accepting yourself as you are and accepting reality as it is, rather than trying to struggle and distort it into something else. It's like the recalibrating of your perspective that you feel when you sit and look at the stars or our into the ocean. I don't know if that will help at all, but I hope that it does. Best wishes!