Hi, welcome to SI 😊😊. Sorry you are here but you’re in very good company.
First of all, you are not broken and weak or any of those terrible judgemental names you seem to be bashing yourself with.
You had the wit and gumption to come to SI, so that is already showing strength and resourcefulness and determination to get out of infidelity.
You have already identified some of the issues you are dealing with, which is a fantastic start: your sense of your dependencies on him, financially, emotionally etc, can be further elucidated, made more understandable to you (I.e.reduce the mystique you are building into it/ them) if you were to spend some time learning about co-dependency. For example, you think he’s the only one who ‘can fulfill you in ways you don’t want to live without’? What if those ways are in fact not at all fulfilling or healthy really but you have come to identify with them in a way that makes you think you need them - fear of abandonment, filling a void, repeating family of origin pain, all of these things could be the fulfilment you are really getting, and there are so many better ways to healing those wounds than temporarily plastering them through unhealthy reliance and dependency on him.
You got together very young, maybe you were trying to escape something, maybe you were looking for someone else to fill something in yourself that in reality only you can do. Try and see this whole episode as that - an episode and a wake up call to yourself. Stop looking to him to fulfill anything in you, in time you can learn to do all that for yourself. Get counselling help through the NHS, cultivate female friendships, get out of the house, take walks, join a club - start seeing life beyond the boundaries of your co-dependency and fear and you will begin to get ‘him’ back into proper perspective. He is just a person, and currently not a healthy one for you and you have many more interesting horizons calling you now that you are waking up. The fix that you think you are getting from him is fixing (temporarily alleviating but setting in stone) the wrong things. Use this opportunity to get to understand yourself better, your history, your strengths, make it a daily practise to be kinder to yourself, in your words, deeds and general attitude. Slowly and surely you will begin to see the sun shine again, feel more alive, like yourself and begin to break free of the chains of codependency.
Stick around here at SI. Read the Healing Library. Focus on you, not him. You’re actually doing really well. 😊
[This message edited by Edie at 4:31 AM, January 11th (Friday)]