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This is all still so new for me, I have really bad days and some ok days on accepting where we are, moving towards D. As summer approaches and vacations are being planned, how does one make it through the pain? What are good coping skills I should start reading up on now?

WH's family reunion is this June - I'm so sad that not only am I D him, but I am D his awesome fun family. I don't know what I'm going to do that week. I know the kids will have a blast, I'm just so sad that I will be missing my 'family'.

I just booked a fall break trip with my brother and sister in law with the kids. It's going to be so great - Hawaii Disney Resort - I am super excited, but I can't stop thinking how I wish my 'old H' could also go. We were a great team on vacations, I was the organized planner, he was the spontaneous fun idea guy. New memories will be made, but not as a family..half a family.

And I know WH will plan trips coming up soon. To miss my kids enjoying new adventures is going to be so painful and hard.

We had plans to take them to DC, now how is that going to happen? I do a trip he does a trip - I don't think so. What if WH plans the trip - that is something that I wanted to do. The kids keep talking about taking a cruise and how I always wanted to do that - what if he plans that?

I keep reading out here, I know it gets better - but thinking about summer and trips makes me so sad to be missing out on my kids lives. It makes me so mad at WH - how can he do this to us - it doesn't make any sense and it never will.

Honey, you will go to Disney as a family. A whole family. Not a broken family, not half a family. A whole family. Families aren't exclusively a married set of parents w/ children. Families are the love that binds us together.

It is a mistake to think of your family as broken or incomplete. Your family WAS broken. Now you're healing. Your family looks different than you thought it would, but you are still a family.

It is important that you reframe your reality.

No reason why you can't each do a trip to the same destination. Most vacation spots are impossible to see completely in one visit. Each trip is unique and exciting. make your trips with the kids about you and the kids.

So he takes them to DC. There's enough to do in the Smithsonian to spend a couple hundred of years there. Sit down with your kids when planning activities and things to see. That way you can avoid 'boring' things for the kids, and emphasize the 'fun' stuff. Also, if they've already seen the Lincoln Memorial and hated it, go to the WWII Memorial instead. Or if they loved something in particular, plan a return and let them play tour guide for you.

Same goes for a cruise. There are literally hundreds of cruise destinations and different types of ships. Do you want to watch whales off the Alaskan coast, or take a Disney Cruise?

I know it's hard imagining your kids doing these things without you. Try to just focus on the varied opportunities they'll have.

Thanks - I do need an attitude and outlook adjustment - especially today for some reason. Feeling blue. I am downloading some new reading material, hoping to get some inspiration and motivation.

I will work on thinking of all the wonderful memories my kids and I will make together as our new family unit - and they can continue with their father as well. It will work out, I know it will, just hard to be away from my precious little ones - they grow up so fast, I hate missing anything along the way. It is what it is, I'm dealt this new deck of cards and will pull out of this ok.