[DanaC]

Or has severely impaired vision.

Takes a little while to relearn being yourself I think, after a relationship. We kind of become a different version of ourselves with someone else. Which is fine if you're in sympatico, but when a relationship has run into trouble, that sense a shared self can become an incremental trap. Aspects of yourself that fell away or were subsumed into your partner/family start to feel like a loss. The thing I found really liberating was not feeling in some way partially responsible for someone else's state of mind.

Maybe things can still be repaired for you guys, who knows. Not needing them to be, but open to the possibilities is a very strong position from which to approach counselling. Has to be right for you though, Ali - the kids will be fine in a family that doesn't all live in the same house, but you already know that a relationship that isn't working is not fine to live in.

Just my tuppen'orth. Whatever happens, I hope life continues to get brighter.