Two Feet:
      Of course you feel as if you are coming apart at the seams.  You've been carrying the burden of his secret throughout your whole married life, even when you didn't know what was wrong. You're only ten months out from D-day, too, which is a very short amount of time to have done what you have done, which is to process what you were hit with and to see clearly enough to know what you want and to act on it, especially after so many years of marriage, when you were locked in an unhealthy dynamic with him, and with him subtly but unmistakably pushing onto you relationship dynamics and psychological patterns you are now fighting to free yourself from.  No wonder you feel as if you are about to explode, keeping everything under wraps and acting in secret out of self preservation and for your future.  You are to be commended for having the strength of mind and will to make it this far!  It took me two and a half years to gather the courage just to call a lawyer, and another year after that to initiate divorce!
  Make no mistake: your husband's "love-bombing" or "hoovering" is a manipulative ploy to re-secure you in the status quo.  It is all about his fear, shame, and denial, and preserving his closet; it is not about his sincere commitment to you and to your marriage.  You are smart to see through his actions, and, further, smart to know you cannot trust this "new and improved" person.  I am not the only one here who has seen our "new and improved" spouses quickly revert back into devaluing us after we are re-secured in our marriages and re-committed to our spouses. 
   You are overwhelmed with thoughts for everything about your future: the financial settlement, what to say to your children, how your spouse may try to twist the story.  For now, it might be helpful to look at things in a sequence, and focus on what is the first thing coming up.  I would imagine that is getting the financial information.  Remember that your lawyer can help you there; your lawyer is working for you and your interests, and can serve as a resource and second pair of (very sharp and informed) eyes.  As you compile the information, and after the lawyer has seen it, ask questions like "In your experience, is there anything that I may not have thought to look for, account for, or ask for?"  Don't worry about what the attorney thinks: attorneys have LOTS of experience, and they understand the toll divorce can take.  
   Right now, you are thinking only in terms of the difficulties.  I did the same: where will I live?  How will I live?  How will I manage to continue to work in the same place he does?  Will I be alone?  When we are in the midst of freeing ourselves, feeling our lives out of control and wanting to gain some control, we are not able to see that the future also holds positives we are not able to predict or see.  So, for example, I was lucky that an apartment that was perfect for me opened up at just the time I needed it.  Some of what you see as an impending crash might prove to be an opening--your children might be relieved to have a way to explain the tension they've lived under, for example.  You might be very suprised, as I was, that others were not as positive about my ex as I believed they were.  I learned that far from being the withdrawn person I had become in my marriage, I actually enjoyed socializing, and others liked to spend time with me.  
   Divorcing my husband was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.  I wouldn't be surprised if you felt the same way.  And yes, it is destructive, massively so.  But once you are on the other side of it, and allowed to heal, you will rebound and recover--more than you now think possible.  I'm saying this as someone who is on this day five months past our final court date, past the massive pain, and feeling relieved to be free of the burden of my massively unhappy closeted spouse.  
   Who is it who used to have a signature line, "The only way through it is through it."  Or, as I told a student I was kayaking with once out on Lake Superior, when the wind picked up and she was frightened we'd overturn and drown in those frigid waters, "The only way off the lake is to keep paddling.  So keep paddling."  

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (April 9, 2019 11:21 am)

Outofhiscloset,
Thank you for that very generous response. Thank you for affirming my sense of things and the challenges of the whole experience.  Thank you especially for helping me see possibilities for positive outcomes for me and my children. Right now I focus a lot on “I just cannot do this anymore” while still assuming everything else is still miserable.

OutofHisCloset wrote:

 
   Who is it who used to have a signature line, "The only way through it is through it."  Or, as I told a student I was kayaking with once out on Lake Superior, when the wind picked up and she was frightened we'd overturn and drown in those frigid waters, "The only way off the lake is to keep paddling.  So keep paddling."  

 
Thank you so much for this metaphor that seems meant for me personally. As a paddler myself, I know how a sudden wind affects the water and my stability, and I know how even familiar water that I have traveled before, even when I know it in other winds, can somehow seem different in a particular wind.  I know how the only way is to keep working—and I know how pacing and counting my strokes and being focused on the task and on my direction makes a big difference.  How the shore far away eventually comes into view, and before long you paddle yourself right onto the sand of the beach and rest your kayak, then untwist yourself, get out of the kayak, and walk a little slowly and wobbly for a bit, but you soon regain your sense of the ground. It also reminded me how I know I can stop being afraid of the waves when I remember I know my kayak and I can trust it to keep me afloat, especially when I remember not to fight the waves, that I am most stable when I point myself directly toward the wind and hit the waves straight on instead of sideways.  That is the way to stay stable, and even though the going seems slow and bumpy, you make it.  I have learned that feeling in my body.  This was such a great image for me.  Thank you.

Rob,
    Yes, more kayaking!
Two Feet,
    And if I may point out...that metaphor being apt for you is just a minor example of the serendipitous positive events that you find it hard to remember are out there or can even conceive of there being when you are in the state of things you're in.
    Also, YES to what you say about paddling.  It's clear you are resourceful, attentive, and experienced: you can do this.
    And, I don't know where you live but I'd love to kayak with you.