Jk,
You sound better now...good for you.  Is it like your going back to who you were before being married?

On never been married..from my point of view with my ex being gay and cheating...it's more erasing of the past. The first thing she did when she filed for divorce was take off her rings.  So that, changing her name, and divorcing me makes the past go away..makes everything she did moral and ok.
But there are these kids you see..does she want to erase them too?  I having nothing to erase...
It's really bizarre to me.

JkPeace,   the biggest hug to you.  I can feel your struggle and spin.  Do whatever you need to do for yourself, what feels good in the moment.  You sound like a great Mom.  You're doing the best you can. 

I'll quote my grandmother, who wasn't alive when my marriage started or ended, and she said, "Honey, we have eyes in front of our head for a reason.".  Best. Advice. Ever.  

Looking back and questioning, though we all do it, is part of what exhausts us in what could have been, how life could be different, and it makes you not only angry, but also feeling sad and alone.  This is where this group of people is so fantastic.  Such support on here.  

It is mentally and physically exhausting to not only parent, but hit a reset button on your life and start new.  The only way out is through it.  Small steps, small accomplishments.  Take breaks when you need to.  Celebrate even the little things you accomplish.  Make a list, and cross things off that you do.  

One thing I did was decide that I wanted to travel, both for the metaphor of running away, but also for the need to see and experience new things.  I set a goal for myself to visit all 50 states by the time I turn 50.  I only have 6 left to go!  I even made rules for myself to enhance the experience.    It sounds ridiculous, but my huge map of the 50 states on my bedroom wall with dots of all the cities I've visited gives me a visual picture of how far I've gone.  

To all of you, you CAN do this.  Keep moving.  When you fall, or need to stop, or need support, we're all pulling for you. 

Of course there are the kids and there were the promises. But  It is one of the things that I have tried to put aside,  there is too much happening in the here and now that I can control and I have to deal with.  But I agree - the marriage never happened. In many ways that is a good thing.  There are better times ahead and I am not tied to someone who clearly was not meant to be with me.

    I hesitate to join this discussion because you're all so far ahead of me in the process, but I had my first therapy appointment today (it was for me only), and the therapist told me some things I'd already heard here first, but maybe it would be good for you all to be reminded again of what you already know (when I used to teach dance, I never minded doing the beginner's class: back to the basics, I'd think, never a mistake).
    First and foremost, it's ok to focus on yourself and you need to do what you need to do without beating yourself up over it.  If that means the duvet sometimes when you can't face the run you know is the healthy choice, then you go for the duvet, knowing that it's not forever, just that you are having a low day--so on that day the duvet is the healthy choice.
   She also said, jk, that anger can be good.  It motivates us to see clearly, and get things done (I think maybe lostdad has written about this).  When I was younger one thing I used to do when I was angry was to take an iron skillet out and whale on a pine tree trunk.  For one thing, the reverb back through your arms will make you decide that very soon that's enough.  And you might even end up laughing, knowing what you must look like, whaling away with an iron skillet on a tree.  Dress for it in an apron even....(now I'm taking a page from my cross dressing husband's book).  You might take a page out of the Inuit playbook and take a walk, and see how far you walk until you're not angry any more.  Alternately, a less physical means to deal with anger:  write a letter to everyone/thing that you're angry at/about.  This is a strategy my therapist recommended today, and not just for anger.  
  She also said that you should make decisions at your high energy/mood time of the day: don't expect yourself to function at a high level all day.  Try to limit the decisions for each day: so, jk, all those pancake dinners?  They're FINE!
  I love your list of "commemorations," too.  Those things will help draw a line between what was and what will be.  I'm going to make one of those for myself, although I've haven't yet earned the right to that. 
  I think we have to hold on to what is real: our children.  Last night I had a low night, thinking about how my husband said if he could be thirty again he'd want to be not just young but in another body (a woman's), and I realized that meant he'd be willing to have foregone having our son.  Hard enough to think of him wishing his male body and our entire past away, but our son?  Wow.  Just wow.