Painful, yes. I am sorry as I don't wish that pain on anybody, but there is opportunity here. Can you focus your pain toward resolve to work towards the things mentioned above with dedication? I think you may be pleasantly surprised with the results if you can. But the pain will last as long as the pain will last.
Good point. I tend to think that pain in it's usual course emphasizes many of the core beliefs we have that have played a part in creating the problems we face. Pain can really bring out our denial, feelings of inadequacy or entitlement, self-righteous anger, control, victimhood and so on. It's like a feedback mechanism so we might finally see the thoughts that have damaged our lives and the lives of others. If we can identify such things and work to remove them from how we relate, then it's like pulling out a foreign object that led to a festering wound. The wound still hurts after the 'foreign object' is removed, but it is not throbbing and so overwhelming. And actual healing can take place. I suspect this is true not only for psychological and emotional pain, but for chronic physical conditions as well.
This is easier said than done! As crazy as it is we seem to have protective barriers around our pain. For one, we're so used to living in our core beliefs that we have a hard time understanding how there is any other way to be. Our mechanical nature maintains these core beliefs as a matter of course. And it's not the easiest thing to see on our own exactly what is destructive in our thinking and what isn't. Journaling about our emotions that come up can help a lot, as can talking/writing to others about what you're going through. The latter is really helpful when we're stuck deep in the muck.
There seems to be some deeper subconscious recognition of our emotional world when we write it out that is different from mulling things around in our head. Just writing things like 'I'm overwhelmed and I can't stand feeling like this' in itself seems to provide some relief - at least that's been my experience. All the more if you dig deeper. What I've found most often is that the deeper I go, the more such things are closely tied to self-based emotions and this is where these foreign objects seem to reside. The point isn't to revel in these emotions but to see how you've utilized them and the impact they've had on your life and others lives, and how you can live differently. It's basically a confession of sorts where you are ruthlessly honest in looking at yourself, your thinking, and behavior.
With that said, perhaps you can look at the following in another light:
I read an incisive article about Jordon Peterson on his view of marriage being that of total commitment and permanence. He remarked something along the lines of... why the hell take vows in front of a bunch of people if it's not to solidify your willingness to say I'm not going to run away... Pre-conceived notions of divorce being a means of freedom makes very little sense. I for one feel much less free to grow after so much has been put in and anyone who tells me I can do better with someone else is full of it - I mean in my everyday life and not here on the forum.
To me this reads as blaming your wife for not staying committed to you, and where she is ultimately responsible for your growth or decline. It also leaves out much context of what JP has said about personal responsibility, relationships, and communication in terms of addressing small things as they come up so they don't end up being colossal issues that lead to an explosion or collapse. It's a pity party, which is pretty much the standard course for unexamined pain. It's easy to blame others, but that's not going to help with your pain. In all likelihood it will make your pain worse as it drives the foreign objects of blame and self-pity deeper.
