Welcome, Lynn, glad you're sharing here. You couldn't find a more healing place...I love this community. Questions for you, okay?
I need my sanity. But, if there is hope maybe all this dosn't have to end.
Here, you say you need your sanity and follow it with BUT...if I can hope my marriage won't end... Ummm, doesn't that suggest that you are saying that even though you know you need your sanity, BUT= you'd give up that need, to stay married?
If not, I want a life for me and my children.
And if you were able to let go of that hope for your marriage, you would build a new life.
So I see YES, there's hope...for a new life for you and your children.
That's my understanding, from what you wrote.
You've taken that first step of separation. I know how painful that is, when you can't be distracted any more from your grief...you have moved out of the space where all the hypnosis was...so now here it is. You have taken that first step, and grief is a companion right now.
Would it help to know that this powerful pain is helping you give birth to your new life? If you can abide with it, find comfort and help from every direction while truly comforting yourself too...and have faith, and keep posting.... This pain really will pass. Like everything else in life, it will change. You've not left him to move into a permanent state of grief. This is just a hard passage, like birth.
Hold on, and yell all you need to, and weep and rage...and find helpers. You are going to be all right.
Hopalong
Hopalong