There is a turning point in recovery from Wife Abandonment Syndrome that is for some women blatantly obvious and for others, practically invisible. It’s that moment at which it really sinks in that your husband is not coming back and is the most important and often the hardest step to take in accepting that it's really over.

Abandoned wives do a lot of magical thinking along the lines of:

"Maybe he’ll change his mind and come back when he realizes how miserable I am."
“Maybe it’s a brain tumor and when it gets diagnosed and he has the surgery, he’ll be back to his old self.”
“Maybe it’s just a mid-life crisis and when he works it through, he’ll wake up and realize what he’s doing.”
“Maybe the girlfriend will dump him and he’ll come running home - hmmm, will I take him back?”

Sound familiar? I bit you’ve thought of one of them . . . at least! But hanging on to that hope when he has given you no evidence to the contrary keeps you trapped. You keep thinking about him when, I promise you, he’s not thinking about you.

You need to get to the point at which you can accept that it's over and he's not coming back. And that's huge. But only then you can truly mourn the loss and eventually turn your focus from the past to the future that you are now going to build for yourself.

You have to open your hands and release your grasp on the past. (Close your eyes and actually do it right now - make a fist and then open your hands and breathe out! Imagine all the hurt drifting away.) Only then, can you start to change your narrative from “I’ll never get over this” to “Tough as it is, I’m going to get over this” and then you’re on your way. (p. s. You don’t need to believe it. Just by saying it, you’ll make it become true.)

Have you reached that realization yet? Where are you in the process? Let me know in the comments below!