Thanks so much everybody. It was really helpful to get this feedback.
1. Regards leaving, I decided I am not leaving my house. He can go. I have also thrown him out about once every 4 days these last weeks. I'm not a volatile person. I am not an angry person. But here I am. Volatile and Angry. I bite it down and then I get so angry I ask him to leave and he packs his bags and then ends up not going because he tells me how sorry he is and how much he loves me. What we've discussed is him getting his own place for a few months nearby. So we can just get a bit of space.
2. I feel caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. He's been rocking his body, shaking, crying, weight loss, unable to sleep. It's not just a mild situation, he's seriously not okay. So that ends up taking priority because as mad as I am I can't stand seeing him in that state. He has no capacity for resolving the mess he made or working on root causes because he can barely get out of bed in the morning.
3. Right now, neither of us are in IC. I think he's scared he's about to have a complete breakdown and he needs to feel more stable before he can even think about that. I should probably start IC for myself.
4. I KNOW he is TRYING. He tries to be kind. He is always trying to kiss and touch me and even if he feels terrible he listens when I need to talk. Not that he offers any real help, but he is TRYING. He makes me food so I eat (I lost a lot of weight) and his eyes look so sad if he sees me cry. He is doing what he can do, what he has the capacity for, but I feel stuck.
5. What makes me MOST angry about all of this, is that his screwed up brain associates his current broken state with having to move jobs, move house, change his life completely etc. He's on the spectrum so this kind of stuff does create huge anxiety generally, but I want him to see it's his AFFAIR which actually did this to him / me / us. It makes me SO ANGRY that he doesn't attribute this shit storm with cheating as the root cause. He doesn't see that nearly a year of basically being stalked, threatened blackmailed, hit and terrified by an insane OW was a pretty big part of why he is so sick. This makes me furious, because I think he is looking back at the good old days of cheating as being happier than now. Which is psychologically twisted, right?!
6. He says he knows all of the above to be true, but he is in anxious state and can't think straight until he feels settled again with a stable place to live, job and so on so he can think again properly. He says once he is more stable he will give me everything I need and look after me as he should have always done. He says "we came this far Gracey, we just have a little further to go". Yet, every minute I feel deprived on my real eureka moment where he truly gets all of this, his crappy choices and all the consequences of them.
7. I can't really talk to my friends about this. I don't know why. Shame? I never pictured myself in this situation. I feel really ashamed. I could handle IC, so maybe I will try that as a good outlet and some support for myself.
8. I have so much empathy for people with mental health problems, particularly if they're in the spectrum because I can't stand seeing another human being suffer, but I still feel so angry. He had the capacity to create this mess, but lacks the capacity to resolve it.
9. The hidden depression thing rings really true. I was away for several months when his affair started and he was feeling really down at work and in general and along came AP with her lovebombing and flattery and all of a sudden he was Mr Big. I think he definitely felt that for a while. With ego issues dating back to FOO. Then it all clattered around his ears and here we are. I just wish HE instead of YOU had this level of insight.
10. He may never be able to do IC. MC maybe, but if he has a record of any mental health issues, he would lose his job. He has a job with background checks and so on. He's terrified by this. I am really not sure how he works though all this, even once he feels better, without IC.
11. What I need most is really for him to do the above, and to work through all this. I need him to get why he did this, how it happened, what it resulted in. I need him to just completely get it, and until he does I don't feel I can begin recovering as a couple.
Thanks as always for listening.