Same thing happened to me back in 1997. I did not see it coming after over 20 years of marriage. I cried for three solid days and thought my life was over.
The last 13 years have been the best years of my life. I met the woman of my dreams at my 25 year class reunion, 3 months after my ex dumped me. We’ve been married 12 years, and the honeymoon is not over.
My three daughters are who it impacted the most, and that sucks. They were 10 to 16 at the time. Now two of them are in a female fronted band with me and the third stops by once a week to visit with my wife while the rest of us are at rehearsal.
Bottom line - it gets better. And it can get a LOT better.
BTW, you said it was your fault. Without getting into details, it is always both parties fault to one degree or another, but that is not relevant. As a friend said to me about two decades ago: “I take responsibility for some of the problems in my marriage, but not the divorce. I didn’t do it.”
Everyone is loveable and hateable. When you marry someone you CHOOSE to be their life companion, mate, friend and generally be their ally. When you act badly you are just doing what people do from time to time. It is good to try to get better, ask forgiveness and mean it. When you divorce someone you violate an oath made to man and God.
In my case, at least, almost all of the people who knew me during the divorce and “took the other side” have come back and apologized for believing things about me that time has proven to be utterly false.
After reading your post the other day, I did some more thinking. I distilled part of it to: I ruined our marriage, but she ended it.
You’ve helped me a lot. Thanks.
Good advice.