I want to get all this stuff out so I can move on. 
I know I'll never forget it because it is part of what defines who I am today.

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I keep my previous years' diaries, and sometimes even refer back to them.  Infact I have diaries dating back to 1999 the year Miss 8 was born! So when I tell you that I glanced back over last years diary around this time you won't be surprised.

FOTY had moved out and I'd started speaking to a counsellor over the phone.  I couldn't attend an office to do this because I had NO spare time.  I hung on every conversation trying to figure out how to make him come back and be a MAN, a HUSBAND and a FATHER.   

I was left with working 4 days a week, getting Miss 8 to school and Master 5 to either kinder or my parents home, followed by a frantic scramble to the city where I worked.

I participated in on a LIFE COACHING (free) teleconferencing call... but realised that now was just not the time to have a career change.

I had to re-adjust our financial priorities even in these early days, because he made sure he was taken care of by renewing his GOLF membership ($1300 pa) and AFL Football membership ($400pa) days prior to telling me he was moving out.

Anzac Day (25-April-07) was a Wednesday and I had to mow the lawn for the first time ..... while FOTY went to the Collingwood v Essendon Clash at the MCG.
I recall walking up and down once I got the bloody mower started and bawling my eyes out feeling humilitated, embarrassed and useless.

I sent him a text message something like "Thanks alot, hope u r enjoying the football, while I mow the lawns!!!"
It obviously hit a raw nerve because he wrote back something along the lines of
"GET F*CKED, I offered to do it for you but you declined!"
Which was sort of true, and my fault because although I wanted him to do the lawns, I didn't want to ask him for anything.

Master 5 was unwell that week, can't help thinking it was due to the stress we were all experiencing.
FOTY also got sick, poetic justice from where I sit, he sat in the cold weather watching the Football. I recall this because he used to come on a Thursday evening and he cancelled on us.

A friend invited us over for dinner on the FRIDAY night and we had a great time - although I remember feeling like I was watching myself experience these type of social events as if I was a fly on the wall.
Infact friends had us over for the first month or two after he moved out - then the invites just stopped (except from my closest friend who to this date remains my best friend).  That was hard.

He came over on the Saturday, he arrived at 9am and stayed until 1am that evening, and I'm embarrased to say we had sex - he instigated it and I thought it would make him miss me and want me ... he was using me.

I lost 12 kg in the first three months - I recall not being hungry at all, I lived on coffee, tea and water and forced myself to have toast and a little bit of food at dinner time - so that the kids wouldn't notice.  I couldn't sleep, apparently this because adrenalin builds up when we are stressed and unless you exercise it out - it can stop you sleeping!  So I started doing weights - his weights which he left because he couldn't fit them in his new apartment.

I've come such a long way.
I even recall driving to work one day on the Freeway and looking at the concrete pillars and thinking how easy it would be to veer into them.  It wasn't that I wanted to die, I just wanted the pain that was my constant companion to leave me.
When I had this thought a few days in a row I texted him and shared my thoughts.  He called me and asked if I was serious and did he need to call someone for me???

He can't hurt me ever again, he can't leave me ever again.  I won't let him, but I can't avoid the feelings that sometimes visit me.  He can however hurt his children, and for that reason I can never forgive him.