Fwiw, there’s a LOT of your brother aviators that have been there before you on this one and, as such, you’re certainly not the first chap to go through this and you likewise won’t be the last!
It is a distressing period & process, and therein it is quite likely that you will feel waves of emotion, though - as has already been said - time is indeed a great healer, and therein the peaks & troughs of those waves will - in time - get less big and less frequent.
If you can take some time off towards helping to sort this out, both from a practical and emotional standpoint, then that’s probably for the best.
Wrt you children: As has been said above, it’s imperative that you keep contact with your children. You are still very much ‘their dad’ and (
age dependent) they’re probably v.likely to be as rocked by this outcome, just as much as you are yourself.
Wrt to communications with your wife: Do try to keep the moral and emotional high-ground in your dealings with her, and please do not demean yourself with petty arguing and / or bickering with her. Be strong, be logical, be clear & concise and, most especially, DO NOT LOOSE YOUR TEMPER!
On a practical note (
and albeit that one recognises that it’s maybe still early days in this process), might one politely suggest that you find & implement a method to make ‘child maintenance’ payments into a bank account which your ‘-ex’ does not have sole access to, always remembering that ‘child support’ is purposefully not designated as ‘ongoing ex-wife support’…. noting that some of us have been there and had the shirt ripped off our backs on that one!
Re-iterating what's been said above. Keep busy. Get your mates to take you out for a beer (
or three, or ten). Get yourself out to a few BBQ's, and / or plan some yourself (
and invite a few CC around to jolly up the place, and to jolly up you too!)... and know that we are all sympathetic to your plight (
if only because many of us have also been there) and take comfort in the fact that we've all survived it!
