Grief process

There are several stages in the grief process:

1. Denial & Isolation
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

The numbering system give you a sense that this is a linear process. First, I'm in denial and I isolate myself. Then I feel all the anger. Then I begin to wonder about the possibilities of bargaining for anything but this loss, and later, I slump into depression before making my way into peaceful acceptance of reality.

Sounds good and dandy having such a straightforward process but the reality is that these so-called stages are that they're not as clean-cut as you think.  You go back and forth, you experience multiple at the same time, and for me, personally, I've had a difficult time not separating 1 and 4 together.

At this point in time, I think I'm at stage 2.  Finally.  A year after his 1st initial cheating fiasco was discovered, I now get to anger.  I know I was in denial for a long long time. And I know that it was because I didn't want to go through this process only to feel regretful at stage 4 and then try to get him back.  That's probably my greatest fear, I think.

I fear that I will later regret letting go, so I held on for as long as I could, no matter how difficult it was, so that eventually, when I do experience the loss (which I refuse to even accept as reality during the time), I can skip past bargaining to know that I did everything I could have possibly done to make it work.

This leaves me with.... anger, depression and acceptance left.