A New Week: Emotional Cleanse

ok, so if you couldn't tell from my last post and then the couple days of absence, I have been a little emotional.  Between my trip to TX, what I consider a lost friendship, and all the emotions of the divorce, I have been struggling a little.  I have been very introspective for the last several days, but going to the temple and then conference, I feel like as soon as I get them out in the open, I can start the emotional cleanse.  So, here we go.
I have become aware that recently I have been taking comments from several different people as judgmental and demeaning.  Although some were in fact, very few were ever meant to be that way.  As soon as I felt judged, I would feel my walls go up and a boil in my stomach, attempting to turn itself into anger.  As of late, I feel I have really worked on my anger and not been quick to that emotion as I once was, so I was aware of how of how often I was feeling this way. I began pondering why I was feeling to abused and slowly I pieced my memories together to come up with this:
In my post about TX I indicated I still had emotions from the past with Josh that I had not been able to put behind me as I had thought and upon reflection found the question that was never answered and that still pulls at my heart.  Why and how did Josh fall out of love with me?  As you are very aware, Josh and I had been having a rough time of things for a long while.  There were many nights I would cry wondering how I could be married to this person, how was it even possible to make this work and would seethe with emotions of anger at the wrongs he had done to me, but despite it all, I still loved him.  I had never stopped loving him. Even now, after months of hard work at separating my heart from his and repairing all the damage, I still love the man I married eight years ago.  To clarify, I do not love the man he is now, but those memories, that man, I love that even now.  I still struggle with letting go of the love I had developed and held onto for so long.  So then how is it possible for him to just stop loving me? to stop caring for me?  I have asked him and am always answered with "I don't know." "It wasn't you." "It just happened." but none of those make sense to me and they certainly don't answer the question.  I hate to admit this, but I could almost understand it more if it was because he loved her more, but that isn't even the case.  He lost all emotion and love for me and he had admitted so many times.  To him, I simply became the mother to his children, nothing more and yes those are direct words from his mouth. I just don't know how to make sense of it and being the human being that I am, I still wonder what I did wrong, what is wrong with me or why would it not happen again?  See, how can I be seriously involved with anyone when I still struggle with this and fear this? How can I trust someone with my heart when I don't know how to trust a man with it? I gave him everything that I was and all of it was not only rejected, but completely devalued and discarded. This seems to be the knot in my heart that I don't know how to pick out and there are several different threads of emotion making the knot as big as it is. Self esteem, self worth, trust, love, respect, etc
So retreating back to the anger and defensiveness when I feel judged all goes back to this.  This constant reminder that it is possible to fall out of love with me and the very hard memories of how for three years I was not loved, but pretended to be and how for three years I was blamed and belittled and accused and to be very honest abused.  Please, let me be clear.  Josh never raised a hand to either me or the children, but to be led on for three years and take many of the things that were thrown at me verbally and emotionally were very abusive.  I was actually reading a book on abuse and was surprised when I saw how many commonalities and characteristics I shared with the victim.  I held this thought in my head, but rarely voiced it or even made it real until just a couple weeks ago a woman from a battered woman's shelter came to educate the relief society on forms of abuse and how to recognize it.  My heart ached as once again I realized how for so long I allowed myself to be victimized and yet still remain oblivious to it.  I have been distraught and disgusted with myself, and sad knowing that even if I could go back in time, I don't think there is anything I would change,  How did I end up here? I have always thought myself strong, fierce, stubborn and yet I took what I did for years thinking it was good enough and I didn't want to lose what I did have.  Then there was fear.  fear of raising my kids alone. Fear of providing for my kids financially.  It took Josh degrading me and disrespecting me in the worst way possible, by cheating on me, for me to finally stand up for myself and stupidly even then for weeks I wanted him to crawl back apologizing so I could work on forgiving him and have back the life I knew.  not sure if it was love, fear or just stupidity, but it was really hard acknowledging a separation that could and would never be repaired. 
It is because of things said to me and the way I was treated for so long that I now seem to by hyper-sensitive to the judgments of others.  I have worked so hard on myself these last eight months, building up a woman who can carry the load on her back, but when I feel people are pointing out my flaws or mistakes it is my Achilles heel that brings me down to the sad, self hating, fearful victim I had become.
Everyday I am still working on building myself up; trying to focus more on the positive than the negative and gaining confidence in who I am and what I can do.  I have to remind myself frequently and some days easily forget the progress I have made, but still I work on it.  I love you all and apologize for my rant.  I love you all and honestly that post was not even for any of you who read my blog, just words I felt I needed to say. I love the support and advice you offer me and want you to know I always love and welcome it! However, if you have a comment that will not help in any way, keep it to yourself :)