LW: I am so sorry for your loss. I think it's critical for you to find help from people who know how to provide the kind of help you need. You need to talk to other survivors and/or a lay person or therapist who works with them. I had an experience similar to yours many years ago. Here are two sites to look at.

http://www.nationalserviceresources.org/node/17772

http://www.murdersurvivors.com/

Google the name of your city and terms like "survivors of homicide victims." Use all the energy you have to find a group of people who can let you cry and talk, like someone else here said. You need to cry and talk before you can move on. I don't think it's fair to ask you to move on when you're in this state.

You need to be surrounded by people who know what you're going through. Use all of your strength to seek out peers and professionals who are survivors or specialize in helping survivors. This is your job for the next year; there's plenty of time to read about Buddhism. I love Cary, and I feel for what he's going through, but you're in a different, more precarious place (I don't mean disrespect to Cary).

You need more than books and religion. You need people to help you pick yourself up. You can't do it alone by reading or volunteering - at this point. That is for later.

Find the people and the groups who have been in, or intimately know about, your situation. That is the first step you need to take. And, speaking of Eastern thought: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

I usually like Allie's advice, but this is wrong. The "flash of revelation" is something YOU must experience. Allie is talking about her father; a blood relative she couldn't get rid of; her story takes place when she was a child.

You're an adult.

If you were single and a friend said: "There's a guy I'd like you to meet," and you said, "great, what's he like?" and she said, well:

--He's verbally abusive.

--He's controlling.

--He'll be happier if you give up your hobbies rather than pursue them.

--Oh, and he'll look at you lovingly.

Would you want to spend five minutes with this guy - let alone marry him?

Many years ago I was seeing a guy who, in a nutshell, was bad. I went to consult a psychiatrist who I'd seen occasionally in the past for meds, not therapy. I thought a shrink could give me some perspective.

After I told him about the relationship, he paused, and said:

"Are these the qualities you'd want in a friend?"

After 4 years of going back and forth with the bad boyfriend, my feelings for him melted away - then and there in that office - after hearing that one sentence.

I broke up with the boyfriend and never looked back. It wasn't even a hard decision - I literally had a transformation in that office.

This is the kind of revelation you need. So, I'll pass on my knowledge and ask you this about your husband:

"Are these the qualities you'd want in a friend?"

from annjustine:

"I have survived a 20-year marriage of abuse and neglect. It took an incredible amount of struggle and perseverance but 2 years ago my husband hit hard bottom and with the help of a great therapist, he has finally accepted that he was an abuser and someone with an anti-social personality. He does not want to be that kind of person anymore for the sake of our 3 children and me and he is doing everything he can to change."

My mother is exactly like these women; she is profoundly attracted to narcicissts. What this has meant for her, her children, and the world is tragic:

My mother has never fully realized her talents; never acknowleged and voiced her own opinions; and she lives in a very small, narrow world that has always been defined by her husbands (she's on the third - she was widowed twice).

I sometimes fast-forward to my mother's funeral and wonder what I would say.

She has contributed almost nothing to the world and, sadly, to her children, because she's been so preoccupied with managing her husbands' tempers; their emotional immaturity; and their profound need for the limelight and control.

How many of these women married to these types of men have had the energy to fully contribute to anything in the world around them? - politics, art, sports, community work, crafts, building a business, mentoring young people?

Their energy is sapped by these men. Some applaud these women for trying to keep the family together, but I wonder what Annjustine's children are dealing with today.

Do they have healthy families and relationships? Given my experience with these partners of my mother, including my own father, I would bet these children are deeply damaged.

A mother who puts up with a narcissist teaches her children not that: "Daddy is a good man deep down, but has some troubles, which is why we don't live with him" - but that "We deserve (and secretly) enjoy being abused, because our feelings, desires, and lives are meaningless compared to his."

Often, I find that the adult children from situations like these choose against having children of their own. Neither me, my sisters nor my brother have children. For me personally, that is sad.

And that is thanks to the legacy of a mother who taught us that all energy and contribution should be put into a narcissist - not into energy that would otherwise have been used to nurture her children; become active in the community, the PTA, or the Boy or Girl Scouts; play a musical instrument; paint, draw or perfect a craft; learn about environmental issues; nor into any facet of the wide, wide world around her.

What kind of eulogy is given for a person who has devoted her life to a narcissist?