I've just broken up with my boyfriend after 8 years together, we have 3 young children together and have also had another child together who died shortly after being born 3 years ago so we've been through quite a lot with each other. I admit most of our relationship was bad and we argued for most of it. He had a 1 night stand 4 years ago which he told me about and said he was very drunk and sorry for. He also punched me in the face a couple of years ago as well as being very nasty to me, saying the most cruelest things to me to hurt me.

He can be a very nasty man but I have always loved him and feel we've been through so much together that its almost too much to ever break up. We eventually did break up 4 months ago because I had enough of him never helping with our 3 kids and just going out doing what he wants, while I have no life any more. He was so disrespectful to me and constantly spat in my face, threatened to hurt me and smashed things in our house. I asked him to leave and hoped it would make him realise how mean he was being and change and come back and be a family with us.

Instead he's happy, he is free and single and having fun making sure I know how happy he is without me now. He even said he's going to find a new girlfriend who's better looking than me and nicer than me and start a new family with her. He's breaking my heart and I'm finding it really hard to move on. I'm just left looking after our kids and feeling really low while he's free to go out and have fun and doesn't care about me at all. I know I shouldn't care after how he's treated me but I do. Even 4 months later its still like its just happened, and hurts a lot. I don't really have any friends or family to help me through this or to help with the kids. I just feel so alone and I'm really upset about how little he cares about me or loves me. I thought we'd be together for life and never stop loving each other.

How can I make this easier?

Look at it as an opportunity to find a life for yourself. Think of things you want to do for you that perhaps you couldn't do before because you were trying to make him happy. Don't glamorize the good times you had together, remember the why's of why he is the ex.

' I don't really have any friends or family' - WOW, huge mistake. Get them back! They aren't dead, are they? Family and friends are what matters in this world, because partners come and go on a dime, especially when you don't even have divorce as an option to get some small measure of security.
Second thing you do is make sure you have all your benefits in place, and have let agencies know of your change in income.
Third thing you do is file in Family Court for support! Watch him THINK he can then go out enjoying the single life and finding cute girls who want to have more babies he won't be responsible for. (Don't fool yourself into thinking he's going to treat any other woman any better than he treated you.)
There, that should keep you busy for a while, because busy is what you have to be.
We all suffer over lost love. There is nothing to cure it except time, surrounding yourself with family and friends, and keeping busy. When you reconnect with them, be very careful to keep your 'stories' about him to about 3 minutes, and then take a breather. People care, but there's only so much they want to hear. They want to hear what YOU are doing without him, not how awful he was and is.

I know its fresh and miserable right now but you really have to handle your legal business and make sure he doesn't walk away from his obligations while he frolics with his freedom. You can't expect to fully recover and heal from 8 years of his BS in a few months, but you can give yourself time to grieve and plan for your own rebuilding. Eventually you will find family and friends again, and move forward and not look back.

Takes time is all.