[Songanddance]

That’s why I fully stand behind the MLCer moving out and moving on.  Either immediately.  Or even better.  When the LBS is ready for it.

And if as in my case the MLCer refuses to leave?  In the UK if a house is owned jointly - then one cannot force the other to leave; they can't even sell the house without joint permission.
If he had chosen to leave,  I might have got my act together a little quicker - there is no guarantee and remember that lots of MLCers are clinging boomerangs so whilst they may leave - they are often back or around. 

I refused to sell my house and should we have divorced then H couldn't even assume I would sell it as we had a child who was still in full time education and my salary paid the mortgage so any court would have insisted that the house could only sold once our S was 18 or older and out of full time education.

I think I healed pretty quickly in the 9 yrs that H and I continued to share the house after BD in 2013.  It took me time to get started but 18 months down the road - I was on my way to really grasping this malarky called MLC. 

10 yrs on from BD - H and I are reconnected but I doubt we will ever reconcile - H has apologised and begun to apologise more often voluntarily but his business partner has seemed to usurp me so I leave him to it.

[Dragonfly33]

Some people can detach while being still in contact with the MLCer. As for me, it was killing me both emotionally and psychologically. My emotions rocked back and forth, and at some point it became exhausting. I felt like I was never getting out of it. I felt small, ugly, and worthless. I questioned my value myself. It was the most painful decision to kick him out from my apartment. After a year of no contact, only then I saw that it was not a healthy relationship at all. Perhaps some are good at blocking the unnecessary noise but I'm definitely not one of those.

In the other website, in the beginning of this whole MLC they insisted doing NC. At the time, I was very hurt and I couldn't understand why I should do it. Looking back, I would say I should have done it earlier. I was just scared at that time that I would lose him. But I didn't realize that I already lost him from BD.

[Thunder]

Dragonfly, that is one of the biggest misconceptions LBS's have.  Fear!
If I go NC, or I start living my life without them, it will give them the impression I don't care and they may move on.

But they have moved on, and sometimes they need to fear you have also. 
You are not just waiting around for them to come around.  You are living your life,
and sometimes THAT is what scares them more than anything.
Wait, why are they just letting go?

I'm not a fan of NC but there are instances where it is best for you to move forward.
Now having said that, if young children are involved it's almost impossible to go NC and co-parent, then low contact is best, or Dim.  Only contact, when necessary, over the children....and only if it is important.

That does NOT mean "family time."
They blew up that family and have no right to "family time" anymore.

They now gave a right to spend time with their children, but not as a family unit no longer, that was the choice they made when they walked away.

That's another thing I think LBS's get wrong.
They want to show their spouse what it felt like to be a family, maybe they will miss us all being together like this.

But it doesn't.  It only gives them no motivation to change.  They can have their freedom and still have their family whenever they need that fix.
Take that fix away from them unless, or until, they want to be a proper spouse and parent.

I've never seen any MLCer come back unless they have missed what they threw away.

[Algo]

If I go NC, or I start living my life without them, it will give them the impression I don't care and they may move on.

Indeed, that fear is awful, really keeps you from taking wise decisions, particularly when the MLCer comes from an abandonment background, we LBS fear they will revive all those feelings and complain about us doing the same, but really, it's a catch 22 situation.

[Treasur]

If I go NC, or I start living my life without them, it will give them the impression I don't care and they may move on.

With the great gift of hindsight lol…I think we FEEL it’s a Catch 22 situation more than it is in reality for most of us. Like Dragonfly said, usually the real reality is that we have already lost the marriage we had whether we like it or not. That we have to live life without them bc they left, either in one swoop, in bits or emotionally. We all deny that a bit in the first year or so, I think, which is understandable but imho can be a false premise. ‘Leaving’ them by detaching feels like a kind of abandonment but usually the truth is that we are ‘leaving’ someone who has already left us, aren’t we? I’m not sure we get much of a choice about that. The choices we tend to have are about what kind of post bD life we build, how we find our own way to accept and make peace with what happened and if we shut the door firmly or leave it ajar for a while.

Indeed, that fear is awful, really keeps you from taking wise decisions, particularly when the MLCer comes from an abandonment background, we LBS fear they will revive all those feelings and complain about us doing the same, but really, it's a catch 22 situation.

[MadLuv]

I agree the first year is the hardest. I don’t think I ever felt that no contact would be abandonment, because I felt abandoned. What I did worry was that he was disconnected and I was also disconnected then who was holding on??  I can relate my feelings in it so much to the death of our daughter as this is a death as well. You want to keep the memory alive, because then it’s like they never existed and then where do you go with all that love? It’s a hard thing to let go as you are forced to.