[keepfighting]

It all started on a dark summer night in June. She was in the kitchen, putting stuff away, I was nearby. All this happened during no doubt the toughest period in our life. My contract finished end of March, after a 10 year all collaboration with a big telecom company an they made it clear that it won't get renewed, I was out of work with absolutely no income.

Being the sole provider in the family, I started job/contract hunting frantically in Feb with not much luck. This was at a time when majority of IT companies were getting rid of staff and holding onto their money with fear that UK will enter recession. To say this was the hardest time of my life is an understatement. Life just seemed more and more hopeless as days passed by.

All of a sudden my W started talking about how miserable her life is, how unhappy she is and cannot take it anymore. Shortly after I got delivered the dreaded ILYBNILWY message. BD! My world stopped at that moment in time, not even sure what I replied back to her. I was already down because of work issues, this mounted even more pressure on me. Little did I know about the terrible storm ahead of me.

Anyway fast forward to middle of August. School holidays were on, we travelled back to my hometown as we always do during the summer. Had a nice short break in the Dolomites, Italy. Life seemed normal given the circumstances. Towards the end of the week long break I got the phonecall that I so long waited for. Got offered a new contract. I cannot express the gratitude, happines and relief I felt at the end of the call, I felt like a big burden just fell off my shoulders and there was fnally hope that our life could get back on track.

W is distant, but I got used to it as she started pulling back for a while now. We still sleep in the same bed, but I feel there is a wall between us that is getting taller and taller as days pass. Signs start to appear that something is serioulsy wrong. When I initiated physical contact, she immediately declined, later changed her mind and we ML, there were signs I don't recognised. A few weeks later I had to return to the UK on my own, she was distant when I said good bye, I felt something strange when she hugged and kissed me. Wasn't sure what was going on. I get to know about a few things about her last night out with the girls, she spent a good few hours at an address I did not know, following enquiries about the morning after pill. Not hard to connect the dots, at this point my already shattered world got collapsed completely. I'm sure you nice people remember the recent tragic earthquake that happened in Turkey where cities got completely flattened to the ground. That's how I felt right then.

From here the story for a while is classic newbie LBS, my mind started racing, I tried to understand what's happening, who is in the picture, what really happened etc. Still had about 2 days until I returned home to my family. I did not say anything to my W or asked her whilst I was still in the UK, I was trying to figure out how should I react and what to do. She only messaged me the morning I was due to be back, and letting me know what a miserable week she had. She got into a fight with my mother and sister, her own mother is driving her nuts, she cannot take looking after the kids anymore, in other words her life is terrible.

She is mean to me, making remarks about she thinks needs to leave me as she cannot take the pressure anymore. It was not the first time she said she is going to leave me, everytime I got rejected at a job interview she made sure to stick it in my face that she is leaving. Exactly what I needed at the time.

I'm back home, we meet, she is distant, monstering at me, mostly about the week she had. During all this time I was praying hard to God hoping that all this is just a bad dream and that none of this could possibly be true. The woman I loved my whole life and I married would not do such a thing to me, she's got good morals and feared God. Oh boy, how wrong I was. We got up early in the morning, she seems upbeat, but I just couldn't handle the pressure anymore, I had to confront her and I pushed, pushed and pushed. She did not admit to it, so I pushed more. She admitted she met someone on the last night-out and they kissed. I pushed even more, she finally admitted that she cheated on me.

I ceased to exist. All of a sudden everything went quiet and here I was in a big emptiness. Not knowing what to do, how to react, what my next step will be. My daughter was there, still sleeping. I knew I did not want her to find out about this at any cost, so I ran away to the fartherest corner of our property. W follows me, I am mad, feel I'm going to explode. She cries, I cry, me painfully screaming "how could you...", "how could this happen to me...", "what did I do wrong...".

I could not take it anymore, I said to her, that's it, pack your stuff I am taking you back to your mother. She begged and pleaded to me not to, nobody can find out about this, especially the kids and her mother. People who know me say I am a very understanding and patient men. After about half an hour later I calmed down even though my head was still spinning. We decided we will carry on with the plans we already had for that day, including going to church(!). The whole day, my body was shaking uncontrollably, I could barely stop my tears, my world shattered, I lost everything in a second. All I could think of is just what happened to me.

W was attentive with me, she came to me, hugged me, cried, etc. but did not want to talk about what happened at all. We had the kids with us all the time, so it was really difficult to talk with her in private. Finally I pressed and said we need to talk about this, the usual story, I need to know what happened and what is going on. She refused to talk. The pressure was mounting in me and I broke at the next stop on the way home. I said if you are not going to talk about it, I will divorce you as soon as we get back home in the UK. She was confused, we got into a fight, some of which the kids witnessed from far.

She said she was confused, did not know what she wanted, threatened that I will forever regret if we go down the divorce route as she will take the kids and all my belongings. I see the outcome of  divorce all around me, the effect it has on kids, I love my children and would do everything I can to prevent them from experiencing their parents separating. Me driving like crazy make it to the destination.

Long story short, she said she's not sure about her feelings re OM, and needs to see him when he's back. We are in August, OM returns beginning of October. Lots of fights between us, lots of seemingly productive conversation, lots of cries and me trying to understand what the he!! is going on. We seem to reconnect, hugging, kissing, spending lot of time together. W keeps messaging OM, I come to know she misses him. This later on turns to ILY messages before we even get back to UK, we are talking about 2 weeks time. Me going crazy.

Long story short, trying to keep up the appearances drives me crazy. We had family all around us this whole time, so we put on the show of we are all OK, but we weren't.

Eventually we make it back to the UK. This was a particularly bad experience for me as it made all the things that happened even more intense. One good thing that happened is that we talked, and we talked a lot. That's when the real cold shower started. She explained to me how her allienation started around 4 years ago. Up to then her life revolved around our kids (today D12, S10, S8). That's when men started to compliment her, she lost quite a lot of weight, started taking pictures of her looking in the mirror and sent it to her best girlfriends, starting to feel like a woman again. That was the time she started looking outside of her marriage without me even realizing as per her. When COVID hit and we had the long lockdowns, she felt she was going crazy. My W is a very extroverted person, she needs the interaction with people, but the lockdowns meant no or very minimal contact with other people. She said it got to a point where she could just not take it anymore, she could not stand being in my presence, the time we were forced to spend together was too much for her. When lockdown eased, she started going out with her friends, at the beginning just out for a dinner, this later on turned into going partying after dinner, etc. All this without me! She had a deep depression during this time, would come home during the day, cry and cry and cry, she did not want to see me. I consoled her, tried to be there for her, asking how can I help, she just said go away and leave me alone, back to crying.

I started to be very desperate as things got worst. I said, I think we need to spend some time alone, away from the kids, so I looked into going on some nice city breaks just her and me. She refused, but her friend found a very nice trip to Brazil and we all agreed to go. I said I am happy to go if you WANT me to go, I am not going just to be there as a side car. She was adamant that she wanted me to go. Brazil turned out to be the best trip I ever had, lots of very nice places, the food was amazing, people were friendly. I could still see the signs of depression, she lost quite a lot of weight, we did get along ok, not great but ok.

When we returned she seemed happy. But she was back to her occasional night outs which I did not agree with but hoped this will help her get back on track. She would often come home in the middle of the night, when I confronted her and said this is not really acceptable, she said I need my freedom, all my life I was pressured to conform to what my mother wanted me to do, than later on what I wanted her to do, she sacrificed all her life for the kids (stay home mum), I said ok if this is what you need than you might as well leave the house. She was like I don't want to leave you, I just need to escape from time to time and me going dancing really helps. I did make it clear to her that I am not agreeing with her night outs, but she did not seem to care and carried on this lifestyle up to February this year. She started drinking heavily, all she wanted was just partying, all spring and summer was about garden parties and night outs. I called her out, said her behaviour is unacceptable. Remember this was all through me being out of work and it seemed we will run out of money in a months or two. Big stress for me!

Eventually, her new lifestyle lead to her cheating on me big time!

This post turned out to be rather long, so I think I will continue in a next post.

[keepfighting]

I was debating for a long time whether to come forward with my story or not. I read a lot during the last few months, trying to make sense of all this that is happening. Googled, read articles about menopause, perimenopause, infidelity, hormones and eventually found out about MLC. I went on a lot of forums, read and read all day and night and finally discovered HS. DB forum was also a good resource, I learned a lot by reading a lot of posts about MLC, WW Ws, WAS Ws but was still not sure what my W is going though at the time, but I found more compassion on HS.

So I discovered HS, read the great articles and resources on this site, and a lot of threads, probably the most useful and having the hugest impact on me was denjef31 story as a person who recovered from MLC and willing to share her story.

During this time up until me discovering HS, I stumbled and stumbled, doing all the newbie mistakes as majority of us seem to do, trying to do everything my mind and instinct says I should do to try and save my marriage, you know trying to CONTROL the situation, that I now know is a mistake or imposible.

Going through the MLC articles I came across Standing as an act of love. This again made me think a lot, caused me being tormented between to leave or stay, going down the divorce route or trying to save my marriage. I soon realised that no matter what I do, there is no wrong or right decision. In fact, as I was exploring options, I came to the conclusion that no matter what I do, there is possibly no good decision.

Knowing that I don't want to lose my family, children, and definitely not looking to divorce (this is one thing we agree on with the W), I looked for arguments on why should I be standing. The most compelling one for me was that once realizing what MLC is about, in my view this constitutes one of the "worse" or "sickness" times in our vows.

"...for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy law..."

Being a religious person, this made me chose to STAND. For how long I don't know. Reading all the different stories and articles, I now know that recovering takes a LOT of time (if your MLCer recovers), a LOT of patience and perhaps for me the hardest part is ACCEPTANCE. What God and my W put me through is extremely painful, 5 months in I still somtimes lose it and burst in tears, some days are better some are worst. I try not to cry in front of my W, certainly not my kids. Even if I do is more about tears of hurt than sobbing. It hursts and it hurst a lot! I lost everything in a second, my W, my marriage my relationship with her. One of the hardest thing to accept perhaps is that it may as well be that she will never really come back to me, I know even if she does, it will be a different person. I pray to God that he guides our lives in a way that reconsilliation is the outcome of this excrutiatingly painful journey that I was forced on and not complete separation.

My story does not end here, I will journal about it. This leads me to why I decided to post. I think now I am in a position where I understand MLC more or less, I know that the best thing to do is drop the rope and do nothing in relation to your W and her situation. I know I need to detach, I think I am about 80% there, but he!! detaching is hard. Another good advice I found here is to GAL and live your life as she will never come back. How awful is this? It feels like I am going through mourning loosing her as if she were dead, whilst at the same time, she never leaving the house, I see her every day. I went dark on her about 2 weeks ago, I will journal about this later on.

I still feel that as I go along this journey I will need to tap in the enourmous knowledge and experience of people on this forum, and sure at times the support too.

My rollercoaster journey only really began once OM got back and W met with him, this is a story for a good number of posts as I think that in some ways my journey is different to the ones I read her. Watch out this space!

[UrsaMajor]

I think now I am in a position where I understand MLC more or less, I know that the best thing to do is drop the rope and do nothing in relation to your W and her situation. I know I need to detach, I think I am about 80% there, but he!! detaching is hard. Another good advice I found here is to GAL and live your life as she will never come back.

Welcome to the party that no one EVER wanted a forced invitation to attend.

HS is a gold mine of experiences and stories of people who have been down the same road that you are now travelling. Some (like you) have just started and some (like me) have been around a while. Some are standing, some have moved on, some are in-between, some have kids, some don't some have kids that are out of the house.... What you'll quickly find out is that not all "advice" that you will get here will be appropriate for you or your situation. Some will seem helpful and others will make you go <blech!>. Take what is useful and discard the rest.

Yes, it is impossible to control the situation (which really means controlling the Mid-Lifer  to some extent).  The one thing that we can control is ourselves and our own reactions/responses to the behavior of the Mid-Lifer. that is where our power lies. 

Since you have kids that are younger, you will need to be the stable parent. Heaven knows that your MLCW is anything BUT stable at the moment and that will add stress to your R with the kids. My own kids (now S16 and D12 - then D4 and S8) live with my MLCxW but I still have a good relationship with both of them, despite me having "rules" int eh house about things like screen time, eating meals together and the fact that, yes, a REAL meal includes fruit and vegetables and is not just instant noodles or meat and noodles and sauce.

One remark that I need to make though, and it comes back to the part of your post I quoted above, "understanding" MLC (or more pointedly "understanding" a Mid-Lifer) is like trying to taste green.... with your elbow.... Mid-Lifers are as unpredictable as a Vegas Slot Machine (the only ting that is predictable is that the odds are rigged in favor of the house - or the Mid-Lifer in this case) so it is really a matter of being able to be in control of your own emotional well-being.

As you are the provider for the family in terms of finances (if I understood you correctly), one thing that you will very likely need to do is to keep a close eye on the finances. Mid-Lifers can burn through cash like there is no tomorrow in chasing that elusive dream of "happy." Going out to the disco is not exactly cheap and it is getting more expensive as time goes by.

Learning to live like the MLC'er is not coming back has 2 aspects to it - First is that they might literally NOT come back if the MLC is severe and long lasting. there may be too many bridges burned along the way, it may be that the LBS has moved on and has established a new R after some period of time, it may be that MLC'er can't face the responsibilities or the consequences of their actions. Secondly, and just as importantly, if the Mid-Lifer DOES come back and the LBS takes them back (i. e. reconnects and reconciles), both the LBS and the MLC'er will have changed. This growth will be forced upon both parties so the person that comes back will NOT be the same,... in essence, the person formerly known as Spouse will NOT be coming back. The person that looks like Spouse, walks like Spouse, smells like Spouse, talks like Spouse will be different. Like someone's tagline here once said, "One does not make the trip to Hades and back witout acquiring some transferrable skills."

Ursa

[keepfighting]

Hi Ursa,

Thanks for your reply. You are right, this is a party I would rather have missed or maybe wished I haven't even known about, but we are where we are.

One remark that I need to make though, and it comes back to the part of your post I quoted above, "understanding" MLC (or more pointedly "understanding" a Mid-Lifer) is like trying to taste green.... with your elbow.... Mid-Lifers are as unpredictable as a Vegas Slot Machine (the only ting that is predictable is that the odds are rigged in favor of the house - or the Mid-Lifer in this case) so it is really a matter of being able to be in control of your own emotional well-being.

This is so true, point taken. I truly see now how unpredictable and fluid this whole situation is. I will journal more when I have a bit more time to post and you will see why. I totaly get it when posters in past said you can only really plan ahead days maybe even just hours.

I cannot help but ask for advice: as I said I'm trying to detach, not believing a word of what she says, etc. I went dark a few weeks ago and started playing tough love. I almost completely withdrawn from the daily life so much so that though we live in the same house we barely see each other. She goes away in the morning, off to the gym until around 1-2pm, I am up in the office WFH and in the afternoon/evening I usually take the boys to the gym or tennis lessons.

She usually retires to her room in the evening, so there is not much talk. She is clearly upset about the situation and brought it up a few times. I just said although I hate to do this, I need to in order to detach and try to keep sane in this whole shebang. She hates it.

Now this being said, with my goal in mind, I don't want to cut communication completely and given I want to reconcile one day (if possible), paving the way home, what's peoples experience on relaxing the dark mode? OM is still in the picture (potentially more than one). I don't ask or speak about it anymore, don't ask questions if she sneaks out in the evening, nor pursue her in any way.

One thing I refuse to do just yet is leave the marital bed, although there is absolutely no contact between us, she sleeps on one side of the bed, me on the other. This is my action to show I am standing.

I will journal more when I have a bit more time.

[xyzcf]

Hello, welcome to Heros Spouse.

You have already searched and read resources to try and understand what happened to your wife. As Ursa says, trying to understand is like trying to understand what the color green tastes like. As Ursa also stated, although there are many similarities in our stories and some things will fit your situation, others not so much.

My heart breaks for every single poster, their families as well as the MLCer. Your pain is intense but you also have children that are confused by this as well as
a job to do....it is exhausting.

she said I need my freedom, all my life I was pressured to conform to what my mother wanted me to do, than later on what I wanted her to do, she sacrificed all her life for the kids (stay home mum)

This is quite a common thought, although I always thought we choose this life, a house, a child, a life together and we both had things that we did seperately. Had he ever expressed to me that he needed "freedom", I could have supported something rather than this...but he never once expressed that he was unhappy.

We were married 32 years. On our 30th wedding anniversary he gave me an eternity ring and a card that he wrote " thank you for the best 30 years of my life. I can't wait for the next 30 years."

No warning.

Lots of people will write to you. I wish to talk to you about my experience as a stander.

BD was 2009. Like your family, we attended church regularly and I saw him living his faith in a beautiful way. Kindness towards others, generosity, integrity and honesty....

Before I knew anything about MLC, before I knew what a "stander" was I knew deeply that marriage was for life...it was the way I had been brought up, what my religion taught me, what the bible says....

After BD, I went to a church and the priest handed me a bible and asked me to read Luke 15...the story of the prodigal son. This spoke deeply to me and has ever since.

I also live by Jesus' command "to love one another as I have loved you" and the many places in the bible that tell us to forgive one another and to love our enemies.....

I found the site Rejoice Ministries which is faith based and has daily devotionals that assisted me in the nightmare I was living.

I finally, after a very long time, l accepted that I can trust God's plan for my life and let go of trying to tell God what He must do.

I don't mean to give a sermon  . These are my deep rooted beliefs and nothing that my husband does has changed them.

The world certainly doesn't understand me, even the church "offers" me an annulment if I want....

I have continued to have contact with my husband. I had to build myself up a great deal because as a good friend told me recently, I was" terrified "of him. Not physically but how it made me feel when I saw him or heard from him or heard anything about him....I worked very hard to be at peace...some people cannot find peace in their presence...I thought it was important to do this.

We have one daughter who was devastated by this. For many years, we spend Christmas together as a family, we go away with her and her husband on vacation, he stays at my home when she visits.

Sometimes, we have dinner together, sometimes we watch a Super Bowl game....

Underneath it all, I hear God's voice telling me that this is what He wants me to do.

A woman I met shortly after BD, whose husband had done the same thing, put her hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eyes and said "this is satan's way of destroying good Christian families"...very odd for me to hear at the time...yet in further exploration, this is considered to be a reality within my faith life.

I have another friend from HS who shares my beliefs and early on, we discovered that we actually live 5 minutes from one another. She is my prayer warrior, especially when things were really bad.

This is my story, I no longer try to explain it to others who think I should be dating or that I should not be "kind" to him...I am sharing it because you have talked about the importance this is to you...wanting you to know, that you are not alone in your thoughts and beliefs...but in no way suggesting that this is the road for everyone to follow.

Peace be with you.

[keepfighting]

Hi xyzcf,

Such a sad story you have. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for you. Thanks for your kind words and for sharing your story. Once I understood that no matter what I do, I still cannot change the situation, I handed the situation over to God, asking him to handle this for me and if it is in his plan maybe we'll meet again on the other side of the tunnel.

keepfighting

[Baxter1]

Welcome,

Sorry you’re here, my at home MLCer is doing ok. She’s been trying to get me to move out since
March and is spending time with the Alienator but other then that all is good. We coparent our sons (15,18) and the dog very well. You came to the right place Ursa, XY are great people, there are people from all over the place who can help you through this. In my experience the beginning is the toughest. The shock, sadness, anger, it’s all raw. With time comes detachment.

I got a version. Of that speech too:
I've been a wife and a mom, I just want to find myself’, I got this durring ILYBNILWY speech, this was in March. On Valentine’s Day I got, ‘I love you today, not because it’s Valentine’s Day but because I love you every day.’ What a difference a couple of days make.

I’m sure you already have but sign up for the Intro to MLC courses on the main page.
It explains it all, good luck!

[keepfighting]

Thanks for your message Baxter1. It does sound like there are similarities between our stories.

How do you handle communication? Did you have NC or dark period at all? I have set a boundary recently so I am not allowing her to hug (or any other physical contact for that matter) me whilst she still has OMx (may be more than one from what I can tell). She respected that, but finds it difficult and wanted to approach me today. I went dark a little over 2 weeks now, with minimal communication.

She acts normal most of the time, I did get the monster over the weekend as I stopped her financial support. Today she wanted hugs that I refused. But I do need a "bridge" so I don't lose all my love/emotions towards her.

I am genuinly interested to see after how long people started relaxing dark mode? I am looking to establish a situation where we communicate "normally" hoping that releases the pressure on the rest of the family, especially the kids.

[Reinventing]

Anything you do, do for you. What do you need to stabilize? That's how you answer your questions. What helps me, where I am in the journey, to heal?

Answer that question first and foremost.

[forthetrees]

If you use dark or NC or dim as a way to manipulate the MLCer it will backfire. Those approaches are meant to secure YOUR sanity and well-being NOT to control the situation. If you make it your mantra to respond and not react that will take you a long way. Worrying about losing your loving feelings for this person is really not relevant when you look at the big picture. You´ve been traumatized- deal with the healing of that and leave the state of your feelings towards her for much later when you are even-keeled enough to see the situation with healed eyes.

[KayDee]

Thanks for your message Baxter1. It does sound like there are similarities between our stories.

How do you handle communication? Did you have NC or dark period at all? I have set a boundary recently so I am not allowing her to hug (or any other physical contact for that matter) me whilst she still has OMx (may be more than one from what I can tell). She respected that, but finds it difficult and wanted to approach me today. I went dark a little over 2 weeks now, with minimal communication.

She acts normal most of the time, I did get the monster over the weekend as I stopped her financial support. Today she wanted hugs that I refused. But I do need a "bridge" so I don't lose all my love/emotions towards her.

I am genuinly interested to see after how long people started relaxing dark mode? I am looking to establish a situation where we communicate "normally" hoping that releases the pressure on the rest of the family, especially the kids.

I think to begin with there is a temptation to think that there is some sort of rule book, or procedure to this, but (and I am sorry to say this) you will keep getting up-ended if you do things based on your W's behaviour. Or how you think you can impact that behaviour. Reinventing said it, manage communication and boundaries for you. Your W is in crisis. She may act immature a lot of the time but she is not child that is to be punished. For me, one mantra that seems to be ring true a lot of the time is 'MLC gets worse before it gets better'. My understanding and experience of that is that when we have BD, we are crushed beyond belief, but during that time there is a lot of back and forth. A lot of emotionality where we see the old spouse and the passion. But as they progress a distance increases and with this we non-crisis spouses get some sold ground, Then BAM! something comes left field. Or right field, or from the sky. Or... there's just no telling. So whatever you do now, do it for your own peace of mind. To be calm for you kids. To keep as true to your values as you are able. To keep you integrity and dignity. Keep laughing, finding joy and gratitude. These things will keep you going. Detaching doesn't happen quickly. It's a slow process, cannot be rushed. But, what RCR calls choosing joy - that's actually a great way to start each day.

Your W has shown clear signs of depression this last couple of years. You may find the book Depression Fallout by Ann Sheffield instructive also. MLC is depression, this will give you a slightly different lens.

So sorry you are here, but you seems to be doing really well, keep fighting Keepfighting

[KayDee]

And I crossed FTT in the ether we say similar things but in a different way

[Treasur]

Thanks for your message Baxter1. It does sound like there are similarities between our stories.

How do you handle communication? Did you have NC or dark period at all? I have set a boundary recently so I am not allowing her to hug (or any other physical contact for that matter) me whilst she still has OMx (may be more than one from what I can tell). She respected that, but finds it difficult and wanted to approach me today. I went dark a little over 2 weeks now, with minimal communication.

She acts normal most of the time, I did get the monster over the weekend as I stopped her financial support. Today she wanted hugs that I refused. But I do need a "bridge" so I don't lose all my love/emotions towards her.

I am genuinly interested to see after how long people started relaxing dark mode? I am looking to establish a situation where we communicate "normally" hoping that releases the pressure on the rest of the family, especially the kids.

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘stopping her financial support’? If you are doing so to protect yourself, or punish her. If she has her own resources. If she does not, what legal advice you have taken about your rights and obligations. Or indeed if she has. It’s a difficult thing to navigate, I imagine, particularly if a spouse is off spending marital resources partying if you are the sole income earner. Or the day to day environment created for your children.

You are entitled to put your own boundaries where you choose. At the same time, it is worth being aware of your own intentions bc they are rarely straightforward in any of us in this kind of situation. And MLC folks, like teenagers, tend not to much like boundaries lol….so it is not uncommon to see them react strongly, sometimes with charm, sometimes tears, sometimes rage. Sometimes all three  . Which is why it’s important to be clear in your own mind about boundaries that are for your wellbeing vs those that might be intended to punish or influence their actions one way or another. And I imagine this is particularly difficult when you are living under the same roof with kids, but it is important if you are currently committed to Standing bc that means signing up for a marathon not a sprint. Years rather than months probably. I suspect in that situation the best one can aim for is a kind of ‘doing no additional harm’ principle? But I imagine it must be very difficult. Have you read other stories here from those in a live-in situation like Standing Strong? Are there particular things that people who have had a live in situation might help you with?

It is good imho, as xyzcf said, to be reminded that although there is no magic rule book to fix this, there are different approaches that LBS take and that this is ok too. We will support you and cheer you on regardless. For most of us, bc this is such a strange situation to find ourselves in, there is necessarily some trial and error in it. And we tend to winnow out our own lines in the sand and our own beliefs and our own limits as we go. That’s normal.

Imho I think some of the shorthand we use here - things like NC or detachment or boundaries - are not as black and white as they may first seem. There’s an understandable temptation when things are so confusing and overwhelming to treat them as goals in themselves rather than tools to achieve our real goals. And of course, depending on the details of each LBS situation, those goals may differ. And they evolve over time and with events too. Take NC - I’m not sure that’s a reasonable goal if  one is living under the same roof with children, how could it be? Whereas lessening your participation on some types of conversation or changing some of your own pre BD habits or focusing on doing things independently with your children or GAL activities for yourself could be. Less or different contact as opposed to NC if that make sense.

You talk about being 80% detached but bless you, it’s easy to see from the cheap seats that you are far from that. The way you phrase your questions about dark and not dark for instance shows that clearly. Which is so normal and completely understandable. Been there, had the t shirt  Detachment operates on a sliding scale, I think, and we tend to shuffle our way towards it rather than leap. And it has a mechanics side - what you do and don’t do - and an emotional side - what you feel and think and don’t. Imho the second comes quite a way down the path after the first. Which is normal too. But it helps to accept the reality of our own attachment as we actually feel it at a given time - it has a lot of layers, doesn’t it - rather than use it as a magic stick imho. As a simple shorthand, if you are doing, thinking or feeling anything as a function of what your wife is or may be doing, thinking or feeling? That’s where the attachment comes out to play. And it plays just as easily with wanting to be ‘nice’ as wanting to be ‘not nice’ tbh, to be ‘fair’ or ‘reasonable’ or ‘tough’ or ‘kind’ or ‘dark’. If the underlying melody is about producing some kind of response or reaction from your spouse, whatever is driving that is not about detachment….its something else. And naming it, at least to yourself, takes back your power to choose with care and focus on your own goals.

It’s pretty normal too to be slightly afraid that our own love and desire for attachment is the only thing keeping the connection alive. And that if we detach more, we will somehow finish the demolition job that our spouse started. That it’s a kind of giving up perhaps. Those are imho understandable fears bc changing our lens does necessarily change our vista on a bunch of things….and we don’t always know where that will take us or what will be left later down the line. But acknowledging those fears imho is part of the LBS process. As is accepting what we cannot control or change and imagining an unknown future when some of the very things we might fear most do actually happen. Do you know what you are most afraid of in that as yet unknown future?

Which brings me full circle to your own goals. Regardless of the tools you use, what are you trying to acheive in the current situation as it is? What do you see as your most pressing top three priorities right now? And what do you think you most need right now to stabilise your own life ship? Bc those priorities reflect what you see as the specifics of your own situation, and your own character, and understanding them will help you - and us lol - support you better.

[keepfighting]

Thanks for your replies and support.

If you use dark or NC or dim as a way to manipulate the MLCer it will backfire. Those approaches are meant to secure YOUR sanity and well-being NOT to control the situation.

Not looking to control the situation anymore. I honestly needed it to distance myself from the situation and it helped a lot.

KD,

But as they progress a distance increases and with this we non-crisis spouses get some sold ground, Then BAM! something comes left field. Or right field, or from the sky. Or... there's just no telling.

I experienced this quite a lot, lol, when I thought things have settled down a bit, something unexpected came up and shook the ground beneath me. TBH, the other way is true also, when some really wrong situations turned around quite quickly.

Treasur,

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘stopping her financial support’? If you are doing so to protect yourself, or punish her. If she has her own resources. If she does not, what legal advice you have taken about your rights and obligations. Or indeed if she has. It’s a difficult thing to navigate, I imagine, particularly if a spouse is off spending marital resources partying if you are the sole income earner.

This was more referring to her 'spending' money. I do provide everything else for her, but I clearly stated I am not willing to finance her night out spendings anymore. Luckily, she is not a crazy spender, not even during this period, but I am not letting my gard down on this front either. If I am completely honest, part of this action was also me thinking, ok if she wants out, she may as well experience what life is without my support.

Which is why it’s important to be clear in your own mind about boundaries that are for your wellbeing vs those that might be intended to punish or influence their actions one way or another.

As stated above, the boundary is for my own sanity.

... it is important if you are currently committed to Standing bc that means signing up for a marathon not a sprint. Years rather than months probably. I suspect in that situation the best one can aim for is a kind of ‘doing no additional harm’ principle? But I imagine it must be very difficult. Have you read other stories here from those in a live-in situation like Standing Strong?

I know I am in a marathon based on the numerous stories I have read here. We had a crazy last few weeks, lots of ups and downs on her part, crazy actions, out of the world behaviour, etc. Now we are I guess in the next period of quiet before the storm, don't know... she does not cycled much this last few days, I do know things are not all well in 'lala land'. If only things would stabilize a bit, it would be easier to live with it I guess, but I do realise that's an impossible wish.

As said, I read many stories, Baxter1 story is the one I am reading through now, his sitch seems very familiar to mine. I am a pretty easy going person, but I think Baxter is handling the situation much  better, guess I have lots to learn from him

Take NC - I’m not sure that’s a reasonable goal if  one is living under the same roof with children, how could it be? Whereas lessening your participation on some types of conversation or changing some of your own pre BD habits or focusing on doing things independently with your children or GAL activities for yourself could be. Less or different contact as opposed to NC if that make sense.

NC is not for me and I don't think it even possible to do as long as you are living under the same roof. If not for anything else, simply because of the kids. Whilst they see something is wrong in our family, going NC is potentially harmful for them, so absolutely no. I do give her space, she goes out most of the nights lately to OM, spends about 2h with him then she comes home. During our last 'adult conversation' she did appreciate me not asking questions anymore and just letting her be. It is hard, but no more questions. It still hurts when she goes out, but every day is better I feel it in the sense that I am detaching. And I am with Baxter, having a live-in MLCer is a tough nut, but I still prefer she coming home every night so at least I know she is safe.

I did exactly that Treasur, not spending much time in common with my W, it's mostly weekend activities when we are doing things witht the kids, dayouts, etc.

Which brings me full circle to your own goals. Regardless of the tools you use, what are you trying to acheive in the current situation as it is? What do you see as your most pressing top three priorities right now? And what do you think you most need right now to stabilise your own life ship? Bc those priorities reflect what you see as the specifics of your own situation, and your own character, and understanding them will help you - and us lol - support you better.

This is a tough one, but will have a go:
 1. detach - I need to achieve this so I can function as a father, as the provider for the family - I do feel I am not in a strong position on this front
 2. some sort of normality in the house (huh) - trying to achieve this for my kids
 3. GAL - made some progress, but more is needed

[UrsaMajor]

One other thing to keep in mind is what is meant by "detaching."

What Detaching is NOT is disconnecting from your Mid-Lifer - becoming indifferent or apathetic. That is what many people at first assume that this means. That is NOT it.

What detaching DOES mean is that you have "detached" your emotional state of (well) being from the Mid-Lifer's rollercoaster of emotions - that your emotional state is not coupled to theirs, that their ups and downs are not causing you to cycle up and down. Basically, detaching is taking back ownership and control of your own emotional state of being while leaving the Mid-Lifer to theirs. Detaching is what RCR refers to as "getting OFF the Rollercoaster."  There is an enormous difference between standing on solid ground and watching the rollercoaster go by, up and down, doing the loops, the twists, or the curves and sitting in the first car while experiencing the same.....

[Helpnewc]

Thanks Ursa,

I think I described detachment to my psychologist a me feeling like I was now scientist observing behaviour rather than it sending me for a loop. It was more well that’s quite extreme but it did not impact how I felt.

Being scientist observing the experiment is much better than being part of it.

[Treasur]

This is a tough one, but will have a go:
 1. detach - I need to achieve this so I can function as a father, as the provider for the family - I do feel I am not in a strong position on this front
 2. some sort of normality in the house (huh) - trying to achieve this for my kids
 3. GAL - made some progress, but more is needed

Ok, good start.
Let me have a go at helping you unpick those a bit so you can find it easier to learn to nail them down maybe?

1. Sounds like that’s an ‘in order to’ so the real goal isn’t detachment but what sits underneath. Something about being able to continue working well and bringing home the bacon? And something about the kind of father you want to be which is more than financial? So, maybe two goals in there. And how much of either is about fear of not vs intention to? (Which would be understandable given what you shared about your recent work history, of course) What would make you feel on stronger ground here?

2. What does ‘normal’ mean to you and your kids if you remove your wife’s behaviour from it (bc you can’t control that)? If normal was a 10, where do you think you score right now? What do your kids value most, do you think? And how are they doing right now? Is the kids normal the same as yours or different? Is ‘normal’ the right word for your goal, given that the reality of the situation probably doesn’t feel very normal, or is there a better one? Idk…calm, safe, routine…?

3. What’s the goal for your GAL? Bc GAL is a kind of tool, a route to….what? That’s implied a bit in your ‘more is needed’ comment perhaps….that you have some kind of goal you’re not reaching? What is it? Could be lots of different things….a more internal ‘feeling like x about myself’ thing or a more external ‘achieving y outcome’ thing. Even a not unhealthy distraction or short term coping strategy thing. Do you know which? More than one goal maybe?

Worth imho having a chew on these…..
With a few starting principles in mind perhaps…

It’s more about direction than specific outcomes right now probably.
Good enough is almost always more than good enough.
Take out every single bit that you personally can’t control and that does not belong to you….which usually includes other peoples feelings and behaviours lol. You just focus on doing you the best you can.
Start small, go slow and steady. Breathe. Fall over, learn, get up again is just fine - it’s how humans experiment and learn and grow.
Accept your fears but try to make goals based on what you want more than what you don’t want if that makes sense.
Learn to shoot the metaphorical wolf closest to the sled at a given time - and it is not always the one that is howling most loudly. Which is why slow and steady helps bc it gives you time to think before you react.
Start taking care of how you talk to yourself about yourself bc often our self is listening when we do lol. Be fair but kind. Be encouraging. Like teaching small kids to ride a bike  Take note of your progress and success on an equal footing to your failures or frustrations. Bc fear does not talk to us accurately and it can skew our perceptions of who and where we are so it helps to balance it out a bit imho.

It sounds, reading between the lines, that your biggest fear is the one about being able to function well enough to keep working well and providing resources for your family? Again, 1-10 score where 10 is excellent, how are you doing with that? What do you think you need to score 1 or 2 points higher? How realistic is your fear, and what’s the evidence for that? What would help? What’s your plan B contingency? How might you possibly be getting in your own way? How are you doing with the basics….sleep, energy, attention, support, focus, time? And how would you know if you’d met that goal?

Have a muse
And then write those three or four goals out again in words that are more focused and feel right as a direction for you right now. Three or four is a perfect number.
You got this, my friend, even if it feels like you might not.

[FrenchHusband]

Welcome to our brother&sisterhood ! What brings us together is the strange sharing to be all considered by our spouses as devil's second cousin... The advices you get here are very good ones, and you are free to not follow them or to fail sometimes.

And again, a new male LBS with a live-in wife. Is it me or the statistics are changing ? In the oldest archives, most of the LBS (from far) were wives, and now there are more and more husbands. Are there explanations of this trend ?

[KayDee]

And again, a new male LBS with a live-in wife. Is it me or the statistics are changing ? In the oldest archives, most of the LBS (from far) were wives, and now there are more and more husbands. Are there explanations of this trend ?

Possibly that men, seeing other men here, feel more comfortable. That makes most sense to me. That and the, positive, shift of men increasingly being more at ease sharing feelings these days.

[keepfighting]

Treasur

Lots of good advise in there thanks. I read your post twice, but think I need a few more readings to be able to give you a meaningful reply.

FH, thanks for the welcome. As others before me said for sure, I already know about how welcoming and great people here are, I just wish I was never forced to join this club

KD, in the past the conception was that men cheated more than women. Well, recent statistics show that this changed and is a close 50/50. 

[Treasur]

No need to reply for me/us. These are questions for your own reflection. Share if it helps but it’s ok if you’d rather not too.

[KayDee]

KD, in the past the conception was that men cheated more than women. Well, recent statistics show that this changed and is a close 50/50.

Perhaps, but this situation is so much more than cheating, don't you think? Cheating is not a complete smashing to smithereens of the relationship. It is a really, really hard part of what happens, but the complete change of character, the cruel behaviours, the discarding and abandonment. And then the mad cycling that makes you feel like you are insane (and so it goes on), these are the reasons we go looking for answers and find each other here. I would work out what the deal was with the cheating in about an afternoon. This though, I am still asking WTF!?! So is everyone else I know.

[xyzcf]

In many cases as well, the MLCer turns their back on their children...so I agree, the cheating is a "symptom"...one of the many things they use to try and fill the emptiness, to feel something, anything...it did hurt me to my very core...but there is so much more in the changes in him beyond his cheating..and as KayDee stated, it is hard for us to get a handle on the ups ad downs and things that make no sense at all.

[mcm64d]

In many cases as well, the MLCer turns their back on their children...so I agree, the cheating is a "symptom"...one of the many things they use to try and fill the emptiness, to feel something, anything...it did hurt me to my very core...but there is so much more in the changes in him beyond his cheating..and as KayDee stated, it is hard for us to get a handle on the ups ad downs and things that make no sense at all.

And not that I am an expert by any means, but the idea is to get past and live life. The problem with that is to do so not only takes time but also closure. The problem with that is to get closure you have to understand the change in life but there is no way to do that with irrational people.....so the circle seems to go. I struggle daily!!

[xyzcf]

but the idea is to get past and live life. The problem with that is to do so not only takes time but also closure.

When someone dies, there is closure. Maybe some people here find "closure" and the things we talk about might help.

Yet still, there are memories, dreams ( I just had one the other night) and the lasting changes in us that this trauma has caused.

I accept, there will never be closure....of course, he is still in my life so it might be, that if you never see them again..I don't know. That is not my experience.

"Get past and live life" ...yes.  It happens in stages, it can take more time than anyone would have thought it could. And I don't think you can push yourself to get it done, to detach, to let go, to live your life. Leaning in to our own pain, learning and going inside ourself and acceptance of what has happened....building brick by brick a "new" you and acceptance of a new life that was never your choice or in your control.

Not everyone has the same experience. I did not recognize myself for a very long time. I would question why this felt so wrong, so hard..he is after all "only a man" and not a very good man at that.....

And so yes, live your life AND live it as though they are never coming back...letting go of the "waiting for them to come to their senses" requires so much energy and perhaps stops us from seeing all the other things that are possible in life.

I really don't think it can be rushed......all the "advice" and techniques do not answer the basic question..what this did to our hearts.

Trust yourself...trust that you know what you need to do that is best for yourself and your family and for her (if that matters to you..it does for me)....listening to your inner voice and what feels right is genrally what is right for you and your healing.

[Treasur]

I could have almost written word for word what Xyzcf wrote even though our circumstances were/are different.
I’m not sure I have ever found what I would call closure as such. But I did find acceptance and a kind of peace despite that, so I know it is possible. But it took a lot longer than I thought it would and it rather crept up on me as opposed to arriving with a big Ta-Dah.

[Biscuit]

And again, a new male LBS with a live-in wife. Is it me or the statistics are changing ? In the oldest archives, most of the LBS (from far) were wives, and now there are more and more husbands. Are there explanations of this trend ?

Possibly that men, seeing other men here, feel more comfortable. That makes most sense to me. That and the, positive, shift of men increasingly being more at ease sharing feelings these days.

Nail on the head KD, I think its a shift in men being aware of their feelings and of that being considered more acceptable and (GASP) maybe preferable to the previous status quo.

Reading back in the archives (as many of us do when we land here I'm sure) the early days of this board were predominately straight females with male MLCers. That bias seems to have shifted over the years to include more male and same sex couple LBS's. I think that shows that MLC is not something which is gender or sexual preference specific, rather that other groups of LBS have felt more comfortable seeking out information and posting. Progress!

[keepfighting]

I'm still doing a lot of reading on this forum, I will need time to process all this information so I may be speaking out of line here.

I found reference to HeartsBlessing thread in Bax's story.
https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=1448.0

She has an interesting take on the MLC. One of the things I still need to get my head around is: everyone is talking about the LBS's recovery needs to start with (post the BD period and once you more or less stabilise your situation) the mirror-work and analysing and finding yourself and make changes so you become a better person. On the other hand you keep hearing that the MLC crisis has nothing to do with you or with your marriage.

That begs the question: if I'm not causing the crisis, why do I need to self-analyse? Is this needed to force you to rebuild yourself after the destruction?

HB's thread describes this nightmare as for the MLCer this is a crisis and for the LBS it is a journey. Provided the LBS realises in time what he/she is faced with (3-6 months from BD) and obviously if the decision taken is to stand and try to save the marriage, the two situations are intertwined and the LBS will have a very important role in guiding or helping the MLCer recover, through his own actions, that need to be consistent over time. Well I understand it's much more complex than this.

What's are your views on why is working on Self so important?

[keepfighting]

In many cases as well, the MLCer turns their back on their children...so I agree, the cheating is a "symptom"...one of the many things they use to try and fill the emptiness, to feel something, anything...it did hurt me to my very core...but there is so much more in the changes in him beyond his cheating..and as KayDee stated, it is hard for us to get a handle on the ups ad downs and things that make no sense at all.

This is so true. In my case so much is going on her life outside our family that I don't even know if I can or want to keep up with. She's like living almost a completely parallel life to ours, even when she is physically at home, she spends a lot of time on her phone chatting to her partners she found on dating sites. It really feels like she was abducted by alliens as someone here said.

[keepfighting]

Here is one answer to why self changes are needed.
Source: https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=1448.msg83040#msg83040

I accepted that anything that my H did - had very little to do with me and EVERYTHING to do with him.  I decided that I could not take my H's crisis personally.  I also decided - that if there were ever a hope of reconciliation - I needed to make some MAJOR changes within myself.

These changes included forgiveness, unconditional love, letting go of anger, and becoming a little selfish....i.e. GALing.  (I have to admit the GALing was the EASIEST part).

[FrenchHusband]

She has an interesting take on the MLC. One of the things I still need to get my head around is: everyone is talking about the LBS's recovery needs to start with (post the BD period and once you more or less stabilise your situation) the mirror-work and analysing and finding yourself and make changes so you become a better person. On the other hand you keep hearing that the MLC crisis has nothing to do with you or with your marriage.

That begs the question: if I'm not causing the crisis, why do I need to self-analyse? Is this needed to force you to rebuild yourself after the destruction?

HB's thread describes this nightmare as for the MLCer this is a crisis and for the LBS it is a journey. Provided the LBS realises in time what he/she is faced with (3-6 months from BD) and obviously if the decision taken is to stand and try to save the marriage, the two situations are intertwined and the LBS will have a very important role in guiding or helping the MLCer recover, through his own actions, that need to be consistent over time. Well I understand it's much more complex than this.

What's are your views on why is working on Self so important?

Working on yourself is something you are doing for yourself, not for your marriage or your W. How important is it to me ? Almost as important as sleeping & eating, I would say. Working on myself is a real blessing in hindsight, the biggest gift I have made to me. In company with prayer and spiritual awakening it brings to me peace, happiness and joy. Working on myself is the best thing to do during my W's journey IMO.
It did not bring back W, but it helps me to accept she might not come back / heal. More important, I am becoming a new person, I have better relationships with my children, my family, my friends, my colleagues, other parishers. Life is better for me than it was before BD, maybe also because I was myself in a mild MLC/MLT at this time.

[KayDee]

That begs the question: if I'm not causing the crisis, why do I need to self-analyse? Is this needed to force you to rebuild yourself after the destruction?

What's are your views on why is working on Self so important?

Ha, yes, this was something I found a bit perplexing myself. And we need to consider that there's not a one size fits all here. Some couples were more co-dependent than others, for instance. Some of us maybe fell into immature patterns of relating. I am speaking generally, but sometimes there is cause to look at the marriage dynamics.

What was useful for me is to understand that I did not change, but my H did. He changed his lens on the world. And when he did, our paths diverged. And in a way, that forced some changes upon me. So it seems right now to self-reflect and look at what could be better about ourselves. When we are in a close relationship, it sometimes comes at the expense of other relationships. I love what FH wrote. I feel exactly the same. All my other relationships have deepened through this crisis.

I have not wildly changed, but I have learned the perils of hubris, the joys of gratitude and (still a work in progress) more patience.

[mcm64d]

That begs the question: if I'm not causing the crisis, why do I need to self-analyse? Is this needed to force you to rebuild yourself after the destruction?

What's are your views on why is working on Self so important?

Ha, yes, this was something I found a bit perplexing myself. And we need to consider that there's not a one size fits all here. Some couples were more co-dependent than others, for instance. Some of us maybe fell into immature patterns of relating. I am speaking generally, but sometimes there is cause to look at the marriage dynamics.

What was useful for me is to understand that I did not change, but my H did. He changed his lens on the world. And when he did, our paths diverged. And in a way, that forced some changes upon me. So it seems right now to self-reflect and look at what could be better about ourselves. When we are in a close relationship, it sometimes comes at the expense of other relationships. I love what FH wrote. I feel exactly the same. All my other relationships have deepened through this crisis.

I have not wildly changed, but I have learned the perils of hubris, the joys of gratitude and (still a work in progress) more patience.

And for me.....not to take the everyday things for granted. It is amazing how other stressor in life sometimes shadow those simplier things in life you cherish. I certainly miss them now....

[keepfighting]

I see things quite differently now.  I found that I was "dependent" upon my H in a most unhealthy way.  I found that there were so many great things in life that I was missing - merely because I didn't take the time to smell the roses......I didn't truly appreciate my H or my family.  I took too much for granted.  I see now that I did get a "gift."  It was a chance to find me.  Maybe someday, I will find my relationship again.  I just know that - unless I was whole - unless I loved myself - I wasn't truly capable of loving anyone else.  These are some of the things that I've learned.

On the other hand, your journey is also important; as change that leads to growth, that in turn, leads to your own becoming of the person God meant for you to be,  must also occur within you, and as long as you fight it and think you don't need it, you'll cycle in various ways that will lead you right back to the journey at hand.

[xyzcf]

She has an interesting take on the MLC. One of the things I still need to get my head around is: everyone is talking about the LBS's recovery needs to start with (post the BD period and once you more or less stabilise your situation) the mirror-work and analysing and finding yourself and make changes so you become a better person. On the other hand you keep hearing that the MLC crisis has nothing to do with you or with your marriage.

That begs the question: if I'm not causing the crisis, why do I need to self-analyse? Is this needed to force you to rebuild yourself after the destruction?

You have asked a question that I have noticed and also have wondered about.

I "grew up" on HS when Heartsblessing was on the forum. She devoted a great deal of time to writing about MLC, both from her personal journey but also, she had some insights that had a "truth" in them that fit my own paradigm. She also had a strong faith based belief.

As we have said over and over, everyone's relationship/marriage and belief system is different. Some marriages were not very good before BD, some couples were "co dependent" perhaps.....

I like the analogy of it being a journey for the LBS.

The brokeness that ensues after the destruction of our "world" requires attention. When I understood that his MLC caused me to experience PTSD, working on healing the effects of the trauma allowed me to move forward. I had "talk therapy" after BD which never really helped much....the mind/body therapy was what brought me life again( many years after BD, wish I had found this therapy sooner)...none of which required any type of analysis of my role in his crisis..because in reality, his crisis would have happened regardless of me or who he had married.

All our lives, we should be looking inward and growing. I am a big fan of Erik Erickson's Stages of Life Development, at each stage there are developmental tasks that we either achieve or don't...and if we move to the next stage without successfully achieving that task, there could be problems in later stages (and I apply this to the MLCer and possibly their early childhood experiences).

I will be 69 in a few weeks and in the past several months, having some health concerns that shock me..because I am struggling with the truth that I am getting older and that there is much less time ahead than in the past...and that struggle is a "healthy" thing because it fits into the stage of development that I am at.

So all our lives, we are changing, hopefully growing and a healthy marriage allows the other the freedom to grow. My marriage was very much like that. I supported him, he supported me and we enjoyed being together but also could be apart, and have our own interests.

After BD, and as reality sunk in and not understanding his craziness, I came to HS for being able to express my story to others who understood. To gain knowledge of MLC and it benefitted me that others were seeing the same "craziness"...this was not a unique situation of mine.The more I learned about MLC, the easier it was for me to accept and let go. Sometimes I needed the support of this community and as we often see, we start to give support to others and that is also helpful.

"When you share your sorrows they are halved, when you share your joys they are doubled".

I believe strongly, that in those early months, the LBSer is trying to survive and that the idea of analysis of oneself, looking at the marriage and thinking that you did something wrong, questioning what we do or don't do when we are in contact with the MLCer puts a great deal of pressure on the LBSer at a time when you can barely breath. Many are looking for a "rulebook" of what to say or not, how to act, NC, some contact..I do not think it really matters in the greater scheme of things. You cannot change their crisis and any actions are for your own benefit, to help with your healing.

Later on, when the dust settles, you might wish to "work" on yourself...which I think is a lifelong goal anyway. We learn to adjust to living alone, develop new friendships and may make several changes in our lives. Indeed, if we do enter into another relationship, we have learned a great deal and will be "different"...and if the MLCer comes back, we also will be "different" as they will be.

Loving oneself is important. The things I needed after BD were things that relieved the pain, suggestions about how to sleep, eat.....to relieve the intense anxiety that I was feeling.

We each have our own styles. Not saying one is better than another.

The most important lesson I learned was to accept that this happened, to accept that he was so drastically changed, to accept that I was alone.

The support of this community soothed me when I was distressed. I would not have been soothed if somehow I was being asked to pick apart the life I had in my marriage for 32 years, nor really the life I had as a person for 55 years.

Do we have FOO issues...of course we all do, some to a greater degree than others. As many people know, I work and have worked with children who have been abused for many many years and their trauma is beyond what most of us have experienced..and yet, those who go on in life and do "well" have a resistance that gets them out of their FOO issues to focus on the present and the future, letting go of the past which they really cannot do much about.

Life evolves, we should always have been growing, expanding, seeking knowledge about ourselves..their crisis pushed us into a very uncomfortable and unstable place...so I will say this, there is enough going on in the LBSer's world, at least initially (and that could be for a couple of years)...like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the LBSer is trying to get their most basic needs met..so the self actualization part might be difficult to work on in this time. It might also cause undue worry to the LBSer that somehow they are at fault. Building up rather than tearing apart an already shattered world for the LBSer is my philosophy.  At times , other posters were very direct  when I needed that (Thank you Stayed!) but in general, I was best served by the expressions of help I received that accepted me for who I was and didn't insist that I needed somehow to change.

Just my point of view.

[WHY]

That begs the question: if I'm not causing the crisis, why do I need to self-analyse? Is this needed to force you to rebuild yourself after the destruction?

What's are your views on why is working on Self so important?

For me this means doing the work to restore yourself to what you once were, and then some.

Remember, this crisis caused us to change in ways we could never imagine.  Damaging us.  So the self work in my mind is actually repair vs improvement. 

And I think that out of great suffering and adversity, self improvement becomes a side benefit.  We become tougher, more resilient, more confident to take on what lies next.  We realize the areas where we weren’t the best partners and we fix it.  These are good changes. 

And we make changes for the better.  Someone mentioned not getting worked up about the little things in life!  This is so true.  I’ve learned to shed all that BS and focus on what’s truly important. 

[marvin4242]

What's are your views on why is working on Self so important?

Mine is this: simply put, regardless of what you believe, whether you want to reconcile, move on, or are unsure at the moment, the path is the same. You have to regain your footing, start to process and accept what has happened, not fall into the trap of rewriting the past, but to be able to look at it with clear eyes. And most importantly, without deluding yourself that there is some magic recipe, or any guarantees, or that it simply “takes time” understand your own needs, and decisions, so you can move forward in your life with your eyes, wide, open and aligned with what you need.  Rather than focus on your midlife crisis, spouse, or sit around, hoping and waiting that they will somehow magically just “snap out of it “

Part of this process for me was to understand how much of my well-being I had put into a relationship rather than held responsible for in myself. Because, regardless of what you choose to do, I believe it is important to not repeat a pattern that happened in the past.

[Treasur]

I think a big bad painful shocking thing happened that we had very little control over that upended our lives and sense of self to a greater or lesser degree.

As with anything that big in life, put simply, I see three stages - survival, repair and adaptation. We are individual human beings and we find ourselves on these shores with different life experiences and baggage before the big bad thing happened. And our particular circumstances can differ; we’re not all in the same kind of boat. So, what each of those three stages requires can differ too even if our storms seem similar. Imho the core of being a LBS is a process of figuring out what survival, repair and adaptation actually means to and for you….and usually, with time, it becomes easier to see that very little of it is about the cause of the storm

[keepfighting]

The most important lesson I learned was to accept that this happened, to accept that he was so drastically changed, to accept that I was alone.

Very hard to do. Especially so as you don't know what lies ahead.

And I think that out of great suffering and adversity, self improvement becomes a side benefit.  We become tougher, more resilient, more confident to take on what lies next.  We realize the areas where we weren’t the best partners and we fix it.  These are good changes.

Certainly. One thing I thought about these days is that up until recently I did not really know much about stuff like perimenopause, menopause, let alone MLC other than it exists. I did not know about the details, seriousness, types of MLC, the destruction that comes with it and I somehow blame our teachers in schools, the curriculum. I for one was never thought about this. It was a lesson I had to learn on my own and the painful way.

If at least we would have been made aware that this condition, dis-ease exists, in some ways maybe I could have prepared for it a bit better as I know now how much the LBS' actions in the first initial months after BD matters. My first reaction when I found out about PA was, that's it we are getting separated.

One of the other useful things I learned from one of the posters here was: he said he eliminated the words NEVER and ALWAYS from his vocabulary. He would always say his wife cheating would never happen to him or I would always stand by my wife.

Guess, these situatiations in life teach you to be more careful with words and how important is the way you communicate things, control your emotions (respond vs react).

[Nas]

I think self reflection and self examination are important as a constant, not just after something like this, but after any relationship, in the absence of a relationship, and maybe even more importantly throughout relationships. People tend to just “live life” on auto pilot, where life is just happening to us and around us, and frankly, that’s how a lot of us ended up here in the first place. Once you settle into a relationship, it’s very easy to become complacent, and some of us never knew quite who we were before the relationship, so the relationship became who we were. The process of knowing yourself, to me, is ongoing. It’s unfortunate that it took the events of the last few years for me to realize that, but better late than never…

[WHY]

Everyone faces a crisis at some point in their lives.  It’s a question of character when it comes to how you deal with it.

LBS could just as easily implode.  Nope.  Hard pass.  There’s so much more to life.  ONWARD!

[forthetrees]

The self-reflection part is key so that you know what blame came your way legitimately for aspects you can modify and what blame came your way for nothing to do with you. It´s worth keeping in mind that HeartsBlessing was generous in her contributions to the forum but she espoused an approach whereby she often posted what she said that God had told her directly. So, maybe take it all with a grain of salt.

[keepfighting]

Thanks for all your comments. I was able to find good advice in every one of your comments, so I am very grateful.

It´s worth keeping in mind that HeartsBlessing was generous in her contributions to the forum but she espoused an approach whereby she often posted what she said that God had told her directly. So, maybe take it all with a grain of salt.

The more I read her posts, the more I can see this myself. Whilst I can accept that God speaks in ways to people, she almost positioned herself as a profet, I don't believe we had profets recently sent by God.

People tend to just “live life” on auto pilot, where life is just happening to us and around us, and frankly, that’s how a lot of us ended up here in the first place.

As much as I hate to admit this, I can see myself in this sentence. With 3 kids and no external help (we are living away from our families in a foreign country), we were fully consumed up by the day-to-day activities, work, etc. We always spend the weekends together as a family, but W and I had very little quality time together, where we just focused on the two of us. I raised this with her recently, and the answer I got is 'we spent way too much time together, you are driving me mad, I cannot have you standing around me', well, from the tone you could guess this was post BD 

LBS could just as easily implode.  Nope.  Hard pass.  There’s so much more to life.  ONWARD!

I am not a person who easily gives up, that's something I am trying to teach my kids to follow. At the same time, as many people here advise you need to approach this situation with a dose of reality and accept that one of the outcomes is that we will never reconcile.

Personally, I think as a stander you need to find strenght to keep up the fight in every opportunity. I decided to honor my vows and I am also relying on the fact that, after one of our 'talks' that turned into more of a verbal fight, she asked me not to leave her. I know I know, no expectations, lol, but I fealt this was said by the real person inside, more of a scream of the prisoner.

She always positioned her situation as something temporary or transitional, saying it's caused by her hormones and she thinks we were destined to grow old together. Not confusing at all, lol!

Anyway, these are comforting thoughts, but I know I cannot fully rely on these to keep fighting.

W accepted or said herself, I cannot remember now exactly, that she will take a blood test that examines her hormone levels, this is scheduled for mid Dec. We'll see if anything comes out of this. She has older friends that said they were going crazy and it turned out their hormones needed 'compensation'.

In fact, I could find very little debate on what hormones play in this whole mess overall. She is 42, so perimenopause is not out of the question at all.

[keepfighting]

Now a bit of journaling:
The weekend was awful, Friday & Saturday I had the honor to meet the Monster again, I was told many things, some more seriouos than others, amongst others that she wished I would choke and die.

I did not take it personally, thanks to tools, advice and knowledge I have now. I just responded where necessary and not reacted. The one thing I regret is that this happened whilst we were in the car in front of our children. I asked my W repeatedly not to bring up this subject in front of the kids, did she listen? Of course not. This was probably seen as me controlling her, don't know.

We were on our way to an exhibition, W being an artist she wanted to go and I bought the tickets a couple of weeks back when we were a bit closer. Anyway, we went and to my surprise she thanked me that I took her. This was after 3 minutes of some more spew I got, it was a very long day and I just wanted to get home, she got upset that we always run home. Responded, not reacted.

Surprisingly, the next few days were quiet. She acts normal, is kind with the kids, smiles a lot,  even came with us when I went swimming with the boys.  To my surprise she wanted to come with me in the SPA (I did not ask), where we had a nice neutral conversation.

I could clearly see her cycling. She still goes out most of the nights once the boys are in the bed, spends 1.5-2h away than she returns. I say nothing, ask nothing, not when she leaves, nor when she returns. It hurts when she leaves, not as much as it used to, but I am getting used to it. Keep reminding myself, you have to let her go. W still spends a lot of time on her phone, chatting, not as much as she used to maybe, I try not to focus on this aspect anymore. Tuesday was particularly bad for me, I was emotionally down.

I keep my distance, if she talks and asks me things I reply, but don't usually initiate discussion.

One thing I made clear to her is as she wants her freedom, and denied me as her husband (she still wears the ring btw), it's time for her to get a job and ensure she can support herself. I've tried to set deadlines for her getting a job, but it did not work and tbh, from my own experience it's not easy to find a job nowadays. I have a boundary in place, that any money she spends, it must be solely for the benefit of our family and not herself. Anyway, she started looking into the job market and identified a few job opportunities that she wanted to apply for. In the process, asked my help to write her CV and job applications. Initially I was reluctant to help her, just gave her the laptop and said here's your CV, here's your cover letter, now you go away and do the work. She was struggling and came to me for more help. It just dawned on me this morning if this is maybe a good opportunity to show her my support and 'strength' that I keep reading about the MLCer needs to see in her LBS. With no expectations for now, if we get to the stage where she will turn inside and try to think of her situation and she compares me to the OMs, the fact that I helped and supported her surly will work in my favour.

You will probably smile and say newbie again, W recently said, she's aware that she has a diamond in her hand but she is still looking for stones, this was in reference to her quest for men. It was a nice thing to hear, but knew meant nothing as a few minutes later she was on her phone texting OMs. How crazy this all is!


Overall, she seems happy, acts like nothing out of the ordinary is happening in our life, which I find difficult to accept but try not to show. I can clearly see that she wants to spend time with us as a family, laughs a lot with the children, looks after them, cooks nice meals from time to time and again annoyingly acts as if not much have happened, tells me jokes about the dog, etc. In these moments I just withdraw as much as I can. 

[Treasur]

You will probably smile and say newbie again,

Well yes, but with love 
And cheering you on as your words show how your lens is adjusting.

I think your post gives a good example of a couple of things that most of us struggle with initially; dealing with behaviour we find unacceptable and how we respond when asked for help or support. Or boundaries and detachment in real life practice.

You did well to not take your wife’s childish abusive spew in the car personally, well done you.
In future, I hope you might consider other options too bc it’s not necessary to be a receptacle for this kind of behaviour either….one wins no karmic goody bags for it lol. Stop the car and suggest she finds her own way to the exhibition if she can’t control her tongue. Or turn around, go home and take your kids out someplace else without her to name just a couple. You may find yourself feeling less of a desire to ‘treat’ her to these kinds of outings in future, of course…..

On the cv etc….hmmm, I suppose one might argue that her being financially self-supporting is in your own interests. But it’s a newbie brain hiccup imho to think that being ‘helpful’ or ‘supportive’ or ‘kind’ might be appreciated imho (see spew above  ). It seems to be a universal truth post BD that if your LBS fingers are near anything, it’s your fault if it goes wrong and nothing to do with you if it goes well. Your wife is a sentient adult with more experience than a 16 year old, even if she’s a poor quality human right now….she has friends, family, acquaintances, OM probably, lots of free info on the internet, job coaches etc etc….is it not her challenge to figure out and learn by doing so? Or are you intending to play the role of future Fixer forever to a potentially xw….? I’m being a bit blunt, I know, but it looks like a huge lose-lose bear pit to me and it’s not uncommon here to see that quasi parent -child dynamic with LBS and MLCers. Not uncommon either in a relationship for one person to over-function when the other under-functions - was this an old pattern pre BD albeit on a smaller scale? What were your other options and what do you think might have happened if you had deployed some of them?

I would humbly suggest that if she is adult enough to trash your marriage and family arrangements in search of her new ‘better’ life, she is adult enough to figure out how to deal with the challenges and predictable consequences of it without expecting you to smooth her path to a new life with OM and/or without you. And that you may be instinctively playing out an old default pattern for you with her which no longer serves you well in a changing situation if you do.

And just in case you need a reminder bc imho, in any healthy adult relationship, some level of resoect and reciprocity matters, you said this in your first post…

She is mean to me, making remarks about she thinks needs to leave me as she cannot take the pressure anymore. It was not the first time she said she is going to leave me, everytime I got rejected at a job interview she made sure to stick it in my face that she is leaving. Exactly what I needed at the time.

It’s pretty uncomfortable for both LBS and MLCer imho when we stop or change old defaults….but arguable that the old defaults were part of what got you here and are unlikely to get you anywhere different in future perhaps? And to reflect on the payoffs you get from doing it which are not always tbh as completely shiny or generous as we might wish….control, ego, being ‘right’ or ‘better than’, possessiveness, impatience, feeding dependence bc it makes us feel safer if we are needed, whole bunch of squirmy things lol ... its’s remarkable how often MLCers, at least initially, want help or support and equally remarkable how often they manage just fine with all kinds of stuff without us while we are on our knees without much help at all 

Just a thought to chew on….not the end of the world, but worth a muse as part of your own growth maybe?

[keepfighting]

Thanks Treasur,

Again useful insight into things and I feel you are trying to anchor me into reality and stop me from thinking too much ahead. Without intending to offend you, I feel you are a glass full empty person which is understandle given the pain and grief you went through.

I just feel I need things to hold on to at this stage to give me strength to continue this journey I was forced on. While reading through your reply, just the thought that she might not need me on day to be next to her and help her made me sad, very sad. Oh how I wish this was just a temporary divergence in our journeys. Guess time will tell...

[Treasur]

Not offending me at all 
Actually it’s rather interesting feedback to hear how others see us. I used to be a full glass kind of girl, that’s true. Now? I think I move around but my core is that optimistic full-ish glass so I usually return to that.
I think what changes (and changed for me) is what I hang my optimism on nowadays. Different hooks for my hat 

I am having a sad day today. Clearing out some old files (which was necessary) but a bit heart wrenching all the same, so how funny (and rather lovely) that you could sense how my glass was through the ether! I took a walk as the sun went down, enjoyed the Christmas lights on my little village high street, kicked my way through some autumn leaves in my wellies and now I feel much better 

I do understand that need to only swallow what you can swallow at a given time. That’s human and normal. If they might be useful, stick my questions in a drawer until or unless. When/if you’re ready, you’ll know.

[mcm64d]

Glad to hear your evening turned around Treasur!!

[keepfighting]

It's nice to have your day ending in good mood. I just played two sets of tennis with my youngest son S8, it's so great to see his enthusiasm for tennis. He's got a strong drive and wants to make it to Wimbledon.

I'm just chilling out in the spa. Keeping active helps me clear my head whilst also keeps me away from home.

I miss the family dinners together though.

[keepfighting]

Very useful reading from user BBHelp, who lived with an in-house MLCer and he journaled his journey
https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=8080.0

[keepfighting]

And some more useful advice from the same user:
Getting a Life…Changes in Life

I had some real trouble with this during my journey.   Being told to get a life wasn’t what I wanted to hear early in the game.  It felt like I didn’t have one…when in fact I did…and it was one I thought I enjoyed and desperately wanted back.  What I didn’t know was that while I did have one…one that I enjoyed…it was one that could be improved…if I was willing to change.

We humans HATE change…we fight against it, we rage against it…we try so hard to avoid it.  The reality is that “We don’t change when we see the light…we change when we feel the HEAT”.   So to me GAL=Making the Changes Necessary to Adjust to your NEW Life...and learning to Embrace the Change.

Getting a Life Early in this process …To Me…is more around finding some stability and boundaries after your world has been truly toppled.  Up seems down, left seems right.  We are told to do everything Opposite.  If you want them back…let them go, ignore them if you want them to communicate…etc.  Our minds race, our imagination goes into overdrive, you don’t sleep, you lose weight and you feel like you are walking on a tightrope and have no idea how you got there.  The things we tell newbies…detach, GAL…is correct and for their own good…but we have all been a newbie…and very few of us listened early on.  So Getting a Life at this point revolves more around trying to find your feet…avoiding major financial mistakes, and just learning how to slow this train down and breathe again.

For me at this point…I too was a special snowflake who could listen to SOME of the advice given…but didn’t need all of it.  I…by sheer force of will…was sure I could conquer this enemy and save my wife and marriage in record time.  LOL  .  I fixated, researched, worried, planned and schemed almost 24 hours a day for months…lost 40 pounds in the same period…I looked better but was far from healthier.  It wasn’t until I stopped the belief that my wife was different…that somehow this was a misunderstanding…that reality crept in.  I FELT the heat…My life HAD to change.

So how did I Get a Life then…It started with a few small decisions that led to some bigger ones.  The first was obviously acknowledging the reality of where I was and that nothing I did or said was changing that dynamic.  The second was looking at my kids and realizing that they too were floundering…and my own mess was making it worse for them.  So I made this more about them.  That helped me set some boundaries that I felt would give them the best chance for the least damage.  There was no way I could hide all from them…but I could soften the blows and try and get the outcome that I thought hurt them the least.  I had several boundaries focused on her being transparent and accessible (Great Idea in Theory…Tough to Police) and the big one around ridding herself of the OM’s and stopping contact with them.  I set these for myself…and for my kids.  I was not going to let her have the advantages of our home, my money, and their support if she was going off to LaLa Land with Wonderboy.  I couldn’t stop her from doing it…but there could be consequences to the action.  These boundaries were agreed to but immediately tested.  The first time brought an argument…the second brought the Heat.  She came home…kids were gone…suitcases were on the bed and she was told to pack and get out.  Lawyers were called and it was all in motion.  Luckily for me this time…that was more Heat than she was willing to take at that moment and it forced a change.  She dumped OM’s cut off contact and committed to staying married.  I thought I won…Bigger LOL  .

You ever notice when you stand in the shower…the temp doesn’t change, but we keep turning it up?  Why…because we get used to the heat.  MLC’rs and LBS are no different.  So the early heat and change that we both experienced quickly faded and morphed both of our journeys...hers into a Monster and mine into a whole new BB & Dad.

I’ll come back and add on to this, because the next phase of Changes and GAL were dramatically different which was followed by another whole new change.  But this is taking up way more words than I expected and it is becoming a book.   So I’ll add more later.

[keepfighting]

Part II

Once I had stopped living in Newbie Panic Mode…Getting a Life was more about adjusting to the life I was thrown into.  I learned to focus on my kids and their needs first.  I exercised a lot as it helped me clear my mind and sleep at night.  I started faking my way back to confidence and that led to improvement in that area.  I allowed myself to travel through the stages of grief and each level taught me more.  When I arrived at Anger…I liked it there because it fed me energy.  It built up my fake confidence.  I stopped furiously researching answers to her MLC and I stopped tracking and trying to define her every move and word.  I started to detach from her crisis and tried to stop my own.

During this time my wife bunkered herself into our room and didn’t leave it for months.  She turned into a very real and scary monster.  She was the exorcist movie except for the head spinning around…and trust me I was looking for it.  It was pretty easy to detach from that thing…it was pure evil.  The things she said to me & told me were so far beyond awful that I cannot even imagine them being in any sane persons mind, let alone my wife’s.

But as MLC/LBS land always does…it moves, morphs and throws us curve balls as soon as we get comfortable.  I liked the anger thing…and the little 5’ ball of hate in my bedroom made it easy as heck to be angry and stay angry.  Then one day the monster started to disappear…the hate had just burned her up.  Those scary eyes started to dissipate and she was human again.  Tougher to be angry at that.  She lost her hate filled energy and just found her way out of the room.  We were all pretty surprised to come home one night and she had made dinner.  There she was, showered, hair combed, dressed like Mom with dinner and dessert.  She didn’t eat with us…she ran back to her room.  But it was her first effort.  Then came time spent with kids, house cleaning, pet care, etc.  All of a sudden she was trying to find normalcy.  She was progressing.  Slowly, and not towards me other than no longer being a monster whenever she opened her mouth.  But there was progress, and it killed my anger.  It brought something so much more dangerous.  Hope & Expectations that were not earned…only imagined.

So as she got better…so did I.  My GAL was now focused on my future and my continued fake confidence.  I continued to exercise.  Bought some new cloths.  Started to feel better about how I looked.  But my eyes had drifted back onto her because the children were becoming less and less “In Danger” of hearing her say something, seeing her do something etc.  She was getting back to being Mom.  So in my mind…I was Just Around the Corner.  We connected on a family level…and started to do a few things as a family.  Those were great for the kids…as they finally saw her smile for the first time in well over a year.  She was giving them energy and it was giving her some energy the same way it did for me earlier in the process.  We co-existed in our home, but barely spoke when it was just the two of us.  We lived in separate parts of the home and were about as married as me and the snow drift outside were.  But in my mind…it was getting so close.

As the months passed my wife planned a vacation with the kids…even offered to pay for it with her “Run Away Stash”.  So we spent 2 weeks travelling, laughing and having a great time together as a family.  I was sure that we would get back together…that she would want to share the bedroom again, hold hands like we always did, tell me she loved me…something.  NOTHING for me.  To the kids she was Mom again…I totally recognized her again and loved her again as that person.  But to me she was dead…when the kids were in bed she would literally turn into a dead eyed zombie with no soul.  So every day for two weeks I would see the woman I loved and missed…and every night I would be reminded that she was not all there.    It took a lot out of me and by the end of the trip I was pretty miserable and selfishly focusing on what I wasn’t getting, how unfair this all was, and that it was time to push.  I had done my time and I was “Due” something here.  Bigger LOL Again  .

So after we were home…it continued more of the same type of interactions.  Family worked…we didn’t.  We tried taking a trip just her and I to go to a concert for a weekend and it was a nightmare.  I’m thinking romantic rendezvous and she is thinking “I like that band”.  The trip there she was literally in a panic the whole way…I think she was petrified of being alone with me.  We had NOTHING to talk about even though we had mountains of things that needed to be talked about.  It was the definition of awkward.  We went to the concert and she cried through most of it.  Back in the hotel that night we were intimate for the first time in years…it was soulless and awful.  The trip home was just silence.  So we backed up into family first mode for the kids and she and I spent little time together again.  She again continued to improve with the kids and everyday life…so I again being far to Wife Focused saw and built hope up that had no basis in the facts I had been living.  My GAL was not focused on me, my kids, my healing, my growth…it was focused on her.  I was fitter than I had been in years (Trying to impress her), I was doing more things inside & outside the home…not just focused on work (Trying to show her I had changed).  I was trying to manipulate life and gain control of something I could never control.  But since I spoke the mantras…since I knew all the things I should be doing…I was sure that what I was doing was still within the realm of getting a life.

So what do you do when you took a long trip together that failed miserably because of your own selfishness, impatience and unrealistic expectations?  Simple…you double down and go to the west coast for 3 weeks of course!  I’ll save the time & space of recounting it.  Different coast…same result.  Disappointment and embarrassment.  But coming home changed everything.  It was time for the heat to get turned up to high and change my life forever.
     
When we got home she admitted that she had sent her fantasy Wonderboy gifts from the trip.  This BD may have been worse than the first.  I foolishly asked if she still loved him and she told me “Of Course…I will Always Love Him” and I literally felt what was left of my heart break.  As she told me that she intended to stay married for the sake of the children because she loved them too much to hurt them and still loved me like a brother…I felt ME Break.  She wanted me to know how it was going to be from now on and that we had to make the best of it for the kids.  I cannot remember what I said…all I can remember was that I had never felt so empty and alone in all of my life.  All the progress, all the hopes and expectations…were lies.  My GAL at that point was as dead as I felt.  I had no GAL.  I wanted No Life.  All I wanted was to not hurt that bad anymore.  It was my only focus.

I have written about my bottoming out…and how I am still here only by the Grace of God and my daughter.  The heat was really on now.  Change HAD to come if I was to survive.  So now…after years of faking it, saying the words and skirting the real issues…it was time to look in the mirror.  I had to take control of what I could control.  Getting a Life now was about really looking at myself, my life, my hopes and my fears.  My kids were always my first focus…but now it also had to look inward.  My wife focus died.  I truly didn’t care for her or about her anymore.  I felt sorry for her…that was all.  She was outside of my control…and thus became a “No” priority to me.  I focused on what I could control…and that was it.

My mirror showed me my flaws and weaknesses.  Showed me my broken self-esteem, my fixer compulsion and why they tied together.    GAL started meaning that I filled those gaps in my world by acts of service for others…without expectation of thanks or praise.  It meant that I started to focus on the good in my life and lose focus on what I didn’t have.  I embraced the small and inconsequential moments with my kids.  Simpler things meant more now.  I lived my life with just two categories…Things I Can Control & Things I Cannot.  I worried about Column A and let God worry about Column B.  My faith deepened and I found God there waiting for me.  “Hey BB…long time no see”.  Most of all I found myself…my new self in this period.  Confidence and Peace were no longer faked but lived and lived well.  I embraced the peace and it changed my life.

During this same time my wife was finding herself.  Her heat came from seeing me broken…and again when she saw me rebuild.  She saw the changes in me and said that it made a difference for her when she realized she no longer had to carry around this man that she had broken.  She said seeing light in my eyes again gave her hope.  She had her own trip through Hell…and I will never envy her road for one second.  But she got there.

As we both emerged from the ashes Our GAL was about just trying to see if our lives could still fit together.  She was changed and different…and so was I.  Could we even like each other…let alone love each other.  So we slowly (VERY SLOWLY) built a new friendship, a new relationship and a new life together.  We both walked through the heat of Hell…we just had to take our trips alone and meet on the other side.

Getting a Life to me means…Living YOUR Life.  It doesn’t mean joining a gym, going on trips and dating because your spouse is lost in the fog.  It means that your life is forever changed…and it doesn’t matter that you didn’t want it to.  To me it is about putting your focus on the right things and moving forward…because it is the only way out.  So if gyms and vacations help find the new you in there…good for you and go for it.  Embrace this time…not because it is fun…because it is inevitable.  So the question is what will you do with it.  Will you spend it in a funk, will you spend it in denial, or will you spend it building yourself, your family and your world into something you will enjoy in the end.  It took me years to really embrace Getting a Life…but I thank God every day that I did.

[Biscuit]

KF,

I've never read these posts before by BB and they are excellent, thanks for reposting!

B x

[keepfighting]

I haven't updated my thread in a while and I apologise for it. Things not have been too great lately over here.

In one of my previous posts I mentioned we had a terrible Saturday afternoon a week ago. We were on a day-out with the kids, my eldest son had a tennis tournament that we attended, followed up by us driving up to London to see an exhibition. On the way there, W brought up the topic of she wants us to visit her sister in Germany for Christmas. She did bring this up a couple of times before, initially they were going to come and visit us, but plans changed and they cannot come because of work.

This is a tough decision for me, given the situation we are in. W and the 2 boys want to go, D and me not really. It turns out W told her sister about our situation and that she is seeing OM. I did not know this for sure, but was a shock to me. This is something that starts to really concern me lately, she does tell about our situation to more and more people and I am guessing it's not the true story they hear from her, but her twisted version.

I reached out to two of her best friends a couple of weeks back. One of them is with me 100% (we know each other for about 20y) and we regularly talk. The other friend is not so close to me, but W and her are or were up to recently. Initially she took my W side, she said W said about how unhappy she is, etc. Then I started painting the real picture. I could feel on her voice that she does not really want to believe what I am saying, but I pushed on and asked her that any advice she gives, be it from the PoV that my W is sick.

We talked a week later and I expressed my concern over my W health/situation. She started to believe what I was saying as she experienced some of the things I was talking about, apparently W got into an argument with her friend and said some ugly things, so her friend distanced herself. Said at some point I am with you 70% and only 30% with W.

Anyway back to my last week. We had that ugly fight in the car, I got to meet Monster, spewing, etc. I did not take it personally and tried not to engage in any fight. The week passed, we are actively trying to avoid each other in the house as much as possible. It's hard, mostly because of the kids. Trying to take them out of the house and be away as much as possible in the afternoons. Both my boys play tennis, so we try to keep active.

Come Saturday, my youngest had a tennis tournament. Suprisingly, W does want to come along to all of these activities, even though I do no invite her. My strategy here is if the boys want their mother to come along or she offers to come along, whilst I wish she would not come, I don't object. Anyway, we arrive at the tournament, W sits down, I move further along a couple of benches over. Couple of minutes later, she comes over and asks why do I not sit next to her, I said I am fine where I am thank you. She comes over a couple of minutes and asks the same question. I am like I don't fancy sitting next to you whilst you are texting other people. She's like I am talking with your mom and my mom. Finally I give in and sit next to her, I don't want the boys to see we are pulling apart although they know already.

The tournament ends, we arrive back home, W is nervous, upset, grumpy. We have lunch together, the situation is tense, I try to keep to the tradition that we eat together as a family at least over the weekend. After lunch, W goes into monster again and attacks me. She brings up the subject that she cannot support the fact that she does not have her own income/spending money anymore. I stopped paying for her own expenses a little while back. Any other costs she incurrs I cover. Things get out of control, she charges me and jumps on me, started kicking and screaming. I stay calm, take the punches, I think I even laughed at some point. I do not fight back at all, trying to leave the room, she gets in my way.

I was desperate to get out of the situation as all this happened in front of the children   which I hate. They should not see any of this. Manage to get out and retired to my own room upstairs, but she is not giving up, she runs after me, I try to stay calm and leave the room, but she steps in my way. Somehow we get into a discussion about the situation, I explain to her that she still has a lot of the 'benefits' I provided so far, despite her situation and that she practically denied me as her husband. At some point I say to her, this is what you wanted, so it's time you bear the consequences. If you don't need me as your husband you need to accept the situation. You wanted all this sh!t, not me, stop seeing me as the man who needs to provide for you anymore, things are over between us. Accept the situation that YOU created/wanted, I never wanted us to be in this place.

She backs down immediately, monster is over, and leaves the room. We exchange a couple of messages, there is some blame from her, I replied that I am sorry you see things this way, etc. The communication stops. The boys and me engage in some activities, have fun and had a few laughs also, whilst listening to some Christmas carols.  W comes in the room, calm and sits down next to us. No shouting, no spewing. She brings up the subject of visiting her sister again, I don't commit but don't reject the idea either. I know the kids want to go, so it's likely we will go, I just wanted to avoid having to act out as the happy family when we are obviously not one. W comes next to me and tries to hug me. Then she and D go out walking the dog.

What a tough day it was. We had a bit of arguing about who should take the living room for the evening, I go back to MBR and let her take the LR. Sunday we had another tournament, communication between us is minimal, she asks why am I avoiding her. I said I don't want to talk to you, have nothing to say at the minute and move farther away. She engages with other parents, laughing, talking, etc.

We return home, I fix us some food and we enjoy a meal together. W takes to dog out for a walk, than she prepares the lunch box for the kids for next day. Half an hour later, she comes into the living room, hugs the kids. The boys don't understand what's happening, she's like (in a high pitched voice): I am off and laughs. This hit me if I am honest, I don't show it, I get not even a bye from her.

I was shocked as she did not spend any night away last week, it was a mini bomb. Think I handled it well, asked or said nothing, I felt really sorry for the kids. They don't deserve to go through this. Although, they are still young, S10, S8 I am sure they are affected by all of this. I've certainly seen much more attachment from them, all three of them come for hugs more often since this he!! on earth began.

Up until last week I used to get a kiss on my forehead every morning before W left to the gym, that seemed to have stopped now, so one more item for the 'negative' list.

I pray to God that he gives me strength and does the work with her, let things be HIS way. This is not easy to do, but I am trying hard.

[keepfighting]

The tornado is in full swing.

I was reading through Standing Strong's thread this morning and got to a point in his story when W was considering D and moving out. Was reading the story thinking how SS must have felt in that moment in time.

W comes home from the gym, I go downstairs after some time and say you know people usually greet you when you come home and say bye when they leave as she did none of it today.

She says something, don't remember exactly what, then walks up to me and says with a weird smile on her face: "it is highly possible I am moving out" BOMB DROP!

I wasn't sure what to say as she did not mention this previously. I've not lost it, remained calm and said well that's news. So she goes on to say one of her friends from the gym is looking for someone to help her out around the house, but she needs someone who moves there.

Moved away, trying to think about how to reply back. Ended up saying, no matter what YOU decide, make sure it is in the best interest of our children, pointing out that I did not agree with the way she left yesterday afternoon just saying good bye to the kids and out of the house under a minute.

Got the non-sense, the kids are all right, they will understand if I move out it's in everyone's interest, bla bla bla. I said no, this is not a right thing to do. She should not involve the children in anything that's going on between us. I asked her not to tear the family apart but rushing decisions.

My head was spinning, she went on about saying how unhappy she is with me, that she really hates me, wants me out of her life and just wants to run. I know I know, MLC script. Tried to pull myself together, remain as calm as I could and just acknowledge some of the things she said, saying I'm sorry you feel this way. Her reply was that I'm trying to manipulate her saying all this stuff.

Then somehow we got into the discussion of I should find someone else that I could be happy with, as she is sure I will not want to live with her and she surely does not want to live we me anymore. My reply was that I KNOW I don't need anyone else, I KNOW I would not be happy with anyone else, she's like I don't believe you, you say this now, but will change your mind later on. I stick to my guns and said I don't need anyone else in my life, then she points the question to me: what do you want then? What do you expect me to do? I replied I don't have any expectations from you at the minute, than I backtracked saying actually there is one thing I would like: that you find your internal peace. Her reply was I already found it, referencing the OMs, I said I'm not talking about OMs, I said I wish you found your internal peace. I'm fine, the only thing that bother me is that you don't give me money... was her reply.

Then the discussion died and we both went on our way.

So this is where we are, I wish we never had such discussions, need to go and talk to God about this see if HE responds to me.


 

[FrenchHusband]

Hi keepfighting,

looks to me you are managing well your situation. Not easy to live with at-home-MLCer right, and especially when the rollercoaster is going up and down in such a crazy speed !

You are wise to set up boundaries that fit you with the finance topic, maybe there is a boundary that could help you and your children regarding monstering in presence of the children ? Leaving the room was the wise room in my opinion, and it looks to me you stay calm. Well done, I am happy for you !

Regarding the travel in Germany, if I were in your shoes I'd go. Have good moments together in family is a blessing IMO, especially during this crisis. In December last year, few days before BD, I travelled together with W and the children in her country. I was not aware at this time, OM was already in the picture and W was a cold Monster main time she spent with me. Nevertheless, I had a great holiday and that was also very good for the children. I did not find W, but I found me, in hindsight this travel was a big help to prepare for the hard times post BD. On another perspective, I am glad I recreated links with W's family. I call them or send them texts and pictures from time to time since BD, then I am able to maintain the link between W's family and our children.
I think it is important to keep good relations with W's family, for my mental inner peace I prefer not to be considered by them as devil's second cousin.

[UrsaMajor]

W comes home from the gym, I go downstairs after some time and say you know people usually greet you when you come home and say bye when they leave as she did none of it today.

While I can understand why you said that to her, it is a bit passive-aggressive and, quite frankly, she couldn't care less what you think about it so why waste the energy/time....

As far as moving away from her at tournaments, giving her clear information would likely be more helpful to you (she will ignore it anyway) but, maybe as an example, "I do not wish to sit near you when you are engaged with your phone." (Basically what you said

am like I don't fancy sitting next to you whilst you are texting other people. She's like I am talking with your mom and my mom. Finally I give in and sit next to her,

so that was good) There is no accusation or mention of OM here. You can verify if she was talking to your mom or sister easily if you choose to...

Then somehow we got into the discussion of I should find someone else that I could be happy with, as she is sure I will not want to live with her and she surely does not want to live we me anymore. My reply was that I KNOW I don't need anyone else, I KNOW I would not be happy with anyone else, she's like I don't believe you, you say this now, but will change your mind later on. I stick to my guns and said I don't need anyone else in my life, then she points the question to me: what do you want then? What do you expect me to do? I replied I don't have any expectations from you at the minute, than I backtracked saying actually there is one thing I would like: that you find your internal peace. Her reply was I already found it, referencing the OMs, I said I'm not talking about OMs, I said I wish you found your internal peace. I'm fine, the only thing that bother me is that you don't give me money... was her reply.

So, other than her reading from Page 142 of the"How to have a Midlife Crisis for Dummies"script, the short version of the discussion from her side is "I am fine as long as you continue to pay for anything I choose to do."



Newsflash : Choices come with consequences.

[Treasur]

I suspect the only way to meet your wish of not having those kind of discussions is not to engage in them, to shut them down as soon as they start to unfurl  So in this one, after your w announced her ‘it is highly possible I am moving out’ statement (and isn’t it funny how wedded these folks are to indirect word salad - can you see that yet? - rather than communicating directly and clearly? Bc, ‘it is highly possible’ is not the same as ‘I have decided to move out next Thursday and here are my ideas for how we might best manage the kids/money/legal/practical stuff’. ), your best response was probably some version of ok, let me know when you have more details, then walk away. Bc everything else was imho just more of the same, like a broken record, that didn’t really gain you anything. There’s a lot of power in not getting sucked in to someone else’s drama imho.

Your wife seems to be reading consistently from the MLC chapter titled ‘You’re Not The Boss Of Me (but I’m entitled to demand that you jump when I say Because…..)  it’s a popular chapter I think lol. The only way to address it is with whatever sane version of No works for you. And practice makes better at it. Don’t poke. Don’t be a passive-aggressive a$$hat. Don’t be petty. Just calmly choose what is best for you. Your wife probably won’t like it much (see MLC chapter title lol) but it is how sane adult interactions work in RL. And you may wish to start exposing yourself to less of these situations from here on….reduce travelling together, reduce collective family outings, stop paying attention to or commenting on whether she is texting OM or the Pope or Santa etc. Bc that is the reality of how separated Co parenting works, isn’t it?

You are probably feeling BD-ed all over again, but there is a very good chance that your life will actually feel easier and more peaceful if she does move out. Keep reminding yourself that the real options on your table right now are not your past marriage, but between a live in MLC teenager and a live out one. And in most cases, the latter is easier and calmer. Having said that ‘it’s highly possible’ is not the same as actually doing it, so I wouldn’t hold your breath either way. Unless you have reached the point where you are happy to help her pack tomorrow  Does sound though, if she does go through with it, that your kids will be an occasional accessory for her so you might want to think about how to adapt if you are the primary parent and even take a bit of legal guidance if necessary about that.

On the Germany thing….i disagree with FH. She is talking about a family trip in one breath and moving out with the next….do you see how f’ed up that is? And who would be paying for this fun trip to see members of her family? And would it not run the risk of being a bit of a powder keg that exposes your kids to seeing the kind of conflict you have posted about here? What would you gain from it? (And if a bit of your brain pops up saying either that you’re afraid of her reaction or that you are hoping to nice her back, give that bit of you a hug and then kindly squeeze it back in its metaphorical box  Bc I think you can see from anecdotes here that there seems not to be much evidence that either works)

So, it’s a good opportunity to start teaching yourself to practice the reality of what you are trying to ‘preach’….to let the natural and predictable consequences of her current choices unfold, to start living as if you are at best separated parents living in different places, to do detached before you feel detached which is what most of us find ourselves having to do. You don’t want to go….so say so plainly and without justification or explanation, don’t go and make other plans. If you feel comfortable enough doing so, legally and practically, let her take your kids just like divorced parents do as part of standard agreements all over the world….if not, she gets them next Christmas. Plan a different kind of a Christmas with your kids alone before or after the trip if it happens around whatever the schedule you agree is. And I’d suggest you think, then inform her of your preference rather than ask or try to discuss. Bc this is what comes along when one parent decides to end a marriage….there is no more collective family time, but two separated family units with an agreed schedule. And bc trying to negotiate sensibly with MLcers is almost always an exhausting waste of time.

Your brain probably feels like the Germany trip is a super big deal you have to get right bc BD’d brains work that way. It really isn’t. Nobody’s world, including your kids, will end if they don’t go or do; it’s just a trip and another change from the old way of doing things. But Christmas can bring eggshells for the best of us and kids are not immune to eggshells even if they don’t understand where they are coming from….which is why imho a decent parent takes age appropriate decisions on themselves and accepts that kids may not understand, agree or like them.

Imho the announcement conversation was a useful poke from the universe to encourage you to think practically about your boundaries and changes to the normal MO with a wife who has announced she is hoping to move out and leave you and the kids behind. Take your time to muse as honestly as you can what those appropriate changes might need to look like for you, what is best for you and your kids. Then act accordingly. Let your wife do her….you do your best you in the circs.

[keepfighting]

Thanks for your replies, as always good advice out there. I cannot say I agree with all the advice but that's just me I have to adapt it to my situation, but anyway keep it coming.

One thing that does not help in our situation and further adds to the tension and I think her twisting in this mess is that W is having difficutly finding a decent job. She hates that she still depends on my financial support and she is not shying away bringing this up. Said to her numerous times, for me it is not about the money and she will have my limited support as long as we are married, that is my duty as a husband irrespective of what she does. At least that's how I feel now. Of course as with many things, she sees this a control.

The moving out was probably a bait so that she has something to stick in my face. Whilst this opportunity her friend offered her would take up her time, the location is not that far away to warrant a move out/in, which I pointed out to her.

I will not bring this topic up unless she does.

I am leaning towards going on the trip TBH, the more I think about it. Knowing my wife a change in scenery usually helps her depression. If I put my pride to side and look at this from my kids perspective, they don't deserve a spoiled Xmas just because of this whole mess. If we stay home, we'll have a very dull xmas.

One day at a time... as so many here said. If nothing else, MLC sure sharpens your ability to adapt to a continuoulsy changing circumstances, curve balls, that's hard for a person like me who likes to have situations under control.

[xyzcf]

Your wife reminds me of when I was a teenager. I turned 18, took out my pack of cigarettes, bought a bottle of gin and put both on the kitchen table and told my parents that because I was now 18 I would do whatever I want. I also had a strong desire and intent to leave home which surprisingly was not longer there 3 years after I finished college.

Our feelings, our emotions, our love for our spouse and our children...it's not like a tap that is running and we can easily turn it to off. We see that they are so "different" than the person they were before their crisis and we wish to protect our children...and we are not sure what they will say or what will happen next. So we are in a constant state of readiness.

With holding her spending money is probably making her very angry. The idea of moving out to help a friend to help out around her house is pretty wild to me, what about her two children?? There is no "sense " in what she is doing...but she may feel "trapped" and absolutely wants to find a way to dull the pain.....and this means she has to leave you...because you are the person responsible for her unhappiness....and she sees the only way as leaving behind both you and all responsibilities...very very common for a person in crisis.

As always, you can follow your intuition regarding Christmas and the trip to Germany. Whatever you decide is done not to punish her...but what you think is in your own best interest and for the kids.

It became more and more clear to me how important this family is to me. I just attended a workshop this weekend and that was reemphasized to me. I have made this family of three, the reason for how I live my life. We do spend holidays together with our daughter, we do go away with her on vacation.

For many years, he was out of her life and I am glad that this has changed and he has returned to being pretty "emotional" about her...

All of this is "messy" and I know that I have never been able to compartmentalize and say "well if he does this than I shall do that"....no....I have bended yes, to accommodate what is best for my family. That has been what I feel is right.

Once, when I was a college student and attending some kind of humanities "think group" I was advised to do something that went against the person I am, a  professor thought I should "experiment" with a different response towards a relative....it went against my beliefs but I did as he suggested...and to this day I regret it...years later, I went against who xyzcf is...and it wasn''t a big deal..just a small "experiment" that lingers on so many years later..and it hurt someone.

From a faith based perspective, there are also values that are embedded in me that affect how I respond to others.....

She is in a bad place....her actions, the ups and downs, the lifestyle she is choosing...you cannot affect that.

Consider what is "safe" for you and your children. You are showing that you can stand up to her and will not contribute to her "fun" but your actions are going to be seen by your children and quite possibly your love for family, as I have for mine, will weigh against how you make decisions ...from the several bad choices, which one is the the least problematic.

[keepfighting]

Your wife reminds me of when I was a teenager. I turned 18, took out my pack of cigarettes, bought a bottle of gin and put both on the kitchen table and told my parents that because I was now 18 I would do whatever I want. I also had a strong desire and intent to leave home which surprisingly was not longer there 3 years after I finished college.

xyzcf, you nailed it. This is exactly how she behaves. I am getting this line for a while now: I do what I want and you cannot hold me back. My reply: I don't want to hold you back, just think about the decisions you make and don't rush decisions.

With holding her spending money is probably making her very angry. The idea of moving out to help a friend to help out around her house is pretty wild to me, what about her two children?? There is no "sense " in what she is doing...but she may feel "trapped" and absolutely wants to find a way to dull the pain.....and this means she has to leave you...because you are the person responsible for her unhappiness....and she sees the only way as leaving behind both you and all responsibilities...very very common for a person in crisis.

She does feel very trapped, not once did she express wanting to run away if she could.  I guess this is her running away from her feelings, FOO traumas, the death of her father at the age of 60 (cancer). In the initial period W mentioned about the internal fight going in her, not heard about this lately. Often I see the dead eyes and that she is sad, sometimes I asked if she is moving towards rock bottom, but don't think she is yet. Think it was caused more about the relationship issues with OM, they broke up a number of times but she so far always 'cried' herself back to him. The 'relationship' started round about BD so 6 months in. I read these infatuation last about 9m-2y on average, probably a long way before it's over.

The breakups put pressure on her, when she loses temper, today in fact, she said she does not want any men in her life anymore, she would much better be on her own. 

For a while now I have been thinking about trying to 'win' her close friends over. Not in the sense not be friends with her anymore, more like try to make them look at her situation clearly and not from W's PoV that is distorsioned. I am talking about possibly 3 people. 1 I think I could handle, 1 maybe a bit harder to convince, but could probably get there in the end and 1 not sure. It's a person I am not in close contact with, it's one of her friends she goes out with when going partying.

Did anyone else do this? Pros contras?

[mcm64d]

I kept three of my friends updated daily for a few months. They were my friends first and two since became shared friends after me and my stbxw got together, so a bit of a different situation.

But my experiences with the three were interesting. The one which never became mutual friends with my wife is and has been totally on my side since day 1. The second friend had me create goals to achieve that would address her main concerns, which in and of itself is not a bad idea just as long as they are truly things that could use improvement. The issue became as things intensified and divorce became the only option did he see that her concerns, while valid or not, were by no means cause for divorce.

The last friend, after speaking to my stbxw and getting absolutely demolished by my stxbw monstering (in ways nobody ever saw- my stbxw is one of the most beautiful people inside and out anyone has ever met), insisted that reaction had to be something I did to her. Something "major". (Like being asked if I ever physically abused her or cheater on her- which both me and my stbxw said no to). Still she wouldn't believe me. It took a while and again after things intensified and divorce came into the picture, did this friend start seeing my version of things and started agreeing that this was by no means cause for divorce. But that took its toll on me as I needed support, not further attacking.

I guess the moral of this story, although the types of friends are different than in your case, is that you could be setting yourself up for further attacks and the need to defend yourself, which at this moment I am guessing you do not need. It could foreseeably add fuel to your spouse's fire with these friends if they are or will become manipulated

[Treasur]

Big mistake imho.
And tbh, more usefully, a sign that you are far from as detached as you probably want to be.

You are trying to control or influence what you can’t and to do so by triangulating others. Not sure that’s very fair. And not sure you can control their reactions either. And have you ever seen a single story here where that worked and poof normal spouse reappears?

You will do as you wish. Ha ha, I accept that none of us control you either lol. But, at least, take a rule of 3 breath and do nothing about it for a little while. Give yourself time to think hard about what you would be trying to achieve and why, and what YOU see as the pros and cons.

[UrsaMajor]

For a while now I have been thinking about trying to 'win' her close friends over. Not in the sense not be friends with her anymore, more like try to make them look at her situation clearly and not from W's PoV that is distorted. I am talking about possibly 3 people. 1 I think I could handle, 1 maybe a bit harder to convince, but could probably get there in the end and 1 not sure. It's a person I am not in close contact with, it's one of her friends she goes out with when going partying.

Did anyone else do this? Pros contras?

While you are at it, you might also wish to consider sticking your finger in a light socket with the power on while standing in a puddle or stabbing yourself in the nose with a barbecue fork.....

Seriously....  Do NOT go there.... They are her "close friends" and if you go about peeing in that pool, she will rightly blame you for it. If they are too blind to see what is happening in front of their own eyes, they are either enablers or are paddling their canoe up De Nile and you trying to get them to see the light will invariably blow up in your face..... They are likely to side with her if they are that close. My MLCxW had 3 enablers who were supposedly "mutual" friends... Two were actively engaged against me and one was telling her "You might want to think about that."One other mutual friends broke off contact with MLCxW because the friend supported me and MLCxW tossed the friend aside like 3-week old fish that was left out in the hot sun. I also no longer have contact with the friend - she WAS MLCxW's friend long before MLCxW and I met and I kept some contact for a while but it gradually fell by the wayside....

[keepfighting]

Based on the last 3 posts, the answer is clearly, no, that's not a good idea (UM's 2x4 made me laugh). Was thinking of this from the point of you that if they see the real version of the story and not just whatever bu!!sh1t my W told them, maybe they can move away from some of the advices they give.

One of her friends out of the 3 I 'targeted' clearly said she does not condemn my W for what she does, that's after the numerous time she's been in our house, see how we live, etc. and known each other for 5 years.

OK, will move the focus away from this idea then... plodding along.

Off to the gym with the boys in a little while.

[mcm64d]

This just reminded of something my stbxw said to me on the phone in one of our early discussion of this fiasco. She told me that her friend, who adores me as well, said to my xw "Why would you stay (with me) if you're unhappy?"

I didn't verbalize it at the moment, but I had one of those smacking myself in the forehead moments in disbelief someone would actually say that. First, its not my job to make her happy and second, did we ever truly find out that I was the reason for her being unhappy before saying that??

And in case you are wondering I did ask my stbxw if I (and the marriage) was the only reason she was unhappy in her life. Her response- "What do you mean?"

Rational thinking and behavior seem to fly out the window.

[WHY]

Please dont take the family vacation.  Been there, done that.  You're setting yourself up for catastrophic failure and disappointment.  None of you are in the right frame of mind to do something like this (it's not just her), and it will be a powder keg....  You both are not ready for something like this.

[UrsaMajor]

And in case you are wondering I did ask my stbxw if I (and the marriage) was the only reason she was unhappy in her life. Her response- "What do you mean?"

Rational thinking and behavior seem to fly out the window.

I got "I have to get the D because it is because of the marriage and because of you that I always sick."

Guess what,,,, We're divorced now and.... she is STILL always sick...... and had to reduce the number of hours she works during the week because of it..... Before it was because of her boss and the other men she had to work with that she was always "sick".... Then it was because of her colleague that was doing the Mattress Mambo with the new boss that she was always "sick".... I have no idea what the excuse du jour is now....

But, as with anything MLC-related, no matter how far and how fast they run away, there they are....

But then I got the  "I never said that."  Uhhhhhhmmmmmm yeah, right... Must have been the Body Snatcher pod in the garden shed talking then....

[mcm64d]

And in case you are wondering I did ask my stbxw if I (and the marriage) was the only reason she was unhappy in her life. Her response- "What do you mean?"

Rational thinking and behavior seem to fly out the window.

I got "I have to get the D because it is because of the marriage and because of you that I always sick."

Guess what,,,, We're divorced now and.... she is STILL always sick...... and had to reduce the number of hours she works during the week because of it..... Before it was because of her boss and the other men she had to work with that she was always "sick".... Then it was because of her colleague that was doing the Mattress Mambo with the new boss that she was always "sick".... I have no idea what the excuse du jour is now....

But, as with anything MLC-related, no matter how far and how fast they run away, there they are....

But then I got the  "I never said that."  Uhhhhhhmmmmmm yeah, right... Must have been the Body Snatcher pod in the garden shed talking then....

I am sorry for all your experiences UM but you are so reassuring. If I had never found this site, I would have thought ALL of this was my fault and that I was going crazy......  I have to take my responsibility for this even though it has been said this MLC has nothing to do with me or my marriage. Its the only way I can improve as a person.

[keepfighting]

Guess what,,,, We're divorced now and.... she is STILL always sick...... and had to reduce the number of hours she works during the week because of it..... Before it was because of her boss and the other men she had to work with that she was always "sick".... Then it was because of her colleague that was doing the Mattress Mambo with the new boss that she was always "sick".... I have no idea what the excuse du jour is now....

This was also my experience... blaming, blaming, blaming and it was always someone or something else. MLCer don't want to take any responsability for the mess they cause.

If I had never found this site, I would have thought ALL of this was my fault and that I was going crazy......

I second this, even now there are days I feel like I am going mad, though now I look at the situation from a slightly different angle. This is no easy journey and I don't know if I will be able to make it to the end. For now I'm trying to find strength in my children, my vows, etc. but it is a damn hard journey for sure. Some days are easier than others, the hardest part for me is in the morning when you need to get out of the bed when you know you need to put up with the same sh1t again.

Journaling:

the situation did not escalate from yesterday, no more mentioning about the moving out, but I am alert, the situation can change from one day to the other. W has been calm since yesterday, we had some neutral conversation today, mostly about kids. W seems to be content of herself.

I've been reading Standing Strong's story the last few days. He is one lucky guy so far in the story (part 6), I wish I had known what I know today and intercept this whole situation before it turned into an affair, but it is too late now.

[mcm64d]

I second this, even now there are days I feel like I am going mad, though now I look at the situation from a slightly different angle. This is no easy journey and I don't know if I will be able to make it to the end. For now I'm trying to find strength in my children, my vows, etc. but it is a damn hard journey for sure. Some days are easier than others, the hardest part for me is in the morning when you need to get out of the bed when you know you need to put up with the same sh1t again.

Today is becoming one of those days for me.......

[keepfighting]

Whilst reading along on the forum, I found a post that linked HeartsBlessing site. She is a (former?) HS member, people are quite biased about her.

I personally found her articles very insightful, there is no harm in reading as much information as possible, then one filters what he/she thinks applies for the situation or is in line with their beliefs.

From a newbie to newbies, I recommend you to read this article:
https://thestagesandlessonsofmidlife.org/the-six-stages-of-a-mid-life-crisis/

Her view is that the entry in the tunnel is right at the start of Denial and not BD. Other people here on the forum consider the tunnel starts at BD. Maybe not that important, but I admit I have this obsession that I need to know where W is in her crisis.

So question out to you: how do you know when an MLCer is in the tunnel? What signs are there? I'm not asking about the stage, each stage has it's own sympthoms and signs, I think my W is heavy in Replay, that is also the longest stage in the MLC process.

Another good blog entry is the one talking about the affair down. Many people get crushed by finding out about the affair, I am no exception. For me, this was really a hard thing to accept.

https://thestagesandlessonsofmidlife.org/past-parental-issues-and-the-affair-partner-an-explanation/

I don't know much about my W's affair nowadays other than it is still ongoing after 'x' number of break-ups Also know that for her it's more of an emotional bond, than a physical one. The blog entry above explains why this is.

Another hard fact to accept is that you CANNOT and SHOULD not do anything about the affair. I'm sure many find this unacceptable, irrational and against our nature. Again, I am no exception here, I feel the same. My instinct told me numerous time, to get up and 'visit' OM and resolve things like between men (sort a duel with fists only rather than guns like in the old days), even told my wife that I will do this, she was petrified.

The more you read and learn, you get to understand that this would be wasted energy, you would give your power and attention to someone who is not worthy of it and could potentially strengthen the affair rather than have the opposite effect. So it's a NO NO. You need to let the affair run it's course (isn't this hard to accept?).

Another thing I learned, that is emphasized in the much needed advice people receive here from other members, is the importance of looking into your Self and heal your problems that lie within you. In my recent posts, I raised the question on why this is needed.

Working hard on this, again it is not easy, at least for me it isn't. You get to understand that your MLC is in crisis. Their crisis would have happened no matter what, completly independent from you. What I did not understand at the time is that by MLC entering the crisis, also forces you to a journey, that is very much alike to the MLC journey but not as distructive. You need to look into yourself, find traits or past experiences that need correcting or resolving and do the work necessary to heal. Your journey is completly separate from hers and there is no guarantee the two journeys will meet in the future. You keep hearing: your marriage is dead, your relationship is dead, she is gone. ACCEPT it! I know, I know you may say, but it is hard, damn hard. For me this becomes easier with time, realising that W is nothing else than my children's mother and like a room mate for me. She does not involve me in her life anymore, and I don't involve her in my life, very strange feeling and it's very sad at the same time.

That's the theory. What people don't tell you is HOW you do all this. This is something each one of us will need to find out on their own. For me this is hard and I am struggling with this, but think I know identified a few things that I can do to become a better me, so will see how this pans out.

[forthetrees]

Ah, the HOW: I think you find a trusted counselor, therapist, friend who can give it to ya straight. You connect with nature and find an artistic outlet in media, music or movement- that could include things like tai chi or qi gong. You learn breathe work techniques to calm yourself down. You do acts of kindness for others so that you break out of your own sphere of pain. Take a class, watch videos, read about Radical Acceptance. Explore the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching.

As for the stages- my two cents is that when you reach the point where you are not looking at stages anymore you are far along in your own healing. By the very fact that you are trying to discern what stage she is in, the focus is on her crisis and not your healing. Really, this is probably going to be the biggest $hit storm of your life- try not to let it suck up more time, energy and $ than it has to. Analyzing stages is a futile exercise and probably the whole stage idea helps relationship gurus sell you stuff. You know she´s "off." If and when she finds her center, you will either be contacted and receive an explanation or she will go on to live her merry or not so merry new life.

The affair: for me it was the breaking of trust that was the most crushing blow. The affair naturally results in ongoing lies and the lies pile up. Also that you now have a spouse that may have exposed you to a STD with no concern for your welfare.

Allow your hurt and anger to create space so that you can heal. No need for you to be revengeful, spiteful or vindictive. Just claim your own physical and emotional space in which to heal.

Stop trying to manipulate the situation through her friends. If you can only absorb one thing perhaps accepting that you do not have control over her but you do have control over you is a useful start.

[KayDee]

KF, I find HB's writing really interesting. I am not religious, at all, so I kinda skim over the bits where she seems to be channeling a higher power. But in general, much of what she writes seems to be based in psychoanalytical and/or psychology theory. For instance, the post you shared, it broadly relates to the theory that part of the 'self' can get stuck at a point of significant trauma. That a re-trigging of that trauma may cause us to emotionally regress. And that when under extreme emotional distress, many of us will return to what we 'know'. This may explain why some abused people can be seen to return to the abuser. I see HB's writings as offering MLC narratives around these theories (sure she had read Jung!). I have read some of her articles and approach them as such. I also find them provocative, in a good way, because they make me reflect and think for myself.

I think FTT is right about the so-called stages. I personally think any kind of emotional turmoil and the subsequent recovery - it is not linear, so for me the tunnel analogy is not a good one. The fog is better - my therapist uses this to describe depression thinking.  I often think about my own 'journey' with a past grief (not MLC grief, a loss of a very close friend). It was not linear, I cycled and I didn't know I was through it until I was through. No one could pull me through.  And I changed shape because of it.

[Treasur]

 I often think about my own 'journey' with a past grief (not MLC grief, a loss of a very close friend). It was not linear, I cycled and I didn't know I was through it until I was through. No one could pull me through.  And I changed shape because of it.

Sorry, can’t do quotes this morning but this ^^^^

Absolutely my experience too.
When hard pruned, there WAS a core but I couldn’t quite feel it for a while. But, yes, some of the shape my core lives in and how I express it now is changed significantly.
I think it’s important after that to have the humility to recognise that how anyone else, including my xh, might have experienced something similar - if they did - is beyond me. I had a confusing enough time with my own experience lol.