[MadLuv]

I have to say this has all hit a little cord with me as in I am not an over appreciator. I cook, clean, work, pamper, do special things and thoughtful gifts, but I am not a “OMG thank you sooooo much” kinda gal. What I did take note on is that my XH was a very needy man in that area. If he took out the trash or some basic thing he would want acknowledgment for it. I certainly never got it when I took it out. I think each and every person has to build themselves up. Its one thing to bring another person down, but we all have to have our sense of self and self pride and speak up  when our needs aren’t met.

What I am confused on as I am one that beat myself up for “maybe I didn't do enough” is that I took on more and more during his depression and to only discover that just seem to have him lose more and more respect and give him more time to escape and avoid. Now… to find out that his OW/wife treats him horrible. Doesn’t help him at all in basic home care our anything now baffles me.

 I don’t know what the answer is on all this except that it seems to be OUR responsibility to respect ourselves and have pride in ourselves. It is also our responsibility as mature adults to have a relationship where we can discuss our issues before walking out the door and then blaming it on the one that didn’t know, because we should be a mind reader.

Could I have boosted him more? Sure, but I now looking back realize that as an avoidant  men can appear to be very sweet. Non confrontational, but they are just really harboring their dislikes. I am sure that can go both ways with women who are also avoidant. What I have realized is that every year on my XH father death I recognized it. Knew it would be a tough day. He never acknowledged my parents deaths and I bet if you ask him. He cant even tell you when they died.

This has all been a great read as it is something that has taken me a long time to figure out. I kicked myself for not being more and then realized just how much more I actually gave. If someone is depleted there is not enough kudos you can give to solve their insecurities. i dont know. Just my jumbled thoughts on it all.

[Reinventing]

Sure, but I now looking back realize that as an avoidant  men can appear to be very sweet. Non confrontational, but they are just really harboring their dislikes.

Yes. I read a good description of AVPD, where as the spouse, there is this amazing party, but when you get to the door, there is always something you are doing (or not doing) that prevents you from being let in and you leave to change whatever the thing is and then come back and then there is something else wrong as a reason you can't be let in the door.

Thought that was a good description.

[Curiosity]

This is really interesting discussion, and I appreciate all of the different viewpoints. We've touched on this in various threads - the differences between men and women - and while it is absolutely fact that there are biological differences in how we are made and how we function, I believe that the vast majority of the differences are due to societal influence. Those differences start showing themselves before we are even born, with gender reveals and different nursery decor - of course, not everyone does these things, but many do. Breaking free from the expectations of society is never easy, but for people who don't fit neatly into the cisgender, heterosexual role presumed by much of society, at least they understand that those societal presumptions are exaggerated and overly narrow views of who and what a person is. And we are all social creatures, so we depend on each other for examples of how to be and how to relate to the people in our lives - but I think we can learn those lessons equally effectively (albeit probably in different ways) from men, women, or a mix of both. There may be a deeper level of identification with (and maybe even modeling ourselves on) someone in whom we can see some of our own traits, so the ideal situation is that we are exposed to a varied social group and can see a wide range of traits and behaviors as normal and accepted. But the idea that there are lessons men or boys can only learn from men, or that women or girls can only learn from women, is a result of society massively exaggerating the differences between us. Those differences are real, and they're important, but at the root of it, we're all humans and what we have in common is a lot more profound than those differences.

[Standing Strong]

Back from a break - and vacation!! 
Need to go back and read my own thread..... HAHAHAHAAH!!!

So much has happened in the last however long it's been (month? two months? whatever  )

W had a massive breakthru seven weeks ago...... she wakes me up in the middle of the night (as is her way) and wants to talk.
Ahhhhh, it's "R" talk time. I of course had taken melatonin that night (what are the odds) and was fighting the drowsy effects after being woken up at 1am.
So W tells me that she (thru her IC) has come to understand that she is "disconnected" with life and has been so for longer than she can remember being otherwise. This means that emotionally she has been completely unavailable (for years and years) and hasn't attached to anything in life.
Yes, that's right on all accounts - it's actually very surreal to hear her admit it, and for her to finally understand this about herself.
The next part is very difficult: she's been this way for so long - she has no idea how to proceed. She doesn't know how to be available or attached or live normally. She understands it goes back long before we were married (which I already knew) and she is in effect totally and completely lost.
Yup.

Next she (sorta) confesses  She says everyone who warned me against marrying her was right..... the idea that everyone had about her being a disaster, that she would run away and betray just like her mother, that she would destroy her family just like her mother........ she says they were all right, it was all true (everything they said about her). We both know (her and I) that the main thing her mom did was run away, have an affair/s and completely destroyed everything...... and now she says that she has done exactly the same thing (without listing what she has done).
Hmmmmm.... is this the "MLC'er confession"? Was that it? Don't know, but it was very difficult for her to say it.

Then she wants to know what I want for "us". She presses hard - and I shoot right back "No, you don't get an answer to that now. You will fix yourself FIRST before there is ANY talk about that". 
She cries.

W talks about now knowing what is wrong - and it's all her...... but she has no reference point to knowing what to do next. She doesn't know how to proceed. She's been broken all along, and she knows nothing other than being broken (her words).

So what do I think? I think it's wonderful she is finally at the meat and potatoes part..... she's been here quite a long time before finally having the strength and courage to tell me, and now she has to figure out how to move forward. She's had no example: her mom wasn't a role model, she had no mentoring female figure in her life - and now here she is. Her professional career is a dead-end, everything she lived and strived for was done in a disconnected state due to her massive damage, and now here she is at midlife with potentially everything lost. Not a good place to be, and having to face what to do next (and having to face what she has done - and what it has cost).
I can't really imagine what this is like for her (besides horrible beyond reason), but it isn't mine to worry about or fix.

On to me!!! I went on vacation - it was great. W stayed home and watched the dog... that's the 1st time ever. She walked him twice a day and everything. Wow. She was texting, interested, and it seemed like wishing she was there with me. Hmmmm.
So she has re-engaged with home life.
Speaking of home life - the night she opened up about herself, she talked about the apartment. HA!!
She said it was a nice place, quiet, clean, no animals...... and how she gets there and before she knows it..... she feels alone. She has overload as to what projects she COULD work on over there, ends up doing nothing, and then the desire to be home takes hold and she runs back here. She retreats to the MBR and zones out....... happy to be where she belongs. Thus she can only be there a couple hours and then is compelled to come home. Evidently it has been this way all along. 

So anyway, lots of movement - and she's not done yet...... but it's coming. I have no answer as to how someone who doesn't know what a normal and healthy life is figures out how to have a normal and healthy life..... I have empathy for her, but I can't fix it for her. I know the lack of good women over the course of her life has been such a detriment, and it isn't her fault that others let her down so terribly. Because of this she has let me down so completely, but what else was available to her? I hope (and think & believe) she will finish the process, she can't escape it now. I have done my part - she has had an anchor and a light to orbit around, and now she will finish of her own accord. What she is at the end, and what will be chosen is still to be seen - but there will be a healed person..... and that has been my prayer all along. My prayer which has lasted 28 years will finally be answered, and at a terrible price. Is it worth it? Yes. Would I ever want to do it again? No. HA!!! 

Oh, back to me!!! Over 125K steps for my week of vacation - I'm ready to get back to strict dieting and working out. That 6-pack isn't going to happen on it's own  . High time for a new push of accomplishing things on the bucket-list....... and I got so many bucket-list things done on vacation. Ate food (bad food  ) and checked off things there, looked at new things and checked things off there, and learned so much (awesome) to make next time even better. Maybe next time I won't be going alone. Who knows. I feel a turning and an acceleration underway - I'm going this way, and now I want to go FASTER. So I will. 

Next month I go on another vacation - a pinball conference. HA!!! That's be something new. Another bucket-list item to check off, and maybe something to do again and again. Who knows. I sure like my life, it is wonderful..... I miss not sharing but I've gotten used to not doing so. I'm being chased, but I refuse to be caught. I was hit on a few times while on vacation, and it was like "Ewwwww gross..... go away". 

Oohhhhh..... I almost forgot. I caught up to one of my female MLC'er friends. Wow. This was a gal I worked with a long while back (before W went into MLC - heck, before I knew what MLC was  ). Anyway, this woman had a family and an H..... and she was in this weird (and intense and disgusting) sexual affair thing with cops  . At the time she was all excited about quickies during lunch and fantasizing about running away with them to start a new life (what?). I always told her "go home to your H" and she'd look at me like I was from a different planet. Well, that was 14ish years ago. I know after a few years of this she did go home and try with her H. I know they went to counseling, he went on a diet, and it seemed like they were on the road to mending. She left the department, our mutual friends retired, and I lost all track of what happened to her. We become friends on FB (again) during my vacation and I noticed her name had changed. Well, they didn't make it. She had twins, and (I don't know for sure) but they could be by the AP, the timing is really close.  Seems like the M went away shortly after she gave birth. Needless to say, AP isn't in the picture at all, she moved to a different state, changed career (became a cop) and is "living her best life" (vomit). One thing in her posts that stuck out was she thought her H was going to die. How interesting - mine said the same about me (and no I wasn't going to die). 
How sad.
She has a boyfriend which began after several years of separation from her H, and D'ed H right before announcing it officially.
I wonder if she completed MLC.... I think not...... but I also think she "failed out": became someone else and will never finish her journey.
As for her H..... poor guy. I didn't know him, never met him, but he seemed like someone who really tried.
I can't imagine how difficult it'd be for a W to MLC and on top of it get preg with AP's twins (if that's what happened). What a reminder every day, and to potentially have the AP as part of your life moving forward. Yuck. No wonder it couldn't survive.
Where MLC goes, tragedy follows.
I hope my friend and her Ex-H have good lives in whatever form they take. She'll live on Fantasy Island for the rest of her life and I hope he heals.

-SS             

[Treasur]

Then she wants to know what I want for "us". She presses hard - and I shoot right back "No, you don't get an answer to that now. You will fix yourself FIRST before there is ANY talk about that". 
She cries.

What a great example you give, Standing (particularly for other folks here with a live-in MLCer), on what detachment can look like in practice. How you can feel compassion and empathy AND resist being drawn into trying to fix someone else’s crisis. It’s hard for all of us to see that balancing point, so thank you for sharing it.

[xyzcf]

Smiled as I read your update. The thing that hits me is your desire and prayer that she become healed...without needing the relationship back....

Thank you so  much for sharing your insights and observations about your W and the things you are doing in your own life that are pleasing and satisfying.

So W tells me that she (thru her IC) has come to understand that she is "disconnected" with life and has been so for longer than she can remember being otherwise. This means that emotionally she has been completely unavailable (for years and years) and hasn't attached to anything in life.

This insight is very important. I know that my husband was not as emotionally engaged in life as I am...one of his two reasons for leaving me was I am too intense and I talk too much.....this reminded me of a couple of times years before BD......one was getting the diagnosis that our dog had bone cancer...we had to go to a company function that night but when I got home,  in my finery, I laid down on the floor beside her...just hugging this 65 pound lab..after a few minutes he was heading up to bed and he said to me "are you going to lay there all night".....my response "maybe". Off he went....

This animal had been in our family for 13 years...it's just one example of many that I can look back at...because we always say there are some FOO
issues or other trauma that they experienced that prevented them from forming the necessary emotions and reactions that are common for most people.

Great to hear from you Standing!

[Biscuit]

Great update SS….

As always your compassion and empathy shine through your writing and your lust for life is so great to read.

Thanks for the DM’s and checking in on me too, you’re a very good man!

[Baxter1]

Here here! SS is the man, his help has got me through some tough situations. Thank you for your insights!

[FrenchHusband]

Hi Standing Strong, I am so happy for you about these good news ! This confession is great and your W has made a huge step in the last weeks.

This part of your writing looks outstanding to me :

Then she wants to know what I want for "us". She presses hard - and I shoot right back "No, you don't get an answer to that now. You will fix yourself FIRST before there is ANY talk about that". 
She cries.

W talks about now knowing what is wrong - and it's all her...... but she has no reference point to knowing what to do next. She doesn't know how to proceed. She's been broken all along, and she knows nothing other than being broken (her words).

I totally understand your point : you ask your wife to heal before you can go back to a marriage relationship, right ? Only that, your W says she does not know  what to do, and it looks like to me she is expecting your support/direction/advice. She is already doing IC since a long time, so I can not see what she could do better or differently right now ?
Usually we LBS should not give advices because our sposes under MLC don't want advices and don't ask for them. But this time it is different, no ? What do you think about it ?

[Treasur]

Jmo FH - and Standing knows best - but the words sound as if what his wife asked was ‘what he wants for us’. She did not say ‘will you help me?’ Or ‘I need your help with x or y thing I am trying to do’. Or even ‘I have tried x and y which didn’t work so I am thinking I need to try z next but I don’t know how to do that’.

It sounds as if what she said was something like I don’t know what to do. And perhaps was hoping Standing would jump in with a magic to do list so she did not have to deal with the reality of her I don’t know what to do feeling.

Any decent therapist or coach knows that sometimes you have to sit with the discomfort of I don’t know until you feel a big enough need to get unstuck that you want to try something else. That the feeling serves a purpose. Often what you try matters less than the act of trying creates momentum. Tbh most veteran LBS know that feeling too….we come here looking for tips and answers and to do lists but don’t really start moving forwards until we reach our own similar stage. And until then tbh we rarely engage with any tips or advice beyond lip service until we are ready, do we?

Plus, if Standing’s wife does not know what she wants to do, perhaps hasn’t yet got to the point where she can pin down what she sees as the ‘problem’ she wants to tackle in a tangled ball of issues, how on earth could Standing get inside her head enough to know either? And it might inadvertently feed the message that Standing or the marriage is the problem by now being the answer. There’s a big risk imho in trying to play fixer, counsellor or coach to a spouse who is stuck when we have our own agenda and our own assumptions which may not be entirely accurate….even in normal times…..that’s why professionals can be useful. And why we all need to tread respectfully with each other too tbh bc life is rarely one size fits all.  It takes some humility and courage though to see where I end and you begin in situations like this, doesn’t it?