[Wed2Him?Whatever.]

Been a while since I've been here. Greetings to everyone. Let me start by saying GOD bless you. I know your hurt, I've been there. The pain's unreal.

Here are a couple of old links to my story, if you're interested, but I'll offer a very brief summary in this post.
https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=6718
http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=3533.0

Bomb drop came in 2011 when H told me he wasn't happy. Totally out of the blue for me, as I thought that we were fine. 2012 he told me he was divorcing me. He filed the next day. He moved out. I had no idea about another woman at the time. He never admitted to anything like that, only said he didn't want to be married, and for all our years together, I had just been a waste of his time. We'd been married since January 2000.

May of 2013 he got his divorce. I didn't fight even though I was very much against it. My heart was crushed. Crying, praying, agonizing, I'm sure you understand what I'm talking about. I could not understand what I had done so wrong and what had made the man I thought I knew change.

I mostly tried to avoid news about ex-H and his new love, but seems like every now and again somebody would say something or I would come across something. A neighbor let me know my ex was really head over heels for her, but she had "done him wrong" in some way. I didn't ask for details. I guess the neighbor thought this would make me feel good, that she had hurt him? IDK. If I recall correctly this was like maybe a year or two after our divorce. It's been so long that dates and times can be a bit fuzzy for me now. Then I heard about ex's stepdad dying so I looked up obituary and BAM! I got hit with the info my ex-H was now married with a daughter. I was at work. Took a break, called my mom crying. It HURT.

The last personal contact I had with ex-H was via email, when he emailed me years ago to let me know his mother had died. I emailed back my condolences, made sure to be cordial but brief, and he emailed back a response thanking me for my kind words. I felt like in his response he was reaching back out for continued communication, though he never said it directly. I let the communication end there, not being sure what else to say. If I'd had any divine prompting, any sign from God that I should write back I would have. But I legitimately did not know what I should write.

I'm not a stander, haven't been standing for my marriage all these years. I desired companionship so I dated and have been with who I'll refer to as B for years now. BUT I know a lot of people are standing for their marriage and I certainly respect that. I considered that myself, yet I was too weak. It takes much strength, much leaning on God and I guess I'm a failure in that area. It is very self-sacrificing to hold to your vows when the spouse has so cruelly and eagerly moved on. But it's for you standers in particular that I felt moved to make this post after what I've just learned.

As I said earlier, I've mostly tried to avoid news of ex-H and the new woman, but every now and then I get an inkling to look him up. Yesterday I went onto a court site for the county where as far as I know he still lives. Guess who's divorced? Yep. It appears the TRUE LOVE of my ex-H's life sued him for divorce last year. Finalized in April. Which is weird because since she was his TRUE, TRUE LOVE you'd think those two could have at least stayed married as long as we did, as I was merely "a waste of his time", according to him. I'm not really gloating, I'm mainly baffled how it must've gone down. I imagine he would have tried anything to keep her, even the things he denied to me when I asked for it like counseling or working through any issues. Did he feel like I did when he got served with divorce papers? Did it seem to him like the world was breaking apart?

Standers, be encouraged that even if your ex has gleefully moved out and moved on, remarried, had children, etc. etc. etc. it does not mean you stand in vain. It must be difficult in the end for your ex to try to build their happiness over top of your pain. I don't guarantee their return but at least now I can supply you with one more testimony of the grass not in fact being greener. I'm convinced at some point my ex had to have been thinking of our divorce as he went through his divorce from her. How he treated me, even himself admitting it was abusive. It is tragic when you find yourself in a situation where you desperately want that person you love to love you back, like they promised they always would. Of course I suppose it's possible he tired of her the way he tired of me, cheated on and abandoned her, and wasn't at all bothered by her divorcing him. It's possible, but for some reason I just feel doubtful it happened that way. In any case, I just wanted to give some comfort to anyone who is feeling rotten about being discarded by their spouse in favor of someone new. We can't know the future. But we do know, unfortunately, that pain and heartbreak is practically everywhere. Something is likely, eventually, to break up the exciting new "love" and then if you're standing I believe God will work that situation into your reconciliation according to His perfect will. God knows all that's best for each of us, and He has never failed me.

[xyzcf]

Nice to hear from you and thanks for writing your post.

It does seem like many MLCer's affairs/relationships/remarriages  whatever to call it..end at some point...not surprising since the other person really is not the  reason for their crisis.

Yes, the pain for the LBSer is unreal as well as the pain of our children expereince.......sometimes I wonder...if they ever reach a point where they become aware of what they did, where they start to feel something...if their pain doesn't exceed our own.

I have remained open to him, he is still my husband in my heart and I still care deeply about his welfare. But he left our marriage, he doesn't see me as his wife and that I have accepted to be my reality.

So what is standing then? There is no marriage between us...we have managed to enjoy time together as a family and sometimes even with one another and I am grateful for this.

I am not a religious fanatic by any means...but from the very start God spoke to my heart and so I do what I do because of Him...love one another as I have loved you...even those who hurt you......the hardest thing I have ever had to do....yet, I have been blessed with peace and many other good things.

The human heart needs to love and be loved and many here have found another who satisfies that need....it's very lonely without that kind of intimacy.

As I age, alone...it is difficult to figure out how I am going to do this stage of life by myself.......it's so very different from many years ago when I wanted him to return to our home....now my focus is on my own life, my health, what brings me joy and the ever trying to accept and trust that God's plan for us is the only one that matters.

Thanks again...it is great when people from years ago come back and share here...for we are connected by this ...even though we may never met one another nor share the same beliefs..our stories are what brings us together and allows us to support and give comfort to one another.

[Baxter1]

Thank you for your encouraging words, I’ve been standing and I think the OM relationship is over. Although this doesn’t end the MLC (where’s the fun in that) it does help them go through the tunnel. I guess all I can do is wait, work on myself and spend time with Baxter the dog.

[Treasur]

Thank you for sharing that. I’m sure it will be a great comfort to many here who have found themselves buying the ‘you’re the problem and ow is the big twu luv’ story and feeling as if it might be true. Of course, as you note, it does not mean that reconciliation is a given for you or anyone else, even if one wanted that, and it has been years. Lot of life water under the bridge all round. But it can be really damaging for LBS to listen to that squirrelly inner voice that says this terrible thing that happened to you was your fault and you’ve been thrown away like an old shoe for something magically better. It isn’t true, it’s not about us and they take themselves with them into their new magic happy, don’t they? Lots of anecdotal evidence of that here and I’m sure people will find one more bit of evidence may be helpful as a reminder of that.

My xh also remarried and pretty quickly (but then unbeknownst to me at the time ow was already planning her wedding before I even knew she existed lol). When I found out (via an ‘anonymous’ email 🙄) it hurt very much and it made no sense to me at all how/why anyone would do that. Certainly I could not have done it without loud echoes of my prior wedding or how I’d treated my first wife. With time, it became easier to accept that it made no sense to me bc that is simply not how I am wired, that it was a pretty dumb high risk choice objectively given the circumstances and that their odds were poor. But also that it simply was not my circus and that my former h self evidently believed that marrying ow was the answer to whatever his question was lol. He chose his path and all the things that come with that, so be it. Sad and a bit painful, but so be it. I have no contact with him, direct or indirect, so I have no idea how that has worked out for them both, but I did know that their odds of what I would call a strong successful marriage were low.

One of the gifts of getting older is one sees more easily that poor sowing tends to lead to poor fruit. And that karma probably is some version of eventually reaping what one sows. Unless you’re a certified sociopath, most humans eventually get echoes of that, I suspect, and the regret that comes with it. What helped me though is to realise that, after he separated our life paths, there was no amount of good or bad events in his future life that would change or remove one jot of the pain and damage I’d experienced bc I’d already experienced it. It had already happened, all of it, and nothing anyone could do would undo that. I could only move forward the best I could from where I was, just as you did, and try my hardest not to let someone else’s choice to gamble everything on one throw of their life crisis dice shape my own future life.

 I suppose, looking back, I reached a point where I metaphorically buried him and our decades together if that makes sense? And I felt no need to dig him up lol, so not knowing if he is alive or dead, married or divorced, happy or not, made sense to me. But it took quite a few years to get to that point and I can still find myself scratching my head about what happened and how very WTF it all was. Not sure, reading here, that ever 100% goes away, does it? It was a big painful strange thing to experience that felt like it came out of the blue and like waving my hands in front of a hurricane! Most people fortunately don’t experience something like that, but those of us who have absolutely get it.

I don’t know if you want further contact with him or how you feel about it all now. But I hope that you have built a good new chapter of your life that feels solid and safe, and that you are no longer plagued by doubt that any of this was about you xxx

[MadLuv]

Thank you first for coming back to update after so long on this MLC marriage. I guess she left him, so we still don’t know where his head is or the circumstances, but I  do believe for most marriages coming from MLC and specifically the ones that jump right into a new marriage eventually catches up with them. Marriage is so much work for even the healthiest people. Merging personalities, upbringing’s and interests.

They start out in the same head space, but if one of them wakes up from the craziness of it all they are no longer at the same place. To me the only ones that will work are the ones that stay unhealthy. That alone should give and certainly gives me comfort to know I at least am not in that completely unhealthy codependent relationship.  I am an independent gal, but by the end I definitely was no longer me and completely unhealthily attached to a very damaged man.

Hope you bring updates if you hear more or have interactions with XH, because there is so little on the years after . That is why I continue to update what I hear and know.

[Ready2Transform]

WED!!!! So glad to see your update. I'm glad your life has continued to grow and flourish, and that you're still the woman of integrity you always were. Not surprised your xH has not found his happy place yet. Hoss and OW have stayed together, but I do know in several regards it has not been bliss. Broken people cannot build stable lives.