[Anjae]

Would we pressure ourselves to "fall out of love" with our spouse if they had died?

No. But a dead spouse didn't leave us the way a MLCer did nor is living with OW/OM, or married OW/OM. The two situations aren't comparable.

I prefer to hold on to the great memories we had when he was a good man with love.

Sure. But, at a point, those memories fade, at least mine had. It was all too long ago. Do you still have so many, and so present memories of your MLCer? You have a new husband and a new life. How much space do those memories take?

I don't want to forget who he used to be.

To me, it no longer makes much of a difference who Mr J used to be. He is not that person anymore and has not been in over a decade.

People stop loving their partners but they don't act the way MLCers do.

[Treasur]

With time and a new day to day life, of course some of our memories fade. But as with any bereavement/loss, there are others that are just part of who we are and our path to right now and it is nice if they can raise a smile rather than cause us pain.
I'm with SB....and there is something really painful about their remarriage but it does stop you hoping or watching...I may never 'get over it' and it was life- altering but my goal is to live happily and fruitfully again despite it all. Easier some days than others.

There is just an inherent cognitive dissonance in it.
I loved and liked my h, and I don't regret doing so as it brought me years of joy. As far as I can see, that person no longer exists by my h's choice so it feels a bit like he died.
And
I inadvertently shared my life with someone who was capable of abandoning me when I was bereaved and being indifferent and incomprehensibly cruel, and that bonkers rollercoaster cost me a lot and brought me unimiganable pain. That person who looks a bit like my h is somewhere living a new life and is to be avoided for my own safety and sanity.
Both things are true.
I think each of us find our own way to make peace with it depending on our own situation. Mine has definitely been shaped by other simultaneous bereavements and by the fact that I have no kids or siblings so have felt very alone at times.

[Anjae]

It is too early for you Treasur. It has been 12 years for me. It is totally different after 12 years. Especially if the MLCer and LBS do not have contact.

Sure, if it better if a memory rises a smile than hurt.

I inadvertently shared my life with someone who was capable of abandoning me when I was bereaved and being indifferent and incomprehensibly cruel, and that bonkers rollercoaster cost me a lot and brought me unimiganable pain.

You still think the problem somehow is you/the marriage/your real husband and that you shared a life with someone that was not who you thought he was. He was. Then MLC come and he was no more. What would be the sense of preserving memories if he had always been like the MLC person?

Your MLCer was not more cruel than many of our MLCers. Some of us have MLCers who were far more cruel than yours - I am not being subjective here - and you know it. I see too much self-pity and too much I had this really, really horrible cruel MLCer when he was/is just a standard MLCer.

Do you think ours didn't brough us unimiganable pain?

You will get over it. With time.

I see you constantly oscilatting between being all hurt, upset and between deciding to be over it in X amount of time. Or the it has been 3 years, I should be feeling like this instead of the way I do. That is not how it works. It takes a long time and trying to rush things does not work.

I also have no kids. Ready2 also have no kids. Others also have no kids. Other were left when seriously ill. 

I don't know about remarriage. Mr J didn't remarry. For all I know we are still legally married. I was the one who used to want to remarry, not him. But, if the MLCer has remarried, shouldn't that be one more reason to put an end to the matter for good?

Treasur, we have all lost our marriage and spouse - except for those reconnecting and reconciled - but some of us have lost far more tha n that. You are not one of those. You have money for a house, a good life, a good job, etc. You were not physically hurt. Your mids were not taken from you/turned agains you.

Maybe you should try to put things in perspective and think/see that others have/had it far worse than you.

[Treasur]

I appreciate the dose of reality, Anjae, and of course any pain is not competitive.
I certainly don't see my xh as 'worse'...and try not to be quite so self pitying as I used to be....but it's also true that my finances are fragile, I no longer own my home for the first time since I was 21,  I have lost both my family and my in laws have cut me dead too, I lost my old business, home, had death threats that were frightening to live through and the mindf**k of seeing my xh get remarried within weeks...it really wasn't as simple as you make it sound LOL. None of which is to claim a 'worst MLC' award ha ha - who would want such a thing - but just the reality of where my rebuild at 54 starts from. A mostly vanisher has saved me from a lot of things, but it also took away a lot of things too. Really all I have is me, my uncle and a few good chums most of whom live some hours away. - even Louis the cat died  so I really am on my own right now and have been throughout this, which is also why HS has helped me so much when I had no one else to talk to.

I suppose where I differ on the 'real vs MLC person' is that logic tells me that, even if neither he nor I knew it, the darkness of the MLC version IS part of the whole of who my xh is. He is capable of doing these things because he did them and continued to do them. His crisis may have unearthed this part of him as my own response to trauma and grief has shown me some dark bits of myself tbh, but these dark angry destructive things are part of both of us. My challenge is to manage mine and keep away from his. What he does with his demons now is his business. I try to balance my selfcriticism about feeling stuck sometimes with a healthy impatience to get unstuck from the after effects of this life experience, sometimes better than other days Lol.

I see too much self-pity and too much I had this really, really horrible cruel MLCer when he was/is just a standard MLCer.

Maybe you should try to put things in perspective and think/see that others have/had it far worse than you.

I don't know if it is what you meant, but your post did sound a bit like 'get over it, Treasur, you have no right to feel as you do because others have it much worse than you'? And I don't think I have ever claimed that my xh is special, different or worse than any other, just that I have shared the same sense of bewilderment as everyone else at his behaviour. If that is what you meant to say, I'm not sure why you want to judge me so harshly and shall humorously blow you a raspberry of pffft.  if not, I apologise for misinterpreting you and thank you for the opportunity to voice and respect my own needs and feelings about where I am right now 

I often see postings and think 'thank God that's not happening to me', true enough, but my feelings about what has happened to me are my reality and don't need to be justified or weighed in comparison here or in RL. I can only work with where I am and who I am and how I feel...and that is good enough. I'm sure you are right that Time as well as healthy effort will bring me to a different perspective but,valuable as it is to learn from veterans like you, I also hope that I am not here on HS regularly posting in ten years time because MLC - and its fallout -  is no longer part of my real life as it still is now.

[Anjae]

It is not as simple as I put it, but it is also not so dire.

If it was get over it Treaur I would had not said it is still too early and that it takes time. It really was put things into perspective. In my case it would be something like, Mr J was as nasty as he was, but, at least, he didn't try to run me over with a car and took my kids, like In It's husband did.

Time will get you over it. But for now, it is too soon. And it may still be too sonnfor a good while. And at point may come when you think it is all behind you, just for something to bring back some stuff. There is not timeframe.

Did he ever did anything like this before MLC? If not, of course it come with MLC and it his MLC version. It is the same with depression. Depression will lead people to do things they haven't done before. Since depression is part of MLC, real odd things are going to happen.

Everyone is capable of doing those very same things, with the variations of each specific person, providing they are having a MLC/depressed. Think about war and the brutal things normal people do at war. Extreme conditions lead to extreme behaviours.

You may still be posting in 10 years. It does not mean you will be where you are now. You will not. At a point, HS becomes a nice club to chat. And exxhange idead about a subject that affect far more than our spouses. MCL affecst relatives and friends as well. At times, even the LBS.

[dogwalker]

Hi Treasur.
I hope you are well and having a good day up on the coast north of me. I think winter is coming.
Thank you for your posts and insights on here and on my own blog they are much appreciated.
Take care  DW

[BrenM]

Treasur

No one can rewrite history....our children, family, friends, colleagues and us know what our relationships we had with our MLCers were.  Photos don't lie.  Unconditional love is real....it does not fade away with a MLC.  I for one will never forget the love and the memories.....and I believe that the Mlcer is the same.  I hope I never become so angry with hatred that my memories fade.

 Yes I still have a intuition that my relationship with my MLCer is not final.....I can not explain it....I believe that connection will remain.....we carry on our life living the best we can as a family (without the Mlcer)....I trust fate.... If he is meant to be in our lives again he will catch up....and oh boy will he have some damage to repair 🤔....nothing is ever impossible.   

[Schratz66]

Bren, I have the same intuition, but wonder some times if it's not just wishful thinking.
I cannot explain it but somewhere deep inside I know we are not done - then again, maybe that just means I am bonkers...lol

[Nas]

I don't see too much self-pity in Treasur or anyone's posts.  And I've been the queen of self-pity so if anyone would recognize it in others, it should be me.

We have been traumatized, plain and simple.  And HS is a place to come and work out how we're feeling because the real world wants us to just get over it, find a new partner and move on as fast as possible so they don't have to feel uncomfortable around our pain.  When we come here, we need to feel safe to let out whatever is inside us that needs to be released or explored.  That includes discussing how "bad" our MLCer is, ways in which we might still be personalizing things, and lamenting things we've lost as a result of someone else's decisions and behaviors. 

We, the clanishers of vanishers, have virtually nowhere else to do that but here.  We can't talk to our MLCers.  At a certain point, after enough time has passed, our friends and family seem to expect us to erase the MLCer from our lives and memories and not speak of them anymore.

Even this past weekend, when my brother ran into H's best friend, after he told me about it,  he felt the need to tell me he thinks I should just divorce H and forget about trying to get the retirement fund, just write it off as a huge loss and shut all doors to H and live my life as if H doesn't exist anymore. 

That's what he wants, because then the situation is over from his perspective.  No more having to deal with Nas's uncomfortable situation. 

This is what we have.  We have HS, and for those of us with vanishers, we have this vanisher's thread. 

I've just seen too much on various threads lately where people are saying things that (hopefully inadvertently) invalidate the feelings or beliefs of fellow LBSs - statements about LBSs wallowing in self-pity, suggestions that there is one category of "real" MLCers who have a chance of coming out of it.  We ALL need to choose our words more carefully.  None of us are experts.  Reading every article by RCR and HB and everything Jim Conway 10,000 times still doesn't make anyone an expert.  Every single thing any of us say on this site is our own hypothesizing, speculating and attempting to process what we have been through in our own personal situation. 

We're all trying to process something most people cannot even imagine.  We all have been through terrible experiences and just like we say no one knows how they would deal with MLC unless it actually happens to them, none of us know how we would deal with another LBS's situation unless it happens to us.

For me, having a vanisher has triggered every childhood insecurity about not being worthy of love, not being good enough for anyone, and has made me question every aspect of my past and present life.  But how would I deal with having a live-in clinging boomerang for years on end?  I have no idea. 

[heroIam]

Well said Nas.