[Disillusioned]

Nas - Very few people like to be confronted with the truth, and while what you wrote is your truth only, I think it will resonate with many and make them uncomfortable.  And thank you for that.

Shining - this is going to sound simple and may not be helpful, but perhaps you are focused on the wrong things for what you consider a successful and happy life?  Are the things you point to as proof your MLC'er is "soaring" the very same things that mean success and happiness to you?  Focus on what makes you happy.  If it's travel, then go travel.  If it's money, then find out how to make more of it.  But it's also possible that you don't actually have need of those things, nor the necessity of him feeling or expressing guilt, to find contentment in your life.  Just a thought.

[Nas]

I wonder if we can ever truly stop wondering about them.  It might not consume our thoughts, but it'll always be a question.

There's a therapist named Vikki Stark who writes about runaway husbands.  Her husband abandoned her years ago and she insists that they never think about us.  I don't know if it's true for all.  Nah's H said he thinks about her and their life every single day.  But for my H, I think he only thinks of me sometimes because we are still married and that has to be a weight on his shoulders. 

It's truly baffling because I put so much effort (and all the money I had) into moving the D forward when I moved to a new state in late 2016 and he just avoided me.  Then when I was diagnosed, I sent him an email focused on the legal stuff and it would have been so easy for him to deal with it and get it done.  Instead, he chose that disappear and cut off our only avenues of communication - text and email.  If he feels any guilt at all, he's foolishly prolonging his own guilt by disappearing instead of just dealing with it so he can then get on with his life.

He doesn't to be the guy who vanished on his cancer-stricken legal spouse.  He could be the guy who has an ex-wife with cancer, which sounds much less awful. 
Yet somehow he thought disappearing was the better route to take. 

[Thunder]

Nas,

I think when you are well, you should talk to a lawyer.  You may be surprised at what they will think about him abandoning you and giving you no money (well some in the beginning) the last few years, while legally married to you.

It may even be possible to get a settlement using his new position. 

I sure don't know this, and it's not anything you should concern yourself with right now, but just food for thought in the future.

[Shining Star]

DI:  I do seem to focus on what he is feeling - maybe because I still want him to come home, even though NOONE in my life - other than you all - would understand that.  Although, I think he has put me in a box in his head, and it is easier now that we have NC, he must have some feelings of guilt.  An example would be the last time I saw him he jumped out of a moving cab, ran to me on the street, picked me up, was crying, telling me how much he loved me.  When I started crying too, and said "I don't understand,"  he said "I know."  That was a year ago in November, before he finalized the divorce.  So weird.  As I move into 4 1/2 yrs since BD, and healing from the divorce, all I really want is to build a relationship and have that intimacy and a partner again.  The money and travel are nice, but will not fill my heart.  I have always wanted to do the building with him, but the longer this goes on, the more I become resolved to the fact that it may not happen.  Every day when I do my meditation, I always make reference to letting him go without punishment.  That really is the key to moving forward to me.  Just accepting that this has happened, it isn't what I would have chosen, but it is time to move ahead without him.  This is the only way I will really be fulfilled.  If, in the future, he contacts me and has an interest in re-building, it would depend on where I was in my life. 

Nas:  I also read the Vikki Stark book, and I am not sure I agree with her.  I think there are some MLCers that do think about us, and perhaps that is why they go so dark - because of the guilt and shame.  It probably helps to not have a daily reminder of the destruction.  I hope your H finds some compassion and does the right thing by you.  Sending you a hug for the day.   

   

[Ready2Transform]

I feel your pain, Nas. I, like you, had an attorney, did everything legally the right way and threw a ton of money behind it. And the settlement is just not going to happen and my attorney doesn't understand why I can't just be satisfied with the bifurcated decree (where xH got his divorce, but no assets were split). The court system was the one thing I thought I had on my side, and even it ghosted me. So I got the debt, the foreclosure, the bankruptcy, the sick pets, the fallout. He got his freedom.

The one thing I've learned that has served me is to try to stop getting inside anyone else's head. We can pontificate all day about whether or not someone is happy, guilty, angry, in love, humiliated, suffering from debilitating abuse, or possessed by a demon. A lot of standing literature focuses on that very thing. But there is absolutely no way of knowing, so what's the point? We weren't like this in our marriages (I know I wasn't). Every second we spend trying to get inside someone else's mind is a second we've lost our own thoughts, our own identity, and our own purpose. We can't figure out how to get over this if we're spending all of our time inside of a sick person who we may or may not ever see again. We become them.

You don't actually need to understand what is in their heads to have closure, to move on, to accept this happened, or to stand.

[CallingHeart]

As a fellow clanisher, I agree with so many points made on this thread it’s hard not to waffle between wondering about the “why” of it all, hoping against hope that there is something “real” beyond my own self-closure, and just a big fat PPPPPFFFFFTTTT regarding it all!

Oct 3 was my 9 year noniversary, so I purchased an $80 bottle of wine, tipped the bar tender $20, and enjoyed my evening at home in a townhome with a beautiful skyline view of the city - and which I’m currently renovating so I can list it on AirBnB

Today I purged a few more things I’ve been holding on to regarding my hwow. I’m slowly, slowly starting to re-recognize my self worth even while there still exists out there in the world a shadow of a man who bailed on me. (mini ppppffftt) I feel as if I’m getting to understand the gift of time.

[Nas]

Great way to spend your noniversary, Calling. 

Funny, my H and I could not remember when we met so we chose a day in January and called it our noniversary.  Now every time I hear that Kelsea Ballerini song "I hate love songs" with the line, "We were drunk when we met so we don't know our anniversary" I kind of cringe and kind of laugh.  (Honestly, I could have written every word of that song, it sounds just like me, lol.)

The self-worth issue is very difficult.  Especially for those of us who did not have the most solid self-esteem to begin with. 

[Treasur]

I think the core issue for me with a vanisher...and therefore very little information or any conversation really...is not about their truth. It's about doubting mine. When someone lies, and then ghosts you pretty much, perhaps the desire for them to show up and speak (even when we know that's unlikely to happen and if it did it would probably just be more lies and gaslighting half-lies) is because we just want to know what the truth of our own lives was. Then with time, we see that we can't get the truth there....so we hunt internally for it. And some find an ok spot they can live with there. But some can't...or it takes longer...or they find a way to write it off and not care maybe.

But as my perspective has evolved, I think it has become less about his lies and much more about doubting my own ability to lie to myself. So, I am unsure of how I can trust my own judgement. Was my h what and who I thought he was for many years and then stewed into his own crisis so the bit where my judgement was off was for a year or two? Or was my h never who I thought he was and I failed to see it because of the lies I wanted to tell myself for 20 years? And if even now I can't see many forewarning flags looking back even though I also have to accept the reality of how my h behaved towards me, is that because they weren't there to see or because I denied them to feed my own not true story of my own life and the person I am? And would I really rather know the truth or not? And how do I figure it out when the other person who knows some of that decided to just refuse to talk to me about any part of those 20 years? Because the reality is that the person I thought I knew would not have done much of what he has done. And that's just the things I know about. And normal healthy rational decent humans normally don't act this way even when they want to end their marriage. But he did and it is real and there are facts albeit with unknown reasons.

I know we say here...well, MLC blah, blah. And you know what your truth and intentions were regardless of what was going on with the other person so you can keep your POV. And that is partly so...but not quite all of it is it? And I'm sure that for folks whose MLC spouses show up to spew and blame, it's an equally confusing puzzle. But the itch for us clanishers of the vanishers, which we sometimes conflate with trying to work out what our spouses think/feel from afar, is maybe more about how we make something feel really authentic in ourselves that was shared with a now silent invisible participant. And why, even now after 3 years, I sometimes have moments - which I never act on because common sense tells me it's futile - when I simply want to appeal to my xh human to human to tell me his version of the truth, no matter how ugly, so I can reclaim some clarity about my own judgement again or challenge the lies I told myself.

I have no answers at all, but I wonder if the itch - which is about us not them - is the reason why our vanishers sometimes continue to live in our heads long past their sell-by date.

[Nas]

I was questioning a lot if I was just blind to a lot of things.  But some recent memories that have popped into my head for no reason at all have me now realizing that I was not blind or in denial.  He's a different person.  At least with me, he's a completely different person.

So now, rather than wondering if he's always been a narcissist or lacked empathy, I can so clearly see he's changed and wonder if he's only changed with me because of the way his feelings for me changed, or if he's changed who he is as a person.  Does OW get to see the man I saw for 16 years before BD?  Because if so, she's never letting him go. 
Do the new friends and colleagues see the man I always knew before BD?  If so, no wonder his new life is successful. 

When he changes his phone number but emails me and claims that the reason for his "lack of communication" for an entire year is because his phone went through the washing machine, am I the only one who hears that kind of absurd reasoning and confused logic?  Because wouldn't other people think it was strange?  Is he clear minded and logical with others and only absurd with me? 

I guess it's more a question of how the hell can others not see something is off, or am I the only one who witnesses the craziness?

[Thunder]

People who knew him will see it, but not new people.  They didn't meet the man you married....and you're right he is a stranger now.  You real H would never treat you bad.

I'm sure he is different with her too.  She'll never have the real man he was.  You had him.