[FreeToChoose]

My Exh and I have been divorced since Feb ‘16. Haven’t seen each other since then either. BD was May ‘14. I miss him everyday but when he was done it’s like he flipped a switch and never gave me another glance. Maybe it shouldn’t have been a shock but I was completely blindsided.

Since we separated  he’s initiated contact  maybe 5 times and all of those were just to take care of business. I’m sure I did everything wrong when it first happened. I just was so unprepared.  There was an OW but he denied it over and over. There were blocked calls on our bill and I noticed the extra attention she gave him on Facebook but when I asked him why he just said “I can’t control what people write one Facebook”. I don’t know it was an MLC or just him falling out of love anymore. 

I’ve followed this thread for a while but have never posted anything. One of my family members told me that they got engaged on Christmas and I’m feeling abandoned and replaced all over again. We’d known each other since we were children, dated after I finished college and were married for 12 yrs. I miss him, his family and my life. He went from being kind to me to baiting me into fights and picking on me in front of family and friends 

I struggle to understand how someone just walks away without a care and never looks back. The only conclusion I can come to is that I must have been horrible for him to have to cut me off the way he did. Within the first few months if I initiated contact he acted like I was some old coworker he’d lost touch with. “Heeey!!!”  which made me feel like “was i the crazy one? is this how we pretend everything is fine while you divorce me ?”

As the site suggested I tried to match his communication style so that meant we never spoke. (We don’t have children) The week he told me he couldn’t do this anymore and wanted me to leave he posted a picture on Facebook of his  beer and cigar with text reading “life is good!!!!”  I thought to myself. “What the hell”.  It’s been years and I still feel run over. I know I wasn’t perfect but like I said, I can’t imagine someone having to leave this way unless their spouse was unbearable.  Now he’s asked her to marry him.

The replacement is complete. She’s successful, his age and seems like a nice person. She knew he was married but then again I found out later he had been telling friends all kinds of things about me. True and untrue before I knew anything was wrong. So who knows what he told her. I guess my point is that this situation never seems to stop hurting. I try to stay busy and not focus on him, especially since he’s never shown any kind of interest in me again. But stuff like this just brings it all up again and I feel like I haven’t healed at all. Trusting anyone again seems unimaginable. I didn’t want to divorce but I didn’t get a choice. He filed then sat on it until the judge ordered mandatory mediation. He knew I didn’t want it and I loved him but none of that mattered to him. So here I am. Sad all over again.

[Treasur]

Free....part of the trauma of this is much of what you describe, that it makes no sense and is a bit of a life mindf**k.

Here is what I'd like you to consider though.
1. Unless everyone here was also an unbearable hideous spouse, rationally it is more likely that it isn't about us at all.
2. Emotionally healthy humans don't end long marriages like a teenager ends a hookup, even if they fall out of love. They talk and feel bad and try to behave with respect and accept that it is painful for their spouse. And they don't file and then do nothing and play stupid baiting divorce games either.
3. People who have affairs lie, of course they do, but 'normal' lies die down after the need to lie goes. Emotionally unhealthy people keep going, lying like children about ridiculous things. Lies turn into gaslighting and that is when you start to doubt your own sanity bc they swear up is down.
4. Any ow who has an affair and then plans to marry someone who can treat his first marriage this way is almost always not an emotionally healthy person either. They are an affair down bc you and me and the other fine quality women here wouldn't find that acceptable in a future h. Doesn't matter how pretty or smart or professional they seem. Broken attracts broken. Trees hide in a forest.
5 of course you feel run over....welcome to the gang...your job now is to figure out how to heal and rebuild from this terrible insane hell that happened in your life and that made someone you loved turn into an unrecognisable monster. The first step in that is to say - no matter your faults because none of us were perfect - that this was an insane disordered way to end a marriage and that is about him, not you. That you did not break him, you can't fix him but you can fix you by refusing to be mindf**ked and refusing to take the blame or responsibility for things that don't belong to you.

If you check out some of the stories here, you will see that recovering often means recognising that you might have some level of PTSD and need some support with that as you restore some sanity to your life. I have been doing EMDR and it has made a huge difference to me.

And maybe think about starting your own thread, Free, so people can support you more personally. There are good people here who have walked in your shoes and stumbled up and through it.

[FreeToChoose]

Treasur, Thank you for taking the time to respond. Ive gotten so used to keeping my feelings to myself because, in the past, if I ever talked about how I felt or what I experienced most people just say something along the lines “there’s always one person who doesn’t want it to end”. And then I end up feeling like a failure at moving on.

Your description of things is really helping. I’ve thought all these things before but when people look at me like I’m crazy for not understanding what went wrong or how a marriage could end this way again I question my own sanity. . Some friends have left me altogether and are supportive of his new relationship which also makes me question what I think happened.

I will definitely consider your advice. I don’t know what EMDR stands for but if you let me know I’ll look into it.

Thank You Again

[Rising Phoenix]

Free, as treasur says also consider a thread of your own as well as here. Also comment on other lbs threads. You are not alone. I hope you have had a chance to read the articles and guides available as they are so informative. I regularly return to re read.
Unfortunately people choose sides and not always the right side. If our h can lie to us and family including children then they can certainly lie to friends. Some lbs have also lost children who have sided with the mlcer. It is so difficult for children and family to understand or to have to choose a side. In the end they have lost out on a loving soul. After such a long time together, infidelity and betrayal and loss is one of the hardest things to deal with and each person moves on in their own time. I recently read there is such a thing as post traumatic infidelity syndrome. It basically is ptsd. As treasur says some form of counselling may be helpful. ptsd can be so debilitating which a lot of us lbs have been so drastically affected by at no fault of our own. Recognising it and seeking assistance I believe shows great strength.

Be kind to yourself and know you are in the right place to discuss your feelings with other lbs who have walked this most difficult path before you and continue to do so.

Hugs free. Xx

[forthetrees]

Great quote: Trees hide in the forest.
Thanks, I´d never seen that before.

EMDR.com- will explain this therapy. It rewires your brain after trauma.

[Treasur]

Here, my dear Free, you are free to speak your mind.
All the messy bits.
We get it.
And if nothing else, it will help you know that you are not insane. Or that we all are lol.

[BrenM]

Free sadly we all get it.  You are not alone.

Treasur's post to you said it all.  (another powerful post Treasur...I love your writing style). It is not about us or the OW...it is about our broken Mlcers. 

4. Any ow who has an affair and then plans to marry someone who can treat his first marriage this way is almost always not an emotionally healthy person either. They are an affair down bc you and me and the other fine quality women here wouldn't find that acceptable in a future h. Doesn't matter how pretty or smart or professional they seem. Broken attracts broken. Trees hide in a forest.

Ignore the OW...totally!  She is a symptom of the MLCer.  Totally irrelevant.  Nothing more...nothing less.  These type of people will always hang themselves when given enough rope. 

Never play tug of war over a man – let go of the rope and walk away, because eventually both of them will fall face-first in the mud, without your help.
~ Savannah Grey



We are here for you...we totally understand what you are experiencing.  I find this site a godsend...people in the real world just don't get it.

[Still Half full]

I agree, another great post by Treasur, she has an amazing way with words and she helps you see the reality

Everyone here is great, as you can see from the replies on this thread alone,  HS site is full of wonderful people.  They offer understanding, support and advice, which is priceless when your dealing with this trauma

This site has helped me make sense of the nonsense.  When your once loving partner does a 180 and acts as if you don’t exist it’s really hard to comprehend, but finding a place where there are so many similarities in their behaviour really helps you to not go completely bonkers, and no one here is shocked by even the most bizarre MLC behaviour.   Also, unlike RL where people just don’t understand and make you feel like you can’t talk about it after a certain length of time,  there’s no time restriction here and no limit to the advice given, we can talk about the crazy crisis for as long as we need and there are always people here to help 😊

[sparklestar]

Amazing post  from Treasur

Free I understand completely. You question yourself endlessly at first (well actually long after in fact). Your sensible head tells you it cannot be normal - marriages don’t just end like this. But you also just can’t get your head around it. This mysterious ‘MLC’ thing that no one in the real world (outside of here) really seems to get, that you think ‘that can’t have happened to me’  yet Treasur is right if you read enough here it is bizarre the similarities that occur in many different stories even down to the same lines being spoken. I would often get stuck thinking well the ‘vanisher’ thing comes from basically my H being to cowardly or not having the emotional maturity to handle the situation MLC or not. Yet that’s kind of the point vanishers DONT have normal functioning emotions or the abilities to handle their emotions. You chuck a whole dose of Mid Life causes in there whether situational (something happening) or physical (hormones etc) and boom they just cannot deal with it so they run, They bury, they avoid. They are skilful compartmentalisers and Detachers. I know my ex was long before his crisis.

I guess the tricky part is knowing how long they can keep up the avoiding/compartmentilising etc. There’s not much to go on with vanishers. I know of only a few cases where there’s been very low level contact after long periods of time. I think my vanisher would fall in to the camp of forever avoiding unless one major guilt trip/breakdown occurs. I think that’s what so many of us are interested in on this thread -  happens with vanishers! Forever vanished? For me it’s not important I’ve moved on. I only hanker after some vindication but I’m working on that!

Be kind to yourself Free. Trust that time heals and your energy is best invested in to making YOU ok and keeping your mind open to other routes to happiness.

[FreeToChoose]

Thank You Rising, Brenrose, ForTheTrees , StillHalfFull and Brenrose. Your kind words mean more than you know. Actually you all probably know exactly how much it s meant to me that you’ve all taken the time to comment and be supportive. I will definitely keep communicating on this forum. 

Thank you again