[lawprofessor]

Yes this thread is quite interesting. 

I think Anon processes things in much the same manner I process.  Going back to that time, I needed some way for this to make sense, to tie up loose ends as I moved into a different phase.  That does not imply I needed or thought I would get all my answers from the horse's mouth.  It meant I found a way to sort the information I had into a cohesive pattern in my head.

I don't see that as focusing on the MLCer or the OP.  When I had the brush strokes I moved on. I rarely think of my ex.  I almost never speak of him here or elsewhere in real life.  He does want to return and continues to write me emails detailing such.  I just looked and have 4 unread emails.  Yes he is allowed to contact me via email because he completed his therapy and his incarceration.  I simply never bothered to seek an updated order of protection, not because I want him to return, but because he is not a factor in my life any longer. If that doesn't work for someone else, than don't do it.  It's your responsibility to find a way to move on that works for you.

As to the question of forgiveness, that topic always irritated me as it is discussed on this forum.  The focus on agape love in the abstract is useful.  However, it's been twisted into a meaningless jumble in many cases.  Like GIG, I too see some claiming to have forgiven, others who are stuck for a bit in anger, and others who seemingly forgive anything.  What I find true is usually neither extreme of the pendulum is healthiest for me.  I'm healthiest in the middle.

Posters seem to get pressed into declaring their forgiveness of the MLCer's actions early on before they have experienced the range of emotions that this experience offers.  If one becomes angry, someone comes along to claim she is bitter and failing to exercise agape love as though forgiveness is a necessary prerequisite to a spouse returning.  It's obviously not as nothing holds true for all cases and we have had over time examples of MLCers that return to LBS's who have plenty of anger.  Anger is a healthy and human emotion.  Agape love is an ideal, an aspiration, just as perhaps being Christ-like.  We fall short but can try.  And we are forgiveable if we fail at times to meet that aspiration.

A MLCer who returns will weather that if he is ready.  If not he will withdraw.  Either way the timing wasn't right. 

As to Anon's original question of discussion, I do not see her focusing on her MLCer or the OW in her situation but more of wishing to discuss concepts that she has to tie up loose ends. 

My personal view is that like so much discussed and repeated here, the old salt that the OP could be anyone is wildly inaccurate and just plain wrong. 

1.  Writings have changed and evolved over the years based on more evidence being available both on HS and from HB.
2.  It's simplest and most understandable to tell newbies the op could have been anyone. The newbie is not prepared to hear anything complex when they are just struggling to get their feet under them.
3.  The op is hard to write about emotionally.  Perhaps RCR being a human wasn't ready to write more.  And has not updated that section so we don't know what her feelings/beliefs are at this date. It's so hard to believe someone else who stepped in to ones marriage may have a use that we couldn't fulfill. 

Some years ago I wrote that the op had a purpose and couldn't have been just anyone.  I got screaming denials and anger from a group of posters.  And now some have changed their minds years down the road with the benefit of additional information.

Questions I pondered as follows:

1.  If the op can be anyone, why do some fail to have an op?  There is no shortage of people willing to be involved with married persons for one.

2.  If it could be anyone, why not just a prostitute?  If they have no other purpose than to provide sex, adoration, and companionship, then a prostitute fits the bill for a price, which can be much less than an OW. 

3.  If the op can be anyone, why fairly consistently find one who is an affair down?  It's not the old song that only an affair down would go with a married person since that presumes the MLCer told the partner the truth about their marital status.  That's inaccurate based on the evidence of the forum.

4.  If the op can be anyone, why do so many find themselves attracted to affair partners that resemble in some way or sense an abusive parent, guardian, family member?  Are there so many people in the world that are similarly abusive that the MLCer just gets lucky and solves their repetition compulsion? 

5.  If the op can be anyone, why do some choose to have no sexual affair partner?  Or some choose another form of affair partner?  One H here chose a man in the roll of affair partner.  No it was not sexual.  He and this man became as close as two brothers, living together, vacationing together, drinking together, working together, trying the same sports, dressing similarly.  Now 7 years later, the LBS sees her H as having made the guy into the brother he lost in a snowmobile accident when the H was 9. Strangely, the brother op looks like the H enough that many believe they are brothers.  And H is reconnecting.

If the op can be anyone, why is the stage of withdrawal as detailed in the stages necessary?  If these affair partners are nothing to the MLCer, why do they go through withdrawal?  The only answer is because the OP has relevance.

If the op can be anyone, why do some have multiple op's?  Why drop one for another or cheat on one with another?

Why if the op can be anyone, does the MLCer go through such deep limmerance?  How many of us heard from our MLCer how perfect and wonderful the op was/is?  If the op could be anyone, why isn't the MLCer ambivalent?

I wonder how many returning healing MLCers could articulate the importance of the op or even have the cognitive awareness to describe it.

I wonder how many returning former MLCers fail to discuss any importance of the op because they don't want to scuttle the chances with their spouse to return?

But there is one paragraph Anon wrote that explains for me why I was interested in this thought pattern.  I wish I could quote on my phone.  But it goes something like how does a sane person suddenly go off the tracks.  He doesn't

I wrote about this once before as well to screaming denials.  In my mind at the time:

1.  Our spouses did this horrible thing-mlc affair, monster, whatever to various degrees. 

2.  We never saw it coming, never saw their capacity to act like this in most cases.  We were shocked.

3.  Since they did this, and so possessed the capacity and we were shocked, there was part of them we didn't know. 

So the question of above and what I had to forgive myself included not seeing the possibility, not seeing something was wrong, not seeing his pain, his identity crisis coming and learning to forgive myself for my possible blindness.  Learning to trust myself again.  After all if I missed his propensity for a mlc, how could I trust my perception of people, motives, reality, and behaviors.  Tying up loose ends led me there.  It never led me to wanting my ex to return. 

Lp

[megogirl]

I know my xh fretted about losing hair for a long time before BD. He would put all kinds of creams and chemicals on his head and sleep with a hair bag on it at night. Seemed to take 100's of supplements too and none of them worked because as I told him, it seemed to be genetic. A lot of people in his family have thin hair or hair that falls out a lot, men and women. That went on for several years before he started lazing about on the couch for hours and hours, sometimes all night watching TV. I knew something was wrong with him but he denied it. Then he got the bright idea to start another business that was destined to fail but I was cooperative because I knew this was a last-ditch effort for him to look successful in front of his family, which wouldn't have mattered anyway because they will never see him like that. It doesn't matter if he makes a million dollars a year and owns 100 houses, he will always be a failure/less than in their eyes. I've known it for a long time but he won't accept it. A year passed and when it was obvious the business had failed, my grandmother died (who he was close to) and bam, the affair started.

EVERYTHING about this, save for the "new business" - unless you count owning & operating a winery.  (I suppose that counts as his "new business.")

What I really resonated with is how he is will ALWAYS be a failure in their eyes because he was not a teacher, or a judge/cop, or whatever within his home town.  He wanted MORE financially, and accomplished that.  Still, he remains an abject failure.   

Thank you for this.  I actually volunteered to "do his books" at BD (that's my forte - being meticulous about dollars & cents.)  He didn't care, and only now do I understand WHY....he just wanted to be RID of me.

Anyway - EXCELLENT post here xxx

[Anon]

There is lots here to respond to since I last posted.   Thank you all for adding to the discussion.   At this stage in my journey I am often not sure if I am on the right track to full healing which is why I post,,,, so others can offer a perspective I may not have considered.    My thoughts (especially those here) are just that,,, thoughts,,, not definitive answers.  I wouldn’t need to post if I knew it all.     Different viewpoints are good because they challenge my thinking and when they do, I always learn something.  Always. For that I am grateful because it pushes me forward faster than anything I can do on my own. 

I want to clear up a few misconceptions.   I am not reconnecting or reconciling.   I have no interest in returning to the marriage.  That has nothing to do with how deeply I was hurt or how much I loved my h.   I worked hard to get here - to the point where I can genuinely say 'I'm done' as opposed to a reactive stance.   There are 2 ways I could have chosen as a lbs:  1.  do all I can to increase the likelihood of a reconciliation, or 2.  accept that my marriage has fatal flaws whether I like it or not, and do all I can to prevent reconciliation.   For the first year I was all over #1.   Second year,  I chose #2.   I broke my own heart when I chose #2.   I loved my h as deeply as anyone and I knew deep down (still know) that one day he will want to return.  I also know deep down a return is not in the best interests of either one of us for many good reasons.   I can’t articulate why I believe that at the moment so I will give no further explanation, but it is a deeply felt belief.    Given all this, is it a surprise to anyone that I have some bumps on the road to fully letting go and killing the frequent ruminations?   Or that I don't have all the answers going forward from here?

A few thoughts on Forgiveness.   When I talk about forgiveness I am not referring to forgiveness that comes with a shallow reconciliation of sorts.   Like when you kiss and make up and say all is forgiven so WE can move on.   I’m talking about the forgiveness that is not dependant on reconciliation, or forgetting what happened, or excusing and absolving an abuser of accountability.   It’s the kind of forgiveness that has nothing to do with WE moving on, but everything to do with ME moving on.   That means for me releasing the negative emotions that came with and after the bomb.   Why?  Because un-forgiveness suggests harbouring negative emotions and hanging onto negative emotions for any reason is emotionally draining.  It hurts me and slows or stops my forward momentum.    The worse I want to feel about this situation is ‘neutral’ because there is no energy drain with neutral.    Anything less and my emotional energy is negatively impacted.   This kind of forgiveness has nothing to do with ‘them’ and everything to do with ‘me’.  They are the target of my negative emotions that I’m trying to release but that’s it.  I recently told a close friend about my efforts to find forgiveness for my h and she was appalled saying, “how could you go back to him after all he’s done?”.    Forgiveness has nothing to do with ‘going back’ but it seems a huge majority feel that forgiveness is excusing all and going back to what once was.   It isn’t. 

So,,, in a nutshell,,, my goal is to have infrequent and neutral thoughts about the end of my marriage and about my spouse.   How then do I turn negative thoughts into neutral ones?  How do I do that after all he’s done?   Look beneath the immediate surface to see what influenced this once sane man to go off the rails and not just this man but most other MLCers too.   Try to make sense of it in some context.    Appreciate the complexity of their ‘inner turmoil’ and from that develop compassion for their life destroyed by MLC, something they never asked for nor wanted.   Not the compassion that says,, ,oh come here you poor thing, let me kiss it better and all will be fine.   All will NOT be fine but find instead the compassion that recognizes that their inner turmoil, depression, is not something they chose but it led to MLC and the destruction of BOTH our lives (or many lives) REGARDLESS of whether they knew and understood what they were doing or not.    If compassion can be found,, maybe it takes digging deep to get there,,, but if compassion can be found then Forgiveness may follow soon after.    If I can do that, then no negative emotions will remain to drain my energy or keep me stuck finding my own life post bd.  I don't expect it to happen overnight.   I also don't want to look back years from now and see that I'm dealing with the same issues despite the passage of time. 

Compassion and forgiveness are far from simple concepts in light of MLC and the destruction of our lives.   There are layers of forgiveness as well.   For example,,,, being unhappy and depressed, falling out of love with me and not revealing it until bd, making the decision to leave the marriage instead of working it out - all these would be forgivable eventually.  To me what isn’t easily forgivable is on-going adultery/infidelity, the intentional breaking of the marriage vows, the bailing out the minute someone else more alluring appears on the scene, and then loving them instead of me.  Its challenging to find compassion/forgiveness,,, for me anyway.    And that leads me back to my attempt to understand why 97% of MLCers have affairs.   This is almost ALL of them so for an MLCer to have an affair means that something is so compelling about affairs that it’s all but impossible to avoid.   What is that?   I’d like to know not because I care two hoots about the ow and how dare she ‘steal my man’ mentality but because there might be something in that explanation that may lead to the compassion and then forgiveness that I need to release the negative emotions associated with it.   Tall order?   Maybe,,, but I’m interested in pursuing it because intuitively it makes sense to me, that this is the way to get to those infrequent and neutral thoughts about this painful period in my life story so I can give it no more thought going forward than it deserves. 

Treasur - thank you - your post reassured me that what I had said made sense because you followed my thinking and understood it.   (I was wondering,,, )    Sharing your contemplations is always interesting for me to read because you always say ‘something’ that gives me an ‘a ha,,, never thought of it that way’ moment.  I love that you go deep in your thinking and then share with us.   

Nerissa - what a fascinating article on forgiveness.   It just goes to show that forgiveness is anything but a simple concept and is not easily achieved.    This is the crux of my pursuit:

“I'm asking you to forgive because [your husband] doesn't deserve the power to live in your head and turn you into a bitter, angry woman” (Wiesenthal, 1997, p. 176). Kushner seems to be telling his parishioner to forgive her husband so she can liberate herself from her angry attachment to him.”

Then:  “What he does not tell her, what he seems unprepared to tell her, is that lacking her angry attachment to her husband she will finally have to mourn his loss”.   

Interesting because in my earlier sessions with my own therapist, he began with homework that involved writing out and expressing all my rage, anger, etc.   Liberating me from my angry attachment perhaps and bringing on genuine mourning?    Oh, time will tell, but it’s fascinating if this is where we are going with therapy because it feels like I’ve already mourned his loss,,,but maybe there is even more to come before it’s all finished. 

Anjae   “If you are done, I don't understand why anything affair related matters or why is it so complicated to forgive”.    Hmmm,,, I don’t know how to respond here.   Forgiveness is a hugely complex and complicated thing to me, so I'm baffled that you find it so simple.   

“RCR and HB have some ideas on the affair, but mostly they say OW/OM means nothing, it is just a distraction”.    They both said much more about the affair than this and specifically how the affair is a result of inner turmoil during MLC.   A lot of Jung type stuff which I find fits a lot of what goes on in MLC.   Again,,, if there is nothing to this inner turmoil then why do 97% of MLCers have an affair?   An affair is pretty much a pre-requisite for MLC.

LP:   Your post is an amazing gift to me.   You articulated and clarified a lot of  my ‘pre-thoughts’ if there is such a thing.   Thoughts so early in the forming process that haven’t come together enough to put into words, but you feel the essence of them all the same.   You are clearly way ahead of me on this journey but I appreciate the light you are casting on the path back where I am.   What you say makes so much sense and it reassures me that I am not barking up the wrong tree if my thoughts are similar.  It’s easy to doubt our direction at this stage because there is so much less written about it on the forum than there is for the earlier stages.   Thank you for posting here what I know had to be a thoughtful and time consuming effort on your part.   I especially liked your solid argument on how it is NOT just anyone who can be the OP.   Your comments coincide with my own suspicions that something internal is going on with these MLCers and whatever that is, it serves a definite and specific purpose that not any person can satisfy. 

This thread has been a lot more thought provoking than I ever imagined when it began.   There is absolute pure GOLD written here.   I feel a growth spurt just from reading what you all have written, and I'm so grateful.   

[Shockandawe]

I think that the affair at the time does mean something to the MLCer as the seemingly essential fog surrounds their distorted brains. Why else would they more often than not choose ow/om who normally they would not look twice at.

Certainly chemical imbalances play a big part in their altered personalities and thinking. I’m a believer in the affair being a part of MLC and I too have witnessed this in reality both with my Father and more recently my sister.

She herself told me that she lost all feelings for her then H and began an EA with a man who was the polar opposite of her H. Her H begged, pleaded, threatened etc all in a desperate bid to get my sister to love him again. In effect he wouldn’t give her what she asked for and she felt pushed and pressured so much that she threw him out and continued with her EA. Her H wouldn’t wait and he found another woman who looked so much like my sister it was scary. My sister moved it up a notch and started a pa with the om.

Fast forward two years or so and she starts to wake up, realises that she does in fact love her h and, after about 3 months throws out the om. It’s now too late because her h has a baby with ow and married her. There’s much regret on my sisters part and she keeps telling me that the affair was something to relieve the feeling of despair and numbness. That if her h had given her the time she needed she would have woken sooner but he wouldn’t leave her alone.

In my view the om did play a part and at the time was important but outgrew his importance when she started to wake up.

Just thought I would throw it in the mix so to speak

[UrsaMajor]

I’m talking about the forgiveness that is not dependant on reconciliation, or forgetting what happened, or excusing and absolving an abuser of accountability.   It’s the kind of forgiveness that has nothing to do with WE moving on, but everything to do with ME moving on.   That means for me releasing the negative emotions that came with and after the bomb.   Why?  Because un-forgiveness suggests harbouring negative emotions and hanging onto negative emotions for any reason is emotionally draining.  It hurts me and slows or stops my forward momentum.    The worse I want to feel about this situation is ‘neutral’ because there is no energy drain with neutral.    Anything less and my emotional energy is negatively impacted.   This kind of forgiveness has nothing to do with ‘them’ and everything to do with ‘me’.  They are the target of my negative emotions that I’m trying to release but that’s it.  I recently told a close friend about my efforts to find forgiveness for my h and she was appalled saying, “how could you go back to him after all he’s done?”.    Forgiveness has nothing to do with ‘going back’ but it seems a huge majority feel that forgiveness is excusing all and going back to what once was.   It isn’t.

ABSOLUTELY true..... This was one of the points I brought out in a sermon I preached recently. Forgiveness means letting go of the negative, the anger, the internal poison and getting on with one's life. As you noted Anon, at least achieving neutrality. It does NOT mean that one forgets everything that has happened and it most certainly does NOT require letting the person back into one's life. If one just "forgets" or sweeps everything under the rug that happened, one is essentially predestined to repeat the pattern unless there are significant changes made by the "offender" and even then, there is NO guarantee that the lessons we have learned would allow us to permit them back into our lives on a meaningful basis - "Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result."

As for the Alienator being "anyone," I personally think that the Mid-Lifer is seeking something that they feel they are not getting in the R and the Alienator is someone/something they feel fills that need. Having said that, as LP noted, it does NOT have to be a sexual affair and, depending on who one reads/listens to, the alienator doesn't even need to be a human... It could be a hobby, a job, but it is something that is filling a "hole" in their lives that they are desperate to have filled. This may be an explanation as well why some Mid-Lifers have multiple Alienator's.... The Alienator fills a need... until they don't.... so the Mid-Lifer moves on to the next one.. and the next one... and the next one ad nauseum.  That is why the idea of the Prostitute doesn't work well for those seeking a sexual thrill... If the MLC'er is seeking validation and adoration in the form of sex, a paid professional isn't going to do it because they are PAID to perform.... There is nothing "natural" about it, nothing "organic," nothing real.... The MLC'er is NOT going to get that need filled when they are explicitly paying for the reaction... The human Alienator, on the other hand, "feels" organic to the Mid-Lifer. The MLC's truly BELIEVES that the AP is "in love" with them and that it is NOT just a paid performance..... This would indicate that it is NOT "just about sex" or the next orgasm but that there is, in fact, an emotional component involved.... So, does the affair help or hinder or does it matter in the grand scheme of things? The affair/alienator is the way the MLC'er tries to fill a void within themselves but, in the end, that hole is still there, no matter how much rubbish they attempt to fill it with because it is within themselves rather than coming from a lack of something external....

[RedStar]

Fast forward two years or so and she starts to wake up, realises that she does in fact love her h

Any idea how this happened?

It's one of the most mysterious things about MLC--how some of them have this weird reversal of their first weird reversal. Just so strange.

[megogirl]

That if her h had given her the time she needed she would have woken sooner but he wouldn’t leave her alone

Well that's remarkable - denjef31 basically said the EXACT SAME THING!

Idk how to find other user's quotes, but it was posted at the bottom of someone else's thread here......

[Standing Strong]

I think that the affair at the time does mean something to the MLCer as the seemingly essential fog surrounds their distorted brains. Why else would they more often than not choose ow/om who normally they would not look twice at.

Certainly chemical imbalances play a big part in their altered personalities and thinking. I’m a believer in the affair being a part of MLC and I too have witnessed this in reality both with my Father and more recently my sister.

She herself told me that she lost all feelings for her then H and began an EA with a man who was the polar opposite of her H. Her H begged, pleaded, threatened etc all in a desperate bid to get my sister to love him again. In effect he wouldn’t give her what she asked for and she felt pushed and pressured so much that she threw him out and continued with her EA. Her H wouldn’t wait and he found another woman who looked so much like my sister it was scary. My sister moved it up a notch and started a pa with the om.



Fast forward two years or so and she starts to wake up, realises that she does in fact love her h and, after about 3 months throws out the om. It’s now too late because her h has a baby with ow and married her. There’s much regret on my sisters part and she keeps telling me that the affair was something to relieve the feeling of despair and numbness. That if her h had given her the time she needed she would have woken sooner but he wouldn’t leave her alone.

In my view the om did play a part and at the time was important but outgrew his importance when she started to wake up.

Just thought I would throw it in the mix so to speak

It's stories like this which give so much hope. Thank you for sharing this.

-SS

[Shockandawe]

My sister is my greatest advisor given she’s had first hand experience of MLC.
She started to wake up or as she calls it, her heart started to thaw and feelings started to return when the om became annoying in that his habits which, whilst in the fog she ignored or brushed aside. She said she started to see this person in the cold light of day as she says.

She started first to find him annoying then aggravating and she realised she had absolutely nothing in common with him, found conversation a chore and spent as much time as possible away from him. In the end she said her feelings were returning for her h and it was like she could see clearly for the first time in a long time.

The day to day living with the om was not what she thought it would be when deep in the fog. As time progressed and small annoyances appeared she awakened more and more.

I’m seeing her this week end so I shall ask her lots of questions 😁

[Father5]

  I am relatively new but for what it's worth I too think it is a need being met that we are not meeting for them. My B/D I was told I just want to be alone that "I am like the Golden Girls" etc etc. Then 3 weeks later I am in love with someone else. 8 Months later I assume they are still together but I have an "off and on" due mostly to the kids. The live 2500 miles apart and see each other once every month or so.