[Keep believing]

Hi ss,
Do you think you fought going into  liminality?  If so what did you do , how did you feel , ? What was your behavior like?

[Anjae]

If you cannot see that I don’t know what else she can possibly say.

She can say it is all on her and stop pointing fingers to OM and her LBS, who should have wainted for her.

No cheated spouse, LBS or not has to wait for a cheater. Being allowed back into a marriage is a privilege, not a rigt.

She focuses on her feelings and actions DURING her mlc not her feelings and actions now.

When she is now saying OM was manipulative and her LBS should had waited she is not focussing on her MLC feelings. Her MLC self could not care less about her husband and OM was the one she loved. As tends to be the case with MLCers. 

The OM/OW is probably a manipulator in many cases, but they are also being lied to by the MLCer.

In many I don't know. Often OM/OW is just a normal person who will become jealous and manipulative because of the situation. Of course someone can be manipulative while being lied to by the MLCer.

However, it is irrelevant if OM/OW was, or was not, manipulative. The MLCer wanted an affair, got an affair, destroyed the marriage. The least the MLCer can do is fully own it.

It is also manipulation to lie to OM/OM and tell them the marriage is over, the LBS is a monster, the marriage is dead and so on.

Normal affair recovery 101 means the cheater fully owning their action. In MLC, with all that comes with it, it is even more important.

I've actually heard creep guys who actively prey on women who are "crazy".... now I know "crazy" is MLC.

They exist, but MLCers are actively looking for an affair. They are not an innocent victim or prey. They are totally into the idea. It was not OW1 that come after Mr J, it was him that called her. Before that he was chatting a bunch of women on-line. He is not the only MLCer that went after an affair.

When they are done if they can't deal with themselves (maybe forever) do we forgive them and move on?

If they can't deal with themselves it is their circus, their monkeys. We can forvige or not forgive. Each person is different. Most of us move on.

Do we have to pin them to a board, a board they themselves will pin themselves to for the rest of their life?

They will be forever a cheater that destroyed the marriage. And it may be good that they never forget it, in case they may feel tempted again. It is something they will cary with them for life.

The whole thing is a lie with each lying to the other and so it starts with lies and falsehoods.

More or less. It often is more lies from the married MLCer, often, not always. If both people are married, there will be a lot of lies from both sides.

I would bet the ow/om doesn’t tell the truth either and the mlcer lies their heads off but I still think the mlcer believes their own lies and I would think they would have to in order to justify what they are doing.

Speaking about Mr J's OW1 and OW2, OW1 may had said some minor lies, but nothing compared to his. I have their correspondence, I know what they were saying to each other. He lied, and lied and lied. Of course the MLCer is beliving their own lies to justify what they are doing.

I don't think fantasy world applies when the MLCer is living with OM/OW of married to them for years on end, sometimes 10 or so years. It applies while the affair is secret and early on when MLCer and OM/OW get together. With time, the fantasy erodes.


You couldn't be more wrong, 3boys. OM/OW are fully responsible for their actions. What I deslike is a MCLer putting the blame on OM/OW and the LBS instead of saying It is fully on me.

Putting the blame for the destruction inflected by our spouses on someone else is not right, be it on the alienator or LBS. OW/OW would had not been able to provoke any destruction if our spouse had not allowed for it.

HB has an article about it: https://thestagesandlessonsofmidlife.org/lifes-lessons-misdirected-anger-at-the-other-woman/

[Thunder]

"My sister lives every day with the knowledge she did this and every day regrets it.
She tries to relive the nightmare in order to help us. She puts herself out there in order to try to give us lbsers a glimpse into the mind of an MLCer and I know it takes her to places she would rather not go but she does so to help. This may be her way of atonement in some way but I know she puts herself through a lot to do this."

Thank you Shock, I agree with you and I understand your sis lives with what she did with regret, I hear it in her writings.  I think it is very unselfish of her to reach out to the LBS's who have questions.
I think you're sister is brave to help a lot of people on here and I hope she will continue to do so.

I have a hard time understanding why this would bother anyone.

Hugs to you both! 

[Acorn]

A fully recoved would not be pointing fingers to the alienator nor to their LBS. A fully recoved MLCer would know it was on them. All of it.

I have a sample of one to offer. 

My husband completely stopped blaming God, his mental condition (foggy head, gone nuts, depression, stress), work, OW, me, our marriage, our kids, you-name- it, quite a while ago.

He said, ‘the buck stops with me.’  I put a lot of value on that.  If he was still blaming something or someone other than himself for his choices, he would still have some work to do on accountability.
I see accountability as an important marker of emotional maturity and one of the outcomes of MLC.

Still can’t say if he has come out of crisis or not.  Time will tell.

[Limboland2018]

Shock sis

I have a question about leaving your child. My mlcer upped and left our marriage when our daughter was 2. He wanted desperately to be a father.i had given up having a child after numerous rounds of Ivf then he asked for one last try. Complicated story but our little miracle was born.

I never thought in my wildest dreams my mlcer could leave his child. While he was living near us he wouldn’t visit her or didn’t want to read stories, he was supposed to take care of her when I went away but suddenly had to go away himself. Then he moved countries to be with his woman. (If a man left a young child for me I would think he’s a nut job and would run a mile) I think that is why I had such a hard time believing he had another woman (until I had actual proof) and he was just stuck in a downward spiral of depression.

Anyway my question is how does it feel to betray your child? As the most important role model to the child how does one ever justify? I still find it hard to fathom how he did this. Perhaps if it was just me and the kids had left home I could understand but to leave a longed for child at 2 years of age? He said he cried for two hours when he left us to catch the plane to his new life. (No sympathy - big whoop)

Looking forward to your thoughts. Regards limbo

[Shockandawe]

Hi everyone,

I would like to put this whole thing of it’s my fault it’s his fault business in perspective.
I will explain this once and once only so here goes.
When I was in the early stages of what I now know was MLC I did strike up a friendship with om online though at this point it was purely a friendship. As I got further in the fog it became emotional but I still knew I didn’t want to progress it any further than that.
I was indeed the one who asked my ex h to move out for a while as I needed to try to sort out my feelings or lack there of.
I went to see him and we were taking it slowly but I still knew I didn’t want a divorce and so I asked him to give me time and asked if he could wait for me. At this time I had no intention of visiting om he was an escape as I see it now and nothing more was wanted other than that ego boost and validation.
My ex h promised me he would wait it out and that he wanted us back together.
Within one month of him moving out he met his now wife on a dating site and she got pregnant straight away.
I still didn’t go to see om but admittedly I told him what was happening and he then began in earnest with his manipulation. It was still a good few months before I went to visit om and he got me there by threatening to cut off communication with me if I didn’t. At this point my addiction to the feeling of something other than numbness was at its height and I was terrified that he would cut off the feel good factor he gave me that I agreed to go.
Yes I did wrong and I paid the ultimate price for that.
This in no way is a blame my ex h session because I did this, I was a broken person, a weak person yet I didn’t think I was at the time. It’s only with hindsight I see it.
I will not explain this again so I will leave it at that.

[Treasur]

Thank you for sharing that, ShockSis.
I hope you can feel that people value you and your own struggle here as well as finding some of these issues of blame, fault and intention very difficult in their own situations.

It sounds as if your xh made some rather unwise and precipitate choices in his own life too though, and you were not and are not responsible for those. We can all have some compassion for the emotions that might have led him to making them, probably you do too. And some raised eyebrows about two adults getting 'accidentally' pregnant like that and even if his now wife is an ow 'type' or has her own broken pieces.

But you were not responsible for his actions, only your own. It must have been a hell of a shock to you at a time when you already felt confused. I'm so sorry that this was what happened for all of you.

It is a good reminder - if a sad one - for LBS to resist the rush to date quickly as a way to make themselves feel better.

[Keep believing]

ss,
I can understand that explanation. Hb actually described it like that as well. When my h was seeing/ talking  (in the beginning when i found out ),to ow, he screamed at me and said he could careless if he ever had sex again.  now that could have been a lie but it did escalate  into a full blown affair. I do beleive at times my h was probably told she would do something if he didnt listen to her.H helped me shovel the  snow last january. He hasnt been back to help with things i asked him to help me with since. he always would help.  I think ow found out he was helping me.  It has been 5 yrs with ow.  oh  in 2015 , ow found out that h never filed for d, when he did he told me that she wouldnt have anything to do with him if he didnt. (at least it was filed , he said)  So h did but then I was never served. ow tried to get a restraining order against me so we were in court.  in court she found out , i was never served and we had never been to court.   She turned to me and my lawyer and said "you were never served"   nope.   then 2 weeks later i was served. So for some reason these mlcer will do anything so they are not alone. or feel lonely is my opinion.

[Limboland2018]

Shock sis you are a very brave woman to be so honest on this forum. Thank you. Limbo

[terrified_in_TN]

SS,

  Thank you for taking the time to explain it.  I know it must be difficult to relive it.  If you haven't already, you might give a listen to Joe Beam's podcast on limerence.  Just like Keep Believing said, HB describes the process of how what starts innocently enough and progresses through crossing lines.  Joe Beam's explanation is probably the very best I have come across.  Although he doesn't talk of MLC that I ever recall, the process he describes is right on the money.

  This isn't just for SS.  It is for anyone who has not come across this before.  Its been a while since I've seen it posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HedcnxsxQH4

-T

[edited link]