[Nas]

Just got off the phone with my aunt (though I just think of her as my uncle’s ex-wife). What a looooong day this has turned out to be.
I’m trying to sort what I can so that I can extract myself and then process my own feelings. She seems to have absolutely zero sadness which is chilling - in my last post there’s a typo. They weren’t married 22 years, they were married 32 years, had been together longer than that. In the course of our brief conversation, she said the following:
“I would have died if I stayed.”
“I have always given everything to everyone and never gotten the same in return.” (Not from where I sat/sit, but okay…)
And, drum roll…
“I was seeing [my new partner], but he wasn’t the reason I left.”

Just had to share because those statements will surely sound familiar to many. Imo, it seems the narcissist and/or regular old cheater spits the same script as the MLCer.

[MadLuv]

Gosh that is something Nas and did you think of asking your “used to be Aunt” why they picked you up and brought you back? Certainly, 32 years they had conversations on this?  You have had quite the road in life and you keep going. It says a lot about your survival ability and hope for your future.

[JohnnyBravo]

That's quite a lot to deal with over the last week, on top of life... I'm glad you're still here posting and toughing it out. Hang in there.

[UrsaMajor]

Wow Nas...

Every time I think the WTF-O-Meter could not go any higher, a new upper limit gets set. That is all just so .... "strange" is the only word I can think of at the moment...

I hope that you were able to get back to the task at hand and didn't end up "stewing"(UM Pun intended) over it but, as you noted, it does raise LOTS of questions & speculation.... Monkey-braining at its finest, eh?

I REALLY hope that your next week is quiet. You deserve a bit of breathing space between WTF episodes...

[Treasur]

I’m sorry that this was part of your experience of being a young human, Nas.
Intermittent reinforcement is a mindf**k for big people, let alone small ones.
As UM said, very WTF all round.....

Unlike MadLuv, I suspect there was/is no benefit at all in asking the ‘aunt’ the question....I think belatedly I have learned that if people can behave over a period of times in certain ways, there are no useful answers to be found in them. Whether intentional or consciously, or not, folks who can do certain things are rarely cut to have the capacity or willingness to look at the questions let alone the answers. Jmo of course.

I have found that one of the strange gifts of IDK is that you are free to design your own answer until you find one that serves you. Self-evidently whatever was going on with them, and the other adults in your life, had precisely zip to do with you; you were simply acceptable or not so important (to them) collateral damage. And in a situation not of your making and beyond your ability to control some of the effects as a small human.

I don’t know what kind of story would feel right to you. I suspect, reading between the lines, that your ‘aunt’ was a barrier in some way that your uncle was unable to consistently address in how he chose to respond in trying to care about/for  you. And that the law of reaping and sowing did its’ thing in their own lives over time as it tends to do. I am sorry that they were not better adult humans, Nas, and that they did not provide you with what you deserved and needed as a small human.

But I hope the stew turned out to be very tasty.....bc sometimes a small good enough is good enough in the moment....

[MadLuv]

Definitely not for me to determine if it would be a benefit or not. That definitely was not stated by me ? I  was responding to her feeling she lost that chance “if wanted” to ask anyone. So, since the Uncle had passed the Aunt would be the last viable person. Not for me to say what would be a benefit for anyone but myself.

[Nas]

Thanks for your kind words guys. The emotional toll is so overwhelming, a few of my fingers are pruning on and off. Ick, I didn’t even know that was a physical manifestation of stress but my oncologist told me that yesterday. So weird.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my vanisher ex-aunt, and people who vanish in general. Likely most people here who heard the story of my aunt and uncle would think my aunt was an MLCer. But she’s just someone who left and never looked back, and as hurtful as it is, people do that. People who are incapable of true intimacy, in my opinion. People who never actually formed a connection but just performed a connection for decades. That’s what I believe about my former husband.

The world is full of people just looking for someone else to bandaid over their pain. A few weeks ago I was doing some volunteer stuff for a local animal shelter and a man came in, I think looking to adopt. 15 minutes of conversation, during which I learned, without asking, that he was divorced and his wife left for another man, and he learned absolutely nothing about me because he didn’t ask (and I wouldn’t have shared even if he did).

This man has since approached several people on staff at the shelter to ask about me and say that he can’t stop thinking about me, thinks I was put in his life for a reason and some other cringey over the top bull$h!te, real red flag fairytale garbage.

It reminded me of some of the things my former husband said about OW back in the beginning, as if she were not even a human being but just an object on which to project.

People with low emotional IQ will always project onto others over and over. This man knows nothing about me and has obviously created a version of me based on a few minutes of polite, guarded conversation. Whatever is missing in himself currently, he’s convinced himself he can it get from me and that lets him off the hook. 🙄

I just wanted to mention that because I know especially for newbies, in the beginning it hurts so much to think that they are so “in love” with the AP.

But it’s not love, it’s laziness. It’s being incapable or unable or unwilling to take responsibility for their own happiness.

https://youtu.be/Fkc6TYIxNls

[MadLuv]

People with low emotional IQ will always project onto others over and over. This man knows nothing about me and has obviously created a version of me based on a few minutes of polite, guarded conversation. Whatever is missing in himself currently, he’s convinced himself he can it get from me and that lets him off the hook.

so interesting!! I think that is so true. My Therapist has spoken a lot about my XH inability to have true intimacy. What a sad state to live. Never feeling connected ever no matter what. Just basically to exist. I often wonder that as my XH continues his life with just a text message here and their with the children he loved so much all the while living full time with two grown adult children he didn’t know 2 years ago. I really can’t imagine.

[nah]

Wow Nas. Crazy story about your uncle’s ex-wife.

They’re everywhere aren’t they?

I rarely use the term MLC anymore, only if someone else says it. Usually I say cheaters. Seems the world has normalized cheating/abandonment like it’s no big deal.

[Returned]

Seems the world has normalized cheating/abandonment like it’s no big deal.

Exactly, and I think it is truly unfortunate. We have a lifelong obligation to the children we have brought into this world, and it is amazing how the abandonment of spouses and children has become socially acceptable. I find this mind-boggling, and it is difficult for me to wrap my head around. In my family, I had the first divorce as far back as my family tree can be traced, which is for several hundred years. Honestly, I feel ashamed about the choices I made, it had not crossed my mind that my husband could abandon us. I often ask myself why I didn't see it? I feel that I was immature in not thinking about the importance of choosing carefully. I am not saying that the LBS is at fault, I am just asking myself were there warning flags that I missed? My xH was the child of a man who abandoned his family, and it looks like his father was as well. So there was a long tradition of family abandonment and I feel negligent in not having noticed or thought this through, that this is a problem that might repeat itself over generations. The trivialization of abandonment of family, and the insistence that this is socially acceptable or even normal, is I believe to be a sign of societal and cultural decadence and decay.  I remember coffeedrinker (may she rest in peace) who was first abandoned and then tormented by her MLCer as she slowly died from cancer. People who minimize spousal abandonment, do not share my values, and cannot be my friends.