[beyondblessed]

I rarely use the term MLC because this behavior is so prevalent and yes, common, unfortunately.  Too many of the same stories to be extraordinary.  Just common, everyday people who are emotionally stunted and never really grew up.

[Nas]

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.

It’s crazy how common it is. And how often people “blame” the betrayed, as though they must’ve done something to make their spouse cheat. Some of my own family members engaged in some pretty vile speculation about possible ways I might’ve caused my husband to commit emotional, financial and sexual infidelity. 🙄

Through my whole relationship with my former husband, I thought I felt safe, the one and only thing I ever wanted. That’s what I grieved at BD. Now I know it wasn’t safe, it was just familiar. A lesser degree of coercive control and fear can feel “normal” to a person who isn’t familiar with normal. But truly, my former H always had it in him to do what he did. The subtle signs were there and I missed them because I was used to so much worse.

I attended a fundraiser two nights ago and ran into an old neighbor. She said my old house looks exactly the same and I had a moment of sadness because I loved my home. Then she tried to tell me about some nonsense my former husband and his gf (née OW) had posted on social media specifically about breast cancer awareness month but I stopped her and told her I’m not on social media myself and don’t care to hear about his posts. She looked very disappointed because she clearly had some juicy story to share. 🙄

She sat at my table and we listened to a man in probably his 70s give a beautiful speech about his wife who died of breast cancer, the same subtype I have. He spoke about her with so much love and respect and pride, and it was clear she had meant so much to him. I had a hard time holding back my tears and when I got home, I had a good cry. No one will remember me like that man remembers his wife, and it’s because when I was young and didn’t know better, I chose wrong. I chose the familiar pain.

I  had this recurring dream on and off for like two years after BD and since my uncle’s death a few weeks ago, I’ve started having it again. I’m on the back of a motorcycle. I’m not wearing a helmet but the driver is so I don’t know who it is. We’re speeding down the highway and I have my arms around the driver’s waist, but I let go to push the hair out of my eyes and I go flying off the back of the bike. And then I wake up.
I think the moral is that in life, I wish I had woken up long before I went flying off the back of the speeding motorcycle. 🤷‍♀️

🎶🎶 The ghost of a steam train
echoes down my track
It's at the moment bound for nowhere
just going round and round🎶🎶
https://youtu.be/YfpRm-p7qlY

[MomOfSteel]

I think it is common to get “reasons” from people it might have happened.  I know I got my fair share, mostly from my mom.  It really isn’t on us though.  Their infidelity and betrayal is their fault. 

I feel the loss of never having that kind of love because I chose wrong as well.  I feel like I will never have that long shared story and love.  The reality is hard sometimes.  I look at friends or family who have successful, caring relationships and I feel sad I don’t and maybe never will.  It’s a hard thing to accept at this point. 

Just know you aren’t alone in these feelings.  ❤️

[Nas]

Thanks, MOS. I used to get kind of wistful looking at long married couples too, especially in the waiting room at chemotherapy when I was still fairly fresh from BD. But I realize I was only seeing a specific moment, a snapshot. I also know some people where the longevity doesn’t equal caring, respect and admiration, but rather just longevity.

Had my husband not left, I’d still be with him for sure, and I’d be married but still just as lonely and still thinking his treatment of me was acceptable because, hey, it could have been worse. So in that one sense I’m better off now.
It’s funny how in the past few months I’ve had more than one person say something to me about “soulmates” and they were dead serious. The silly ideas so many people hold about love sometimes has me thinking loneliness is the better option…

https://youtu.be/jbaKcxTW7A8

[MadLuv]

I saw this on an old thread and thought it was good insight by Melanie B
MelanieB
: Why are MLCr's so secretive?
#13: February 03, 2011, 12:58:42 PM
I think that the vanishers stay out of sight and out of touch for several reasons:

1)  The old team (i.e. your family) knows everything about you and may see through some of your truly stupid plans and ideas so, to put that criticism to bed quickly, just cut them out of your life.
2)  They lack impulse control for their addictions.  Removing the spouse is really just clearing the field of an obstacle to their fantasy life.  It is pesky to have old remnants hanging around cluttering your vision of the "New Perfect Existance".  Childlike, I know, but they really want to maintain the fairytale as long as possible.   
3)  The MLC behavior is abominable and I believe that even the MLCer knows that.  He/She knows that the things they have done are shameful, and shame is a driving motivation for the MLCer to run away.  After all, what child wants to face up to the appropriate punishment for their actions?  Well, put MLCers in that category too.
4)   Vanishers may, more than some of the other types of MLCers like Clinging Boomerangs and Low Energy MLCers, have viewed the spouse as more of the parent in the relationship (mine did, I was like his Big Mama, cleaning up his dumb messes, paying his bills, running his errands, etc.)  When they enter MLC,  they want to be grow up (or we think that they aspire to that developmental goal, or at the very least, they aspire to "freedom" without a parent-figure in the picture) so they gotta leave Big Mama's nest, and like a teenager, they do it with a flare for the theatrical.

[Nas]

And old friend left her husband yesterday. I sent her an email with the donation request for my annual stocking drive and in response, she called me from a hotel 2 states away (alone, or at least she says she is…). She clearly has no plan but also said this has been a long time coming, she hasn’t been happy for “years” and sounded really annoyed that he said he felt blindsided – hmm, a long time coming so plenty of time to have actual respectful conversations with your partner and arrange a place to stay/live, but instead, dropping a bomb and leaving abruptly – during the holidays - and holing up in a hotel (though a really nice suite from the sound of it) with no game plan…sounds very familiar to a lot of us.

From my short chat with her, she has a really grossly entitled view of how this is all going to go for her now. Nothing about her life is going to change as far as she’s concerned, nor should it because she’s “earned it.” I also heard a lot of the complete fantasy runaway thoughts - she asked me multiple times to just pick up and flee with her to various places.  "Let's go to Sicily like on White Lotus and stay through New Years...no, let's stay through the spring." What, you mean you can’t drop everything and run off on an eat pray love journey at a moment’s notice??

Some of the big "issues" with her H are that she gave him a list but he bought different items at the grocery store and that annoyed her, he put the groceries away but did it "wrong," and one day this past summer they took a walk around their neighborhood together and he bored her by talking about the neighbor's lawn care.

I've known her since I was a teenager. Back then she spent a lot of time at my various apartments because I lived on my own from the age of 16 and she lived in her parent’s house until she got married (but her H wasn’t her first relationship). We had very different realities and I think being in my world was a novelty for her back then. It gave her a place to rebel and explore different sides of herself while still holding safe to her privileged world. I was never just a carefree kid, even when I was young, and she’s always been just a carefree kid, even now that she’s 48. For a while now, she's been sending me random texts with old pictures of us from the 90s (yikes, think flannel shirts over crop tops, very short shorts with combat boots, and very very thin eyebrows, lol). Everyone reminisces, but after a while I recognized this as something maybe a little more than just reminiscing. All the ghosts of boyfriends past - "I remember butterflies when I look at these pictures. What do you think he's doing now? I wish we could go back in time…”

I think this is true of a lot of entitled leavers, they’re always wishing for all kinds of impossible things like going back in time…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzZ-Mgi1My4

I'm guessing I'll hear from her on and off until she finds a/n (affair) partner in crime to party with her like it's 1992.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Do they have children? 
This is sad.  Wonder if her H will show up here .

HD

[Nas]

No kids, HD.
She just texted me and told me to blow off work and go Christmas shopping with her.  She’s 5 hours away. I haven’t blown off work since I was about 23, and even if I could, I’m not driving 5 hours even if Keanu Reeves is there waiting for me.

I’m here for her if she needs to talk but she seems to just be looking for literally any distraction at the moment. (Don’t get me wrong, I’d give up both arms to be in a position to chuck it all and run off to Sicily, or hell, even to a city a few states away. But silly me, I managed to get to the destroyed life without the irresponsible “fun” of an MLC. I should’ve at least had a chance to run off to Barcelona and have an affair with a sculptor or something before I lost everything.  Life is unfair.)

Just to highlight how odd these sudden “come join me a few states over…or on the Ionian coast” from her are, I haven’t had a conversation of any depth with her in years - decades, actually. We always see people writing about how their MLCer suddenly started hanging out more with different people or started reconnecting with friends from their youth. We were friends who were together all the time when we were teens because I had the apartment and no pesky parental supervision, but in later adulthood, we really had just kept in touch by sporadic emails or texts. Her more frequent texts that started suddenly with all the old pictures and “remember when” messages were a clue to me that something was up.

It’s funny, the random way MLCers/leaving spouses connect with certain people and it usually serves a specific purpose.

[Hoosier Daddy]

Nas,

So true on the reconnecting part.  XW reconnected with her first boy friend from when she was 15 on FB who she hadn’t seen in 35 years.  Yep the one who got her pregnant just prior to her16th bday and she supposedly despised. Her parents convinced her to get an abortion which I don’t think she fully agreed with.  When he came up for a visit she quickly friend zoned him.  Surprise the 54 yo, overweight, disabled version was not what she was looking for so she couldn’t use him to replace her 21 yo boy toy.

 Life doesn’t typically allow do overs.

Glad she’s not a mother,  this will limit the damage.

You should go to Italy but with a better travel partner.

HD

[Treasur]

Oh Lord 
How strange to see it the obviousness of it through uninvolved eyes. Her poor husband....