[What is the percentage of spouses who have divorced decide to reconcile on this forum]

What is the percentage of spouses who have divorced decide to reconcile on this forum

How many have accepted their spouse back

0 (0%)

How many have decided to move and have remarried someone else

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 0

Voting closed: June 13, 2014, 06:59:19 AM

[GBM]

I would agree that I felt like I had been physically assaulted, when my xh went through with the divorce.  I had been through so much several years prior but this hurt my soul so badly; I felt like part of me died. 

I thought it had to be the bitter end, but I can tell you from my experience that it was far from the end.  It has been said that “MLC trumps divorce”, and in my case it certainly was true.  I mourned and grieved (spent more time lying on the floor in a puddle than I should admit). 

This, as with everything else in life, I have learned is a matter of taking stock of what’s going on in the moment, and not looking too far ahead.  This is so hard to do, I know, when you are hurting so badly, and you just want to make good decisions to get some relief.  I thought that I would truly have to extinguish any foolish notion of hope that we could have any kind of relationship; it hurt too much.  I felt like divorce was the ultimate in betrayal.  It was but he started taking steps towards me right after the divorce. 

In the 3 ½ years since my divorce, my xh and I have had several reconnections that have been pretty serious, but have not led reconciliation yet.  He still has much work to do on his many issues, and the fact is he may never be able to face them.    I still believe in the process, and believe that many will want to return, regardless of whether they went through with the divorce or not. 

It is such a painful process going through a divorce, and my heart goes out to everyone facing this now.  You will survive and get much stronger in time.  I have, and I literally thought that I would die from the pain.  I would say just take it easy on yourself as much as humanly possible, and take each day as it comes.  You just never know what these people will do, and if they will be able to become whole again, but I know that we can!   

 I basically “stood” for a long time (maybe I still am), but I decided to ditch the word “standing” from my vocabulary quite some time ago, as it put too much pressure on me, and made me anxious.  This is just my own personal philosophy that works for me; to not put a label on it at this time.  It has been 71/2 years for me since he left me, and I just live my life to the best of my ability.  When he comes around and wants to connect with me, I just roll with it, and see what happens. 

Divorce doesn’t usually mean to them what it means to us.  It’s up to us to decide whether or not it needs to be the end.  I may have needed my mourning period after the divorce to further my healing, but then again, I have sometimes thought that I wasted a lot of tears with thoughts of “he never could have loved me”, “I will never get over this” or “he must really be sure of what he is doing”.  NONE of these things proved to be true.  The love is there, I did get over this, and he had no conception of what he was doing. 

I think the important thing is to continually evaluate your healing, and consider if “standing” is impeding that or not.  If so, you can either change the ways that you “stand”, or end your stand.  This is tough stuff!

So, sure, I think there is hope for reconciliation, even after divorce.   

[Dontgiveup]

There is hope for reconciliation after divorce.  My friend's story is documented on this site.  His MLCer divorced him about 9 months after bomb drop.  She married OM#1 who was a high school boyfriend she hadn't seen in 20 years.  That marriage lasted 18 months.  She lived with OM #2 for another couple of years.

She has now been remarried to my friend (the LBS) for about 6 months.  During her MLC, he had sporadic contact with her, but did not physically see her for approximately 4.5 years.

Divorce and OM/OW can unfortunately be part of the regression.

[StillStanding]

My BD was sept 2013.  H has OW.....he filed for Divorce Feb 2014.  H told me he was going to file on Valentines Day.  He originally said it was so that we could all "move on and heal"   Then last week said he filed once he realized he was in love with OW.

How do you cope with your H divorcing you and then standing?  Is there any hope for reconciliation after Divorce?

What do you think?

My parents divorced and then remarried about 10 months later. So yes, it's entirely possible to reconcile after divorce.

[Thunder]

GBM, you are so right.  I never thought about divorce that way.We DO see it differently!
To me it felt like rejection.  I felt my life was over.  I was sad.
My X felt it was his out to freedom.  His life could now start over.  He was relieved.

One thing about my X is, he was always honest with me.  Our D took over 2 years and he told me he would never cheat on me while still married, and he never did.

I think in our case he felt he needed to D me so he could, if the opportunity came up, date someone else.  I guess in a strange way his morals were still in tact.
It's been over 3 years since B dropped and he still has not dated anyone.  We've been divorced for a year.

I see a lot of changes in him over the past 6 months or so.  Maybe, unknowly, he gave himself time to get throw some of his tunnel without turning to someone else as a bandaid.
We have a good relationship now.  I'm not saying he will not meet someone else, but I highly doubt he will blame me for it, if he does.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic here.
Yes, I do think there is hope of reconciling after a D.   I just think sometimes they need to divorce us to feel they have the freedom to do what they want.  It gives them the out they seem to feel they need.  We no longer have control of them, in their mind.

What they do with that freedom no one knows.  It could possibly allow them to see we were not controlling them after all.
There is always hope.

[OceanLady]

Thunder,  I am not familiar with your story; I only know what you wrote here.  It sounds like your xh is going thru a transition which has not reached MLC proportions.  MLCer's run off with an OP or at least have one around and they usually get nasty sooner or later.  I am glad that you have not gone thru that painful experience with an OW, though I am sure that your divorce was painful enough.  I have a friend whose H went thru a transition and got very distant for 1year or so but he never left her and the kids and never even spoke about a D.  He came thru that time and my friend says he is a better person now.  I hope that your xh comes thru his transition and everything works out for you.

Cruise Control, I do believe the D means more to us than to our xH's.  I feel that many D's are an ultimatum from the OW's....divorce your W or we are off!  I saw my H acting like a little boy the day he spoke to me about a D, we were still living together then.  It was only 4 weeks after he first called her...on Valentine's Day 2010.  He filed for the D while we were still sleeping in the same bed a few weeks later.  It was around that time that I found out about the OW from high school, his first love from 33 years ago.  It was not the first time he had done/said something mean to me on a holiday.

I have been D'd since Feb 2013...after almost 3 years in the courts.  When the final decision arrived from the courts, he kept telling me that we had 30 days more until it was final.  I am not sure what he wanted to do with those 30 days but he was very confused that the D WAS final in Feb. 2013 and insisted that it was not.  He did not believe me that there was not another 30 waiting period and he called the court only to find out that we were, in fact, divorced.  Was he going to try and stop the D at that point?  I will probably never know.

This year, late in January, is the first time he tried to be nice to me by sending me some pictures of his last business trip to France and then we had pleasant email conversation about those pictures.  (There was a small hint that he wanted to talk to me last June, but he never did.)  I am not sure why he sent those pics, but he did.  I am unemployed and a few weeks after he sent those pics, he sent me an email about a job fair at the nearby town hall, not really sure why he did that either.  There was no explanation or conversation that time.  Both of those incidents are more than I heard from him in years, besides Monster of course, a few years back when our house was being sold.  I am still holding onto that little bit of hope that someday, he may be able to talk to me again and try to reconnect.

I agree with GBM, I do not really like the word 'standing' either... it has been too many years.  I am here, living my life, if he ever wants to talk ....I will see what he has to say for himself at that time. 

[Thunder]

Ocean,
I think every man is different when they go through MLC.

I did see my X as different from most.  As far as ow, anger, etc., then I read an article on Low-Energy MLCer's and it fit him to a T!

Apparently they are less likely to have an ow and lack the energy for the running around, but their still in a foggy, fantasy world.
I think he tried to find an alienator but it just wasn't in the cards for him.  Well, not yet anyway.
It still could happen but I think she would have to pursue him.

I wonder what would have happened if your D wasn't final when it was.  You have to wonder what was going on in his head.  They get so confused, he probably didn't know himself.
Sounds like he was pretty unsure over the situation.

Hope you have a good day.   

[CruiseControl]

These stories give me some hope....thanks 

Of the couples who reconciled, did the MLCer go back to the person they were before?

GBM: Has you H become a better person, or does he still behave like an MLCer?....monstering etc.  Do all the MLCers continue to show confusion?

My H is a monster most of the time at the moment.  I am blamed for D16 not wanting a relationship with him......I can't force her , and of course nothing to do with the fact that he has OW, who was a family friend.  My divorce lawyer also said that I have to be careful with any correspondence via email or text and just assume that it will be used against me, oops damn those emails .  My H is very cunning, unfortunately that seems to have intensified and his confusion is not as apparent.  He is just nasty, manipulative and egotistical.  I guess all the traits of MLC .  Though I think his confusion shows by his complete denial of any wrong doing.

I so want him to behave like a reasonable human being, but that does not seem to be even remotely possible.  If I breathe wrong at the moment it seems to set him off.  Oh this divorce is going to be NASTY.

[Medusa]

I so want him to behave like a reasonable human being, but that does not seem to be even remotely possible. 

Nope: reasonable human being isn't within the realm of possibility with the MLCer. Mine likes to pretend he's the most reasonable, logical person in the world and that I'm a whack-job. Yeah, okay, whatever.

Divorce isn't fun. I'm waiting to hear when my H was served. If it isn't yesterday, it will be today. I've no idea what kind of fresh hell I'm in for, but I'm dealing with it by reminding myself I need to do this for my own protection since there is just no telling what's going to happen.

As far as reconciliation is concerned, I believe it is possible. For me, I'm divorcing my H and getting on with life. If and when he pulls his head out of where it's currently embedded, we may have another chance. I don't look beyond that for the future: I deserve to live the best possible life I can, with or without him. And honestly, life is a whole lot better since he left.  Doesn't mean the door is closed. It just means I finally have the clarity to see my reality.

[CrazyTrain]

Medusa!  I just saw at the bottom of your post it says "Semper Gumby!"  A gal after my own heart!!  Gumby RULES!!   

[GBM]

Thunder,

My MLCer ran for his life.  Hard replay for years, he was mean (lots of  monster), then he crashed.  He did a lot of damage, and we couldn’t remain friends throughout this.  All these guys are different, although similarities run among them, so of course, there will be differences to the reasons they are divorcing.  It’s just easy to make the statement that they think of divorce differently than we do because we are the rational thinkers here, and they are confused. 

They may think that they are getting a clean slate to be with someone else; the ticket to freedom.  We of course, know that this is faulty thinking, and that getting a clean slate is going to require a whole lot more than that! They are going to drag around their own issues with them wherever they go.  They may think that getting a divorce will automatically give them a clean slate with us.  I think somewhere in my xh’s mind he thought that it would.  He even said just prior to the divorce “if we can get our sh!t together and get together, then I will remarry you”.  (what’s this OUR business?) 

Cruise Control,

I wish that I could tell you that my xh has emerged from his crisis a better man, but I can’t say honestly say that.  He is so much better than he was during the thick of his crisis, but he remains broken.  He has some stubborn defense mechanisms that just eat him alive.  I think that there is some fear of being vulnerable at this point.  I don’t think that he fears me.  He has told me that he finds me to be the most safe and comfortable place in the world.

He has a lot of trouble facing himself, and what he has done.  Rather than seeing the value of accepting what he was capable of, and condemning those actions, he would like it all to go away.  The biggest problem that I have right now with this is that I am not the one who is throwing up the past in his face.  He must be doing this internally, and since he balks at talking about this, this guilt shows up when I am not aware. 

I am not convinced that he will be able to work out these issues that he has.  I have always said that I think he is a special case.  It’s frustrating for me to see how far we have come, and to see the possibilities right in front of us, within our reach, and then to see him have such trouble being able to get past this final hurdle. 

I have learned that there is a good man in there, and he is much the same as he used to be, and in fact better in some ways.  The love that he had for me and the connection that we had, is still there.  I was rather amazed to see that this survived all this trauma, and all this time.  If nothing else, from allowing myself to reconnect with him as closely as I have, I have learned these things, and it’s been gratifying.