[WHY]

Mirror him and respond in kind.  Don’t initiate.

[MadLuv]

I also agree with mirroring what he is initiating. Also, just watch how he is reacting on your convos. He may start a relationship talk, yet not really want one. If you see him pulling back switch topics or pull back as well. Try to just keep conversations light and try to stay away from any talks that bring stress. Try to be a safe place, but that also does not mean be a doormat.

[Treasur]

Imho the key phrase in your question is the

is it better to…..

Why?
Bc, I think, implied in that phrase is that you currently think that there is a right/wrong way to behave towards him that will change his behaviour and restore your marriage now that you have found out about MLC? As if there is a kind of pass/fail test. If so, you’re not alone in that - most of us thought that when we first came here.
Sadly, that is rarely how it turns out to work. Sorry.

Imho it’s a bit more like a cancer diagnosis.
A bit of you can’t quite believe it. You really want it not to be true even while another bit of your brain knows that it is actually happening and it’s a big life altering thing. But you don’t know yet how bad it will get, if you will survive it, what it’s going to be like to deal with, which advice to trust, who to tell, what help you might need or quite what is the best thing to do next.

Still, ‘is it better to…?’ is nevertheless a useful phrase and one that most LBS keep on redial.
What changes is the focus, the object of the question.
From anything to do with your spouse to ‘is it better to….for me right now?’ and ‘is it better to….for my kids right now?’ and ‘is it better to….for my sanity/safety….for keeping the roof over our heads….for approaching my legal obligations….for protecting our finances?’

As others here have said, there probably are things we LBS can do to make the situation worse. Set fire to their car. Flame ow on social media. Ask our spouse a million questions while holding on to their leg sobbing. Accept or excuse serious physical or emotional abuse. Behave like a deranged stalker. Stick our head in the sand and pretend that nothing untoward or abnormal is going on. Tell everyone we have ever met. Tell no one at all bc we feel ashamed or are trying to ‘protect’ our spouse from other peoples’ opinions. Believe that if we are just more/less (fill in the relevant word) this will all be magically fixed. Although most of us have had moments when we have felt like doing most of these things a bit 

There is no pass/fail test to fix your spouse/marriage. No magic MLC tactics handbook. Sorry.
This is something awful which is happening to you and around you, not because of you.
Once we LBS get that, that is what changes the question imho.
And the answers to ‘is it better to…for me/my kids/my situation? is a personal one. What works for one LBS here might not work so well for another bc we are different people and our individual circumstances vary.
But
What always works for an LBS is to reach the point where they can change the question to being about them not their spouse.
And when they understand that what is better at the moment might also change with time and events, and that’s ok too.

So, going back to your question, Mimosa (nice name by the way), what do you think is going to be better for you at the moment in how you do or don’t interact with him and about what? And for your kids? And for your own emotional and mental and physical wellbeing?

[KayDee]

How do you feel about this 'small talk'? Are you comfortable with it or does it irritate you or upset you? I know I would feel angry if my H was acting like all was fine, just after demolishing me and up-ending our shared life. It seems like, based on what you have written, that he is wants to enjoy the comfortable status quo of your home while conducting his new magic happy adventures. But what impact does this have on your well-being? Our home is our haven, but he has smashed up the fences of your life. In the early days, it is typical for us, the non-MLC, to feel like we have lost our compass, kind of set adrift and we feel unsafe in general. So a safe space at home (physical and emotionally) is super important. You don't say if your kids are at home, but it seems they are and that you are the stable force looking after them while he goes out. But what if you want to go out? 

What was really important for me in the early days was to reestablish some sort of routine - a mix of things that I enjoyed (seeing friends, going for a run etc) and things that were health related (seeing my therapist, yoga). It's called 'get a life' on the forum. I thought about it more as restructuring my life, because I imagined GAL as something new (like joining a chorus line, kicking my legs up in gay abandon ) but I actually already had a rich life, full of things I love. I just needed to reshape my life without my H in it. This is a long-winded answer to 'what is better', isn't it?  My feeling is, ignoring someone is very hard and feels painful. So, yes, mirror - ish, and then, if needed, you could introduce a topic. Like  ' you know, my day was good, but I am feeling a little stir crazy this week and have been invited out this Friday, so assume it's OK if you watch the kids'.

In the early days, I felt like a cork bobbing around in the ocean. I needed my own anchors, this was the restructure. Work at your own pace, you'll get to a point where you start to see more clearly and trust yourself again.

[Mimosa]

I feel anxious when he talks to me sometimes because I don’t know if I am saying the right words. There are Days where he’ll talk to me like before.. excitement about his day or he’ll call me to vent from stress at work.. there are days he won’t answer my calls or texts. I try not to talk about our relationship at all but sometimes it comes up and my anxiety goes up 😔 I am currently on stress leave and taking a couple days off for myself.. Thank God my kids understand that I need this to Clear my head and start accepting the fact that he was abducted by aliens. I have to find that switch in my heart to stop hoping that he’ll come back soon.

[xyzcf]

The anxiety comes from deep within. The person we knew intimately is gone. We sense this on a level beyond what we are seeing and hearing and our bodies go into fight flight freeze mode.

I feel anxious when he talks to me sometimes because I don’t know if I am saying the right words.

There was never in the 35 years we were together that I had any problem saying anything to him. I never hesitated to share with him my thoughts and feelings, to disagree with his view....there just never was this feeling of dread...it was a very difficult adjustment. The man who was my best friend, who shared our lives together was a stranger and as one friend recently told me "you were terrified of him".

I found journalling my thoughts and what I would like to have said to him helpful and long long walks.

[Mimosa]

I have started journaling and just started to GAL. I need to do this for myself.. i have to get used to do things without him. 18 years together so it’s pretty hard to adjust/do certain
Things because we relied so much from each other. I am slowly (i think) accepting the situation that we are in. I realized I have to start taking care of myself and how I forgot that I am a strong woman. And little bit of help goes a long way. From finding this forum, friends, family.

[Treasur]

I agree with xyzcf….just 20 odd years for me…but never had that eggshell feeling before BD. Dread, just as xyz said. It’s a pretty weird feeling, isn’t it? It is such early days for you and understandable that some of our advice might not feel do-able yet. It took most of us months. At least. So you are doing pretty well imho. 

We ‘oldies but goodies’ here just hope that sharing what we learned with the gift of hindsight will stop just one other LBS, posting or silently reading, from making the same mistakes we made that added to the amount of damage we allowed to creep in under our own water lines.

What would you do differently if there were no ‘right words’ to be found, my friend?

[MadLuv]

  i have to get used to do things without him. 18 years together so it’s pretty hard to adjust/do certain
Things because we relied so much from each other. I am slowly (i think) accepting the situation that we are in. I realized I have to start taking care of myself and how I forgot that I am a strong woman

30 years for me. It is like a death. You literally go through grieving. Just know that it is normal. Life stands still for a while until you can get a handle on the hard  acceptance. In the mean time life around you continues as normal. That alone is unsettling. Grocery shopping and not picking up those basics just for them or cooking in general. I think it was a year before I could cook his favorite meal again.

The best is when you can view it for what it is. Stop romanticizing the new relationship ( if there is one) because believe me you got the better man. Also, as in death. We don’t look at the bad. We tend to put them on a bit of a pedestal. Once you can step back you will see you may have put up with more than you realized. For me … the avoidant personality wasn’t that he was such and amazing man, but that he just kept his grievances in his head. When you see it all that is when you truly get your power back. You will know it and feel it and you will embrace the woman that you never knew was lost.

[Mimosa]

Okay.. I have a huge problem.  😩 no judgement, please. I have been doing the No contact for 2 weeks now.. it was going great. I was starting to feel good about myself, not caring wjere he goes anymore or if he’s coming home, Doing GAL. Starting to get clarity and starting to take care of myself. We still live in the same house and he sleeps in our garage. Until last night, he came to my bedroom and started cuddling and then something happened.. i got caught in the moment. 😩😩😩 But I made sure today that I still hardly made contact with him. I And I made sure I wasn’t showing any emotions. I still left our house  and went for my daily walk. And when I got back he left as well. Have I messed up my No Contact? Is there a way I can fix it? What was his purpose of being intimate with me?