[keepfighting]

It all started on a dark summer night in June. She was in the kitchen, putting stuff away, I was nearby. All this happened during no doubt the toughest period in our life. My contract finished end of March, after a 10 year all collaboration with a big telecom company an they made it clear that it won't get renewed, I was out of work with absolutely no income.

Being the sole provider in the family, I started job/contract hunting frantically in Feb with not much luck. This was at a time when majority of IT companies were getting rid of staff and holding onto their money with fear that UK will enter recession. To say this was the hardest time of my life is an understatement. Life just seemed more and more hopeless as days passed by.

All of a sudden my W started talking about how miserable her life is, how unhappy she is and cannot take it anymore. Shortly after I got delivered the dreaded ILYBNILWY message. BD! My world stopped at that moment in time, not even sure what I replied back to her. I was already down because of work issues, this mounted even more pressure on me. Little did I know about the terrible storm ahead of me.

Anyway fast forward to middle of August. School holidays were on, we travelled back to my hometown as we always do during the summer. Had a nice short break in the Dolomites, Italy. Life seemed normal given the circumstances. Towards the end of the week long break I got the phonecall that I so long waited for. Got offered a new contract. I cannot express the gratitude, happines and relief I felt at the end of the call, I felt like a big burden just fell off my shoulders and there was fnally hope that our life could get back on track.

W is distant, but I got used to it as she started pulling back for a while now. We still sleep in the same bed, but I feel there is a wall between us that is getting taller and taller as days pass. Signs start to appear that something is serioulsy wrong. When I initiated physical contact, she immediately declined, later changed her mind and we ML, there were signs I don't recognised. A few weeks later I had to return to the UK on my own, she was distant when I said good bye, I felt something strange when she hugged and kissed me. Wasn't sure what was going on. I get to know about a few things about her last night out with the girls, she spent a good few hours at an address I did not know, following enquiries about the morning after pill. Not hard to connect the dots, at this point my already shattered world got collapsed completely. I'm sure you nice people remember the recent tragic earthquake that happened in Turkey where cities got completely flattened to the ground. That's how I felt right then.

From here the story for a while is classic newbie LBS, my mind started racing, I tried to understand what's happening, who is in the picture, what really happened etc. Still had about 2 days until I returned home to my family. I did not say anything to my W or asked her whilst I was still in the UK, I was trying to figure out how should I react and what to do. She only messaged me the morning I was due to be back, and letting me know what a miserable week she had. She got into a fight with my mother and sister, her own mother is driving her nuts, she cannot take looking after the kids anymore, in other words her life is terrible.

She is mean to me, making remarks about she thinks needs to leave me as she cannot take the pressure anymore. It was not the first time she said she is going to leave me, everytime I got rejected at a job interview she made sure to stick it in my face that she is leaving. Exactly what I needed at the time.

I'm back home, we meet, she is distant, monstering at me, mostly about the week she had. During all this time I was praying hard to God hoping that all this is just a bad dream and that none of this could possibly be true. The woman I loved my whole life and I married would not do such a thing to me, she's got good morals and feared God. Oh boy, how wrong I was. We got up early in the morning, she seems upbeat, but I just couldn't handle the pressure anymore, I had to confront her and I pushed, pushed and pushed. She did not admit to it, so I pushed more. She admitted she met someone on the last night-out and they kissed. I pushed even more, she finally admitted that she cheated on me.

I ceased to exist. All of a sudden everything went quiet and here I was in a big emptiness. Not knowing what to do, how to react, what my next step will be. My daughter was there, still sleeping. I knew I did not want her to find out about this at any cost, so I ran away to the fartherest corner of our property. W follows me, I am mad, feel I'm going to explode. She cries, I cry, me painfully screaming "how could you...", "how could this happen to me...", "what did I do wrong...".

I could not take it anymore, I said to her, that's it, pack your stuff I am taking you back to your mother. She begged and pleaded to me not to, nobody can find out about this, especially the kids and her mother. People who know me say I am a very understanding and patient men. After about half an hour later I calmed down even though my head was still spinning. We decided we will carry on with the plans we already had for that day, including going to church(!). The whole day, my body was shaking uncontrollably, I could barely stop my tears, my world shattered, I lost everything in a second. All I could think of is just what happened to me.

W was attentive with me, she came to me, hugged me, cried, etc. but did not want to talk about what happened at all. We had the kids with us all the time, so it was really difficult to talk with her in private. Finally I pressed and said we need to talk about this, the usual story, I need to know what happened and what is going on. She refused to talk. The pressure was mounting in me and I broke at the next stop on the way home. I said if you are not going to talk about it, I will divorce you as soon as we get back home in the UK. She was confused, we got into a fight, some of which the kids witnessed from far.

She said she was confused, did not know what she wanted, threatened that I will forever regret if we go down the divorce route as she will take the kids and all my belongings. I see the outcome of  divorce all around me, the effect it has on kids, I love my children and would do everything I can to prevent them from experiencing their parents separating. Me driving like crazy make it to the destination.

Long story short, she said she's not sure about her feelings re OM, and needs to see him when he's back. We are in August, OM returns beginning of October. Lots of fights between us, lots of seemingly productive conversation, lots of cries and me trying to understand what the he!! is going on. We seem to reconnect, hugging, kissing, spending lot of time together. W keeps messaging OM, I come to know she misses him. This later on turns to ILY messages before we even get back to UK, we are talking about 2 weeks time. Me going crazy.

Long story short, trying to keep up the appearances drives me crazy. We had family all around us this whole time, so we put on the show of we are all OK, but we weren't.

Eventually we make it back to the UK. This was a particularly bad experience for me as it made all the things that happened even more intense. One good thing that happened is that we talked, and we talked a lot. That's when the real cold shower started. She explained to me how her allienation started around 4 years ago. Up to then her life revolved around our kids (today D12, S10, S8). That's when men started to compliment her, she lost quite a lot of weight, started taking pictures of her looking in the mirror and sent it to her best girlfriends, starting to feel like a woman again. That was the time she started looking outside of her marriage without me even realizing as per her. When COVID hit and we had the long lockdowns, she felt she was going crazy. My W is a very extroverted person, she needs the interaction with people, but the lockdowns meant no or very minimal contact with other people. She said it got to a point where she could just not take it anymore, she could not stand being in my presence, the time we were forced to spend together was too much for her. When lockdown eased, she started going out with her friends, at the beginning just out for a dinner, this later on turned into going partying after dinner, etc. All this without me! She had a deep depression during this time, would come home during the day, cry and cry and cry, she did not want to see me. I consoled her, tried to be there for her, asking how can I help, she just said go away and leave me alone, back to crying.

I started to be very desperate as things got worst. I said, I think we need to spend some time alone, away from the kids, so I looked into going on some nice city breaks just her and me. She refused, but her friend found a very nice trip to Brazil and we all agreed to go. I said I am happy to go if you WANT me to go, I am not going just to be there as a side car. She was adamant that she wanted me to go. Brazil turned out to be the best trip I ever had, lots of very nice places, the food was amazing, people were friendly. I could still see the signs of depression, she lost quite a lot of weight, we did get along ok, not great but ok.

When we returned she seemed happy. But she was back to her occasional night outs which I did not agree with but hoped this will help her get back on track. She would often come home in the middle of the night, when I confronted her and said this is not really acceptable, she said I need my freedom, all my life I was pressured to conform to what my mother wanted me to do, than later on what I wanted her to do, she sacrificed all her life for the kids (stay home mum), I said ok if this is what you need than you might as well leave the house. She was like I don't want to leave you, I just need to escape from time to time and me going dancing really helps. I did make it clear to her that I am not agreeing with her night outs, but she did not seem to care and carried on this lifestyle up to February this year. She started drinking heavily, all she wanted was just partying, all spring and summer was about garden parties and night outs. I called her out, said her behaviour is unacceptable. Remember this was all through me being out of work and it seemed we will run out of money in a months or two. Big stress for me!

Eventually, her new lifestyle lead to her cheating on me big time!

This post turned out to be rather long, so I think I will continue in a next post.

[keepfighting]

I was debating for a long time whether to come forward with my story or not. I read a lot during the last few months, trying to make sense of all this that is happening. Googled, read articles about menopause, perimenopause, infidelity, hormones and eventually found out about MLC. I went on a lot of forums, read and read all day and night and finally discovered HS. DB forum was also a good resource, I learned a lot by reading a lot of posts about MLC, WW Ws, WAS Ws but was still not sure what my W is going though at the time, but I found more compassion on HS.

So I discovered HS, read the great articles and resources on this site, and a lot of threads, probably the most useful and having the hugest impact on me was denjef31 story as a person who recovered from MLC and willing to share her story.

During this time up until me discovering HS, I stumbled and stumbled, doing all the newbie mistakes as majority of us seem to do, trying to do everything my mind and instinct says I should do to try and save my marriage, you know trying to CONTROL the situation, that I now know is a mistake or imposible.

Going through the MLC articles I came across Standing as an act of love. This again made me think a lot, caused me being tormented between to leave or stay, going down the divorce route or trying to save my marriage. I soon realised that no matter what I do, there is no wrong or right decision. In fact, as I was exploring options, I came to the conclusion that no matter what I do, there is possibly no good decision.

Knowing that I don't want to lose my family, children, and definitely not looking to divorce (this is one thing we agree on with the W), I looked for arguments on why should I be standing. The most compelling one for me was that once realizing what MLC is about, in my view this constitutes one of the "worse" or "sickness" times in our vows.

"...for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God's holy law..."

Being a religious person, this made me chose to STAND. For how long I don't know. Reading all the different stories and articles, I now know that recovering takes a LOT of time (if your MLCer recovers), a LOT of patience and perhaps for me the hardest part is ACCEPTANCE. What God and my W put me through is extremely painful, 5 months in I still somtimes lose it and burst in tears, some days are better some are worst. I try not to cry in front of my W, certainly not my kids. Even if I do is more about tears of hurt than sobbing. It hursts and it hurst a lot! I lost everything in a second, my W, my marriage my relationship with her. One of the hardest thing to accept perhaps is that it may as well be that she will never really come back to me, I know even if she does, it will be a different person. I pray to God that he guides our lives in a way that reconsilliation is the outcome of this excrutiatingly painful journey that I was forced on and not complete separation.

My story does not end here, I will journal about it. This leads me to why I decided to post. I think now I am in a position where I understand MLC more or less, I know that the best thing to do is drop the rope and do nothing in relation to your W and her situation. I know I need to detach, I think I am about 80% there, but he!! detaching is hard. Another good advice I found here is to GAL and live your life as she will never come back. How awful is this? It feels like I am going through mourning loosing her as if she were dead, whilst at the same time, she never leaving the house, I see her every day. I went dark on her about 2 weeks ago, I will journal about this later on.

I still feel that as I go along this journey I will need to tap in the enourmous knowledge and experience of people on this forum, and sure at times the support too.

My rollercoaster journey only really began once OM got back and W met with him, this is a story for a good number of posts as I think that in some ways my journey is different to the ones I read her. Watch out this space!

[UrsaMajor]

I think now I am in a position where I understand MLC more or less, I know that the best thing to do is drop the rope and do nothing in relation to your W and her situation. I know I need to detach, I think I am about 80% there, but he!! detaching is hard. Another good advice I found here is to GAL and live your life as she will never come back.

Welcome to the party that no one EVER wanted a forced invitation to attend.

HS is a gold mine of experiences and stories of people who have been down the same road that you are now travelling. Some (like you) have just started and some (like me) have been around a while. Some are standing, some have moved on, some are in-between, some have kids, some don't some have kids that are out of the house.... What you'll quickly find out is that not all "advice" that you will get here will be appropriate for you or your situation. Some will seem helpful and others will make you go <blech!>. Take what is useful and discard the rest.

Yes, it is impossible to control the situation (which really means controlling the Mid-Lifer  to some extent).  The one thing that we can control is ourselves and our own reactions/responses to the behavior of the Mid-Lifer. that is where our power lies. 

Since you have kids that are younger, you will need to be the stable parent. Heaven knows that your MLCW is anything BUT stable at the moment and that will add stress to your R with the kids. My own kids (now S16 and D12 - then D4 and S8) live with my MLCxW but I still have a good relationship with both of them, despite me having "rules" int eh house about things like screen time, eating meals together and the fact that, yes, a REAL meal includes fruit and vegetables and is not just instant noodles or meat and noodles and sauce.

One remark that I need to make though, and it comes back to the part of your post I quoted above, "understanding" MLC (or more pointedly "understanding" a Mid-Lifer) is like trying to taste green.... with your elbow.... Mid-Lifers are as unpredictable as a Vegas Slot Machine (the only ting that is predictable is that the odds are rigged in favor of the house - or the Mid-Lifer in this case) so it is really a matter of being able to be in control of your own emotional well-being.

As you are the provider for the family in terms of finances (if I understood you correctly), one thing that you will very likely need to do is to keep a close eye on the finances. Mid-Lifers can burn through cash like there is no tomorrow in chasing that elusive dream of "happy." Going out to the disco is not exactly cheap and it is getting more expensive as time goes by.

Learning to live like the MLC'er is not coming back has 2 aspects to it - First is that they might literally NOT come back if the MLC is severe and long lasting. there may be too many bridges burned along the way, it may be that the LBS has moved on and has established a new R after some period of time, it may be that MLC'er can't face the responsibilities or the consequences of their actions. Secondly, and just as importantly, if the Mid-Lifer DOES come back and the LBS takes them back (i. e. reconnects and reconciles), both the LBS and the MLC'er will have changed. This growth will be forced upon both parties so the person that comes back will NOT be the same,... in essence, the person formerly known as Spouse will NOT be coming back. The person that looks like Spouse, walks like Spouse, smells like Spouse, talks like Spouse will be different. Like someone's tagline here once said, "One does not make the trip to Hades and back witout acquiring some transferrable skills."

Ursa

[keepfighting]

Hi Ursa,

Thanks for your reply. You are right, this is a party I would rather have missed or maybe wished I haven't even known about, but we are where we are.

One remark that I need to make though, and it comes back to the part of your post I quoted above, "understanding" MLC (or more pointedly "understanding" a Mid-Lifer) is like trying to taste green.... with your elbow.... Mid-Lifers are as unpredictable as a Vegas Slot Machine (the only ting that is predictable is that the odds are rigged in favor of the house - or the Mid-Lifer in this case) so it is really a matter of being able to be in control of your own emotional well-being.

This is so true, point taken. I truly see now how unpredictable and fluid this whole situation is. I will journal more when I have a bit more time to post and you will see why. I totaly get it when posters in past said you can only really plan ahead days maybe even just hours.

I cannot help but ask for advice: as I said I'm trying to detach, not believing a word of what she says, etc. I went dark a few weeks ago and started playing tough love. I almost completely withdrawn from the daily life so much so that though we live in the same house we barely see each other. She goes away in the morning, off to the gym until around 1-2pm, I am up in the office WFH and in the afternoon/evening I usually take the boys to the gym or tennis lessons.

She usually retires to her room in the evening, so there is not much talk. She is clearly upset about the situation and brought it up a few times. I just said although I hate to do this, I need to in order to detach and try to keep sane in this whole shebang. She hates it.

Now this being said, with my goal in mind, I don't want to cut communication completely and given I want to reconcile one day (if possible), paving the way home, what's peoples experience on relaxing the dark mode? OM is still in the picture (potentially more than one). I don't ask or speak about it anymore, don't ask questions if she sneaks out in the evening, nor pursue her in any way.

One thing I refuse to do just yet is leave the marital bed, although there is absolutely no contact between us, she sleeps on one side of the bed, me on the other. This is my action to show I am standing.

I will journal more when I have a bit more time.

[xyzcf]

Hello, welcome to Heros Spouse.

You have already searched and read resources to try and understand what happened to your wife. As Ursa says, trying to understand is like trying to understand what the color green tastes like. As Ursa also stated, although there are many similarities in our stories and some things will fit your situation, others not so much.

My heart breaks for every single poster, their families as well as the MLCer. Your pain is intense but you also have children that are confused by this as well as
a job to do....it is exhausting.

she said I need my freedom, all my life I was pressured to conform to what my mother wanted me to do, than later on what I wanted her to do, she sacrificed all her life for the kids (stay home mum)

This is quite a common thought, although I always thought we choose this life, a house, a child, a life together and we both had things that we did seperately. Had he ever expressed to me that he needed "freedom", I could have supported something rather than this...but he never once expressed that he was unhappy.

We were married 32 years. On our 30th wedding anniversary he gave me an eternity ring and a card that he wrote " thank you for the best 30 years of my life. I can't wait for the next 30 years."

No warning.

Lots of people will write to you. I wish to talk to you about my experience as a stander.

BD was 2009. Like your family, we attended church regularly and I saw him living his faith in a beautiful way. Kindness towards others, generosity, integrity and honesty....

Before I knew anything about MLC, before I knew what a "stander" was I knew deeply that marriage was for life...it was the way I had been brought up, what my religion taught me, what the bible says....

After BD, I went to a church and the priest handed me a bible and asked me to read Luke 15...the story of the prodigal son. This spoke deeply to me and has ever since.

I also live by Jesus' command "to love one another as I have loved you" and the many places in the bible that tell us to forgive one another and to love our enemies.....

I found the site Rejoice Ministries which is faith based and has daily devotionals that assisted me in the nightmare I was living.

I finally, after a very long time, l accepted that I can trust God's plan for my life and let go of trying to tell God what He must do.

I don't mean to give a sermon  . These are my deep rooted beliefs and nothing that my husband does has changed them.

The world certainly doesn't understand me, even the church "offers" me an annulment if I want....

I have continued to have contact with my husband. I had to build myself up a great deal because as a good friend told me recently, I was" terrified "of him. Not physically but how it made me feel when I saw him or heard from him or heard anything about him....I worked very hard to be at peace...some people cannot find peace in their presence...I thought it was important to do this.

We have one daughter who was devastated by this. For many years, we spend Christmas together as a family, we go away with her and her husband on vacation, he stays at my home when she visits.

Sometimes, we have dinner together, sometimes we watch a Super Bowl game....

Underneath it all, I hear God's voice telling me that this is what He wants me to do.

A woman I met shortly after BD, whose husband had done the same thing, put her hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eyes and said "this is satan's way of destroying good Christian families"...very odd for me to hear at the time...yet in further exploration, this is considered to be a reality within my faith life.

I have another friend from HS who shares my beliefs and early on, we discovered that we actually live 5 minutes from one another. She is my prayer warrior, especially when things were really bad.

This is my story, I no longer try to explain it to others who think I should be dating or that I should not be "kind" to him...I am sharing it because you have talked about the importance this is to you...wanting you to know, that you are not alone in your thoughts and beliefs...but in no way suggesting that this is the road for everyone to follow.

Peace be with you.

[keepfighting]

Hi xyzcf,

Such a sad story you have. I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for you. Thanks for your kind words and for sharing your story. Once I understood that no matter what I do, I still cannot change the situation, I handed the situation over to God, asking him to handle this for me and if it is in his plan maybe we'll meet again on the other side of the tunnel.

keepfighting

[Baxter1]

Welcome,

Sorry you’re here, my at home MLCer is doing ok. She’s been trying to get me to move out since
March and is spending time with the Alienator but other then that all is good. We coparent our sons (15,18) and the dog very well. You came to the right place Ursa, XY are great people, there are people from all over the place who can help you through this. In my experience the beginning is the toughest. The shock, sadness, anger, it’s all raw. With time comes detachment.

I got a version. Of that speech too:
I've been a wife and a mom, I just want to find myself’, I got this durring ILYBNILWY speech, this was in March. On Valentine’s Day I got, ‘I love you today, not because it’s Valentine’s Day but because I love you every day.’ What a difference a couple of days make.

I’m sure you already have but sign up for the Intro to MLC courses on the main page.
It explains it all, good luck!

[keepfighting]

Thanks for your message Baxter1. It does sound like there are similarities between our stories.

How do you handle communication? Did you have NC or dark period at all? I have set a boundary recently so I am not allowing her to hug (or any other physical contact for that matter) me whilst she still has OMx (may be more than one from what I can tell). She respected that, but finds it difficult and wanted to approach me today. I went dark a little over 2 weeks now, with minimal communication.

She acts normal most of the time, I did get the monster over the weekend as I stopped her financial support. Today she wanted hugs that I refused. But I do need a "bridge" so I don't lose all my love/emotions towards her.

I am genuinly interested to see after how long people started relaxing dark mode? I am looking to establish a situation where we communicate "normally" hoping that releases the pressure on the rest of the family, especially the kids.

[Reinventing]

Anything you do, do for you. What do you need to stabilize? That's how you answer your questions. What helps me, where I am in the journey, to heal?

Answer that question first and foremost.

[forthetrees]

If you use dark or NC or dim as a way to manipulate the MLCer it will backfire. Those approaches are meant to secure YOUR sanity and well-being NOT to control the situation. If you make it your mantra to respond and not react that will take you a long way. Worrying about losing your loving feelings for this person is really not relevant when you look at the big picture. You´ve been traumatized- deal with the healing of that and leave the state of your feelings towards her for much later when you are even-keeled enough to see the situation with healed eyes.