[UrsaMajor]

His list of complaints: I don't pay enough attention to him, I'm fat (was 130 pounds at the time, am 105 now---5 ft 7 in tall)---in the past 2 years he went from 180 pounds to 275 pounds---, he wants to buy I house and I won't do it (I have looked at houses with him and would gladly buy one), I'm bad at sex.

All that is missing here is that you "don't vacuum the floors correctly, cook Bratwursts properly and that you let the dog get fat." Otherwise, it reads like our of "Stupid Excuses Mid-Lifers make up to justify their actions" list

How is he cycling through anger again!?

I would venture to suggest that he never STOPPED cycling.... He just wasn't as overt about it.... Possibly resorted instead to passive-aggressive behaviours or self-medication? Or that he had departed the "anger" stage temporarily and was cycling through depression/limerence?  Who knows?

Tell me what green tastes like by dipping your elbow in a pot of it.... You will have about the same rate of success as figuring out why an MLC'er is doing what they do at any point in time..... Rather than speculate, you are likely to be better served by watching what his feet are doing (pay no attention to the mouth behind the green curtain because it is ALL just
to justify their actions to themselves and their enablers

[mama4]

I am so grateful for your responses......things I know and have told others, and can't seem to practice in the moment. It has been such a long journey already and he seemed to really be himself. This is sudden and unexpected and I KNOW it sets the timeline back to day one of what feels like a million years already.

He was charming, playful, and kind, and then BAM! He is moving out, is divorcing me and it's all my fault. I'm still shaking and it's been nearly a week. He said these things on Saturday night (very late) and asked me to respond and to stop ignoring him. I said I love him and don't want this. He flew into a rage and said I don't love him and he doesn't want to hear it.

Very pleasant on Sunday, then mean and angry, then gone. He said he would be back on Wednesday, was back on Monday night. I didn't initiate conversation and have been super busy with work and kid activities in the evenings. Lots of angry texting on Tuesday and Wednesday, then he followed me around asking for my attention after work last night. He wanted to be intimate, I did not. He persisted, and then was loving and kind.
This morning, he sent a huge text that he is leaving again because I don't take him seriously and ignore him. From the reading I've done, it sounds like a pleasure/pain cycle that he has cast me in as the leading role.
He is right, I normally ignore his ranting texts, unless there is a question to answer pertaining to our children. I did respond to this one, however, using active listening to acknowledge each point and demonstrate gratitude that he shared his thoughts with me.
I am at a complete and total loss. How do I navigate this?

[mama4]

Thank you all for ghh hi rowing me a life preserver.
After work, I went to a Vinyasa class and then took the younger two sons out to dinner. I visited with my parents and played outside with the boys. Our oldest came home from baseball and we are watching a movie for a little bit before bed and making oatmeal raisin cookies

Our daughter is at camp until Sunday.

Lots of baseball tomorrow. It will be super fun!!

MLC is gone again, until TBD.

I need to move forward, and let him go to crack his head in the wind. What a great phrase!

[Treasur]

Are you afraid of him?
Or afraid of what might happen if/when you say No and stick to it?
Or in your mind does his TBI or other troubles somehow give him a behavioural hall pass?

I ask bc a lot of your last post seemed to be about your taking a lot of abuse and appeasing him so he cycles out of his rage. That pleasure/pain cycle you mentioned. From the cheap seats, quite a lot of red flags of abuse here tbh. Announcing your long list of horribleness and that he’s going to move out and divorce you, then raging bc you won’t pick up his calls and chat. Then raging again when you do. Coming and going as he pleases with no regards for anyone else. ‘Persisting’ - whatever that means - when you said no to sex. Angry texts. Followed by you ‘thanking’ him for ‘sharing his thoughts’. And off he flounces again. Rinse and repeat. At random. Regardless of what you do or say.

I don’t say this to criticise or judge you, just to say that this is NOT normal, not good and that it certainly looks and sounds like abuse. You’ve been dealing with this man’s chaos, control, periodic infidelity and instability off and on for a long time now. It’s not unusual that it can start to feel like normal after such a long time. (I wonder if the very title of your thread and your coming here to post - although I could be wrong - suggests that some bit of you knows this in your bones)

But it really truly isn’t normal. And it’s not what most of us would call a good healthy kind of love. Even a basic kind of like tbh. It just isn’t.

On top of that tbh, abuse is a shill game. One of those ones where the cup with the marble always moves. The core of a shill game is to keep us off balance and to keep us playing the next time. And the one after that.

So, my big question for you is do you think you are being abused by him? Bc if you do in your heart - painful as that is to acknowledge - then your priority changes towards doing whatever you need to do to remove yourself and your kids from being abused, disrespected and playing the shill game.

I don’t know if you are ready to see it that way. Or if you want to live differently enough to make a different path forward. If you do - and you won’t be the first LBS here who has had to look at this - we can help you figure out steps to do that. If you’re not, and we understand all the reasons why you might not be, we can still support you but our ability to help will be limited.

Bc tbh the shill game of abuse is controlled by the abuser. Nothing you say or do, as I hope you can see from your own last but one post, changes it. Bc it isn’t created by you, about you or fixable by you. It only stops when you decide to take consistent steps to walk away from the game. And those steps are painful, big and potentially scary in their own right. We get that. And only you can decide what is acceptable to you as a way to live and what is not.

What do you want, my friend?

[sachertorte]

I don't want to hijack this thread. Just want to applaud Treasur's invaluable post above. Thank you so much Treasur.

[mama4]

I don't want to hijack this thread. Just want to applaud Treasur's invaluable post above. Thank you so much Treasur.

Agreed. I am humbled and grateful for the generous gift you took the time to give me by writing it.

Everything you wrote is accurate. Nothing will change until I commit to a different journey. Years have proven this.

There’s a sign that I put up in a hallway at work that says

Face your fears

Funny that I can hang it on the wall and ignore it.

I am afraid of divorce because to me it means I failed.


I need to face my fears

Because I know what’s worse than failing……continuing this ugly dance.
Thank you

[Baxter1]

Just reading up on your story, so sorry you’re here. I would say that if you get a divorce it’s not you that failed it’s a failure in the relationship level. It takes two to make a relationship work so I would say it’s not all on you. In the case of MLC it’s not even a relationship issue, the issue(s) are internal to the MLCer. Please be gentle with yourself. I struggle with this as well, if only I would have hugged her that one time or bought flowers every week this wouldn’t be happening. It seems like this would have happened if I bought all the flowers on the planet.
On the fridge we have a magnet that says ‘Life is Tough but you are Tougher!’, after going through this journey(and still going!) I believe I am a lot tougher then I once was, and you are tougher then you know.

[Gonnamakeit]

Hi Mama,

Sorry you are going through this. I, similar to you, thought things were on the other side and then only to be back at what I thought we were passed.

It is a very tricky journey and one that is full of ups and downs.

As others have mentioned, this is all about what they need to work on in themselves and it  sucks that so many of us find ourselves in this place. These boards are a great reminder that it’s them, not you.

[in it]

Treasur surely has things in perspective.

You do not have to put up with abuse. He loses a little more respect for you every time he gets his way. This is continuing  to hurt you. You can stop it.
The word is no..two letters... one word.

 You will not have failed sweetie, you deserve some peace.

[UrsaMajor]

I am afraid of divorce because to me it means I failed.

I humbly disagree.... YOU did NOT fail. HE Failed by cheating, by being abusive, etc. You are NOT responsible for his actions and there is NOTHING in this world that makes YOU responsible.... unless, of course, you were sitting there with a gun to his head telling him he had to do <xyz>  I have the sneaking suspicion that this was likely NOT the case....