[MadLuv]

I’m so sorry for your pain. This is a horrible situation, but what does help is to not try and decipher what or why he is doing something or she is doing something and what that may mean for you and your relationship. What you do know is that he is not home. He is choosing this. He isn’t being manipulated by her without wanting to be. We want others to back our feelings, because we want hope and we want to continue to love them. What we really need to do is pour all that time and energy into us.

Let go and let him live what ever mistakes he wants, because he has to live his choices to determine where he wants to be. We dont het to decide where he should be. What really started to help me was to only focus on what he was choosing. It wasn’t me or our life or our family. To this day I find it unbelievable who he did choose. That he doesn’t see his kids. At all!! It gets worse. The more we hang on. So, let him be. Stop trying to figure out where he is. He doesn’t even know where he is mentally.

 Anything you can do to see his actions. His choices and accept them where they are the better. It’s all so hard. Getting a little angry at the injustice of it all and focusing on what they are doing to hurt you and your kids really does help to start shifting your mindset away from them and to start empowering you.

[Pivoine]

Thank you for your responses and support. I feel like I’m living a waking nightmare. This is not a divorce request he’s initiating, but rather gathering information about how a separation and the sale of the house would proceed. He wants to buy the house. I do not agree. He wants to live there alone, but he is not alone. After a month, I still haven’t received anything—not the house valuation nor the explanatory letter from his lawyer. I went to see my banker and a lawyer. It all feels so surreal. I don’t know what more I can do to work on myself. I see my friends a little, who are also his friends, but he rarely sees them and only for a coffee, not for an evening together.

I know I need to stop doing things for him, but my kindness takes over. I’m working on my childhood wounds, meditating, and seeing a therapist... yet I’m still in so much pain. He keeps pulling me along with him because he doesn’t know how to cut ties with me. He still pays half the house loan, pays the property tax, and his belongings are still here. I believe it’s not my responsibility to pack his things. He hasn’t taken anything in nearly seven months, and he still has some administrative paperwork addressed to our home.

It’s utter confusion. I’m trying to stay strong... but sometimes I break down. This situation is torture.

[Treasur]

We know. And we are so sorry that you feel how you currently feel.

The truth in life imho is that this starts to change when you feel ready to begin to try to change the window you are looking through. The torture stops when you adjust your eye and expectations. I am not saying that the pain disappears, more that it is converted from the kind of suffering you feel right now to something a bit more like grief. And I’m not sure that grief ever entirely goes away, but it does soften with time to a more manageable size imho.

How does one do that? Again jmo, but for me the key was finding a way to start accepting what I had already lost and to start assuming that if it quacked like a duck, it was probably a duck. And that I couldn’t control the duck, but I could choose what I did about it and how much of the duck I invited in or allowed to come into my life.

The important thing is that you have choices. And that choices come with effects, for better or worse, which no one owns but you.

It’s funny how we can learn by glancing through other peoples’ mental windows, how others can see something one way and we read a post here and think well, I think that too or I see it quite differently based on the information the poster shared. A couple of recent posts have made me think that. Idk if you have those thoughts too when you read other posts here?

Or indeed if you have reached your own point when you are so tired of that tortured feeling that you are ready to experiment with some new windows.

Examples? The house. You say what he wants and what you don’t want, but not what you do want. Simply put, there are usually only three choices…he buys you out, you buy him out, or the house is sold to someone else and you both individuallly live someplace else. Which option do you prefer?

And if I were being more cynical, I think I could argue that his ‘not letting go of ties’ is about retaining his interest in the house…his payments are not about your well-being or caring about you, they are about getting what he wants eg the house. MLC folks are very Me Me Me. And bc it’s a common pattern, it’s usually safe to assume that they are focussing on what they want more than anything else in the short-term.

Idk the advantages and disadvantages of legal separation vs divorce where you live, and what legal advice you have received, but imho that’s another choice you can make after considering what is best for you. A marriage in name only gives you what? Or would you heal and move forward better if you accepted that your h does not want to live like your h and that divorce would be a wiser option for you? No right answers to these things, only the best answer for you in the longer term.

The essence of suffering imho and according to thinkers wiser than me is when we fight reality bc we don’t want to accept how things are. The torture is bc we want x and keep trying to get x, and keep being disappointed that x doesn’t happen. Until we reach a point when we’re ready to look at the window marked Y. When we accept things we don’t want to accept as currently how things are regardless of how we feel about them. Again jmo but that’s a life lesson that most of us encounter eventually in some shaoe….here it just happens to be about our marriages.

Another example of a different window? What if I told you that there was nothing wrong with you, that you are just a normal human that something terrible has happened to? Not BC of you, but TO and AROUND you. So there’s no need to ‘work on yourself’ to change it, but perhaps the need to work on you in order to accept and adjust to it? Not to change it but to work out how to navigate it and get to the other side of it? What difference would that make?

Another example of a different window? Idk what form being ‘kind’ is taking right now. Or how ‘kind’ you are being to yourself vs towards him? I do know that I don’t think I have seen one story here of a spouse being able to ‘kind’ someone back. Not one. And I’ve seen plenty where ‘kindness’ is seen as  weakness by a departed spouse, and the LBS gets played into poor outcomes legally or lives like a fish on a hook of entitlement for a while until they spit the hook out. I’m not saying you should be nasty or spiteful, but a different window might be about how appropriate ypur ‘kind’ is towards someone who is being pretty unkind towards you? And that ‘kind’ can be a bit more self-interested than we sometimes like to think, so does your ‘kind’ have an agenda? Some version of ‘if I do x, the other person will do or not do y’? Again, only you know the answer to that.

Idk if you have already done so, but you might find it helpful to read some of the older stories of people who were where you are but got to the other side. To read how they struggled to work out some of what you are currently trying to work out, to see how their windows shifted with time and events, to consider the possibility that ypur own might too, that how you feel right now is normal for an awful far from normal situation, to consider what your window might be if you based it solely on the observable facts without speculating about your hopes and wishes.

But most of all, I am very very sorry.
The torture stops when you decide you’ve had enough and take steps to stop it by approaching the situation differently. But we all know how very hard and painful that can be and wish that you were not where you are. But we all also know that you will not always feel exactly how you do today and send you our biggest hugs.

[Reinventing]

Lots of great wisdom in responses here. These two particularly resonated:

I am not saying that the pain disappears, more that it is converted from the kind of suffering you feel right now to something a bit more like grief. And I’m not sure that grief ever entirely goes away, but it does soften with time to a more manageable size imho.

But we all also know that you will not always feel exactly how you do today and send you our biggest hugs.

[Pivoine]

Thank you for your advice and questions. I know I need to stop focusing on what he’s doing, analyzing what he says or doesn’t say. I also know that time is the key. My detachment is well underway, but it’s not complete. I oscillate between hope and despair. I have faith in the process because I’ve gone through the same process myself, though without infidelity. My "band-aids" were more intellectual pursuits and sports… I needed to keep my mind busy, and I mostly dealt with uncontrollable anger.

I know what he’s experiencing, even though he has crossed the line by going to live with the other woman. I know everything; I’ve read and reread about HB and HS. But the fatigue of this situation can be heavy at times.

I saw some friends again last night, and I realized that I exist without him… that’s already a big step. My social relationships have been strained by his behavior and lies, but friends are starting to notice that he lies a lot and that he’s lying to himself as well.
thanks for your support and advices.

[readytofixmyselffirst]

Hello,

I know I need to stop focusing on what he’s doing, analyzing what he says or doesn’t say. I also know that time is the key.

Yes, time is the key- for you! I can not speak for your H. I don't know him and he is not asking for my advice. He is on his own journey. While  MLCers provide the background story. The forum is really about your journey to recovery from the trauma he has inflicted on you.

I oscillate between hope and despair.

Well stated and completely understandable. In my situation, it was very hopeful and complete despair. However, the emotional connection of both feelings keep you from detaching. Detachment is not giving up or feelings of apathy. Instead, detachment is opening yourself up to all possible outcomes knowing that you will be fine regardless. Be open to the idea of his return, but live as if he is never coming back.

but friends are starting to notice that he lies a lot and that he’s lying to himself as well.

Yes, MLCers are very good at lying and they lie to themselves most of all.

Keep the focus on you and your health and know that you are doing very well.

(((Ready)))

[Pivoine]

I’m wondering and was hoping you could shed some light on this for me. I went through my own crisis—I’m not hiding that. So now, he’s the second one in our couple to enter the MLC process. I can’t seem to find an answer in any of the writings. Does the second spouse to fall into a crisis have a longer, more intense, or irreversible crisis?

He still holds resentment toward me. He keeps reminding me of how much he suffered during my crisis… so does that mean he’ll never forget and never forgive?

I know, I overthink things too much…

[Pivoine]

thanks for your support @readytofixmyselffirst

Sometimes I fell good, really, but  even if I trust into the process, It's a difficult road....
I'm fed up with lies.
Actually, if I’m kind, he says, “She’s being nice to make me come back.” If I set boundaries, three months later, I get a nasty remark. If I do something, it’s wrong; if I do nothing, it’s wrong too. I’m at my wit’s end with these games. He confides in a friend, criticizing the other woman, but he stays with her because they share the rent. They’re really just using each other.

And me in all this? I leave them alone, I give them space, I don’t initiate any contact with him—it’s always him who sends me messages. Sometimes I reply, sometimes I don’t. I’ve set boundaries, and I don’t see him anymore because I can’t stand witnessing his suffering or enduring his hurtful words.

I know I need to focus on myself, and I’m making progress, but I don’t know how to deal with him anymore. I’m planning to apply for a one-month mission in Mayotte, and I hope I get selected. It would give me some distance from him and help me find myself again.

Sorry for venting… just a tough down moment.

[MadLuv]

I think in life we all go through a transition, but those with more unaddressed issues go through a crisis. Each is unique to them and how long they last is unique to what they need to resolve and how willing they are to look within themselves. So, in my opinion there is no way of knowing.

My XH never took his things. I had to pack them up. Even his clothes. He also has been going through this for over 15 years. Some will never get through it.

You’re in pain because you are normal. You will heal, because you can feel this pain and you are reading and asking and researching to find your answers. That is all healthy and normal. It took me 2 years before I felt leas unhinged and 3 before I accepted where I was in total and found a way to start to move forward. Time truly is the only answer for the LBS. Sometimes I am mad about that wasted time, but in the end we have so much growth and we work on our own issues, but the biggest thing is we learn to love ourselves more and we truly do become the strongest version of ourselves.

I divorced quickly because he was willing to sign off on so much. BD to divorce final was 90 days. I figured out what I needed to survive no matter what and I asked for it.  The best thing my lawyer told me was “ if he will sign this then you will never do better. If he gets healthy and you can work things out you can always get remarried, but you will never get this deal again”