[Thundarr]

LOLOL!!!  I needed that today!

Maybe you could paint a face on him and start working projecting a personality on him.  LOL again!

[SpecialK]

Lol - wicked! I love it! Puts a different perspective on 'pull my nightie down when you've finished'  I work with a guy named Bob - puts him in a different light

SK x

[Thundarr]

! Puts a different perspective on 'pull my nightie down when you've finished'
SK x

 

[TrustingMyHP]

LG, that's the best laugh I've had in an age!  You and Mamma Bear keep me smilin'.

I wanted to tell you, also, how much I appreciated your last post on this thread.  You said, much more succinctly, what I was trying to say in my earlier post about the gift of, and need for, time to heal.

As we all accept the MLCer needs time to process and go through their journey, we, too, must accept that we need time, perhaps just as much as the MLCer until we'll be emotionally and spiritually ready to go forward with our intimate relationship lives.

I get tempted, and even some people close to me urge me (most interestingly my own D,) to begin to "reach out."  I've gone to SeniorPeopleMeet and looked around. 

But the answer is not there or in any romantic relationship--at this time.  That would be no better than what my H has done which is to use the power and intensity of a romantic relationship to mask his depression/pain.

The only way out is through. (D*** it!)

TMHP

[SpecialK]

T I was messing - it's an expression an x friend of mine used in ref to her h - they are now divorced!

[SpecialK]

This is a very thought provoking topic. I for one thought at one time moving on meant finding someone else. I've since learnt that is isn't the answer. As OP pointed out in an earlier post, it's not fair on the other person.  We need time to grieve, heal, work on ourselves etc. I know we are all different - I have friends say that the only way to get over him is to find someone else! For me it's not the answer. I have learnt that we are responsible for our own happiness.

My parents were almost married 50 yrs when my Dad died, 6 yrs on and she's not at all interested in another relationship. Whereas a work colleage lost his wife just over a year ago - shortly after she died he joined a dating agency, found someone else and has been with her ever since. Must admit I find it hard to get my head round that but like I say everyone is different.

SK xx

[TrustingMyHP]

SK, A friend told me a saying a while back that summed up a phenomena I've seen a number of times in my life: 

"Women mourn, men replace."

TMHP

[TrustingMyHP]

Lest I've offended any of the wonderful men on this site by my last post, I want to state that the saying is of course, a general one.  We all know exceptions to it, I'm sure.

My father was widowed at age 74.  He lived to be 87 and never looked at another woman.  He was definately a one woman guy.  I also have a good friend who was widowed at age 47.  He waited 5 years before remarrying. 

TMHP

[Rollercoasterider]

I want to go on record to say that I strongly disagree with the letter from the lady from the other site. We are not made to be monogamous? Excuses, excuses.

I disagreed with several points in that letter. The line about men and women not being made to remain monogamous made me want to scream.

Rachel is correct, as a species wer are not designed for monogamy. It is pretty obvious we are not monogamous. We—many of us—want to be and we try to be—but if we were monogamous this forum would not exist. Monogamy is about biology. It does not mean we can choose to be monogamous. She said it is work—and you who dealing with your spouse’s infidelities doubt that?

That is not an excuse; it’s truth.
And for the record, I have never felt Rachel was MLC. Their split was mutual as well as amicable.

There is temptation in the world, but people can be extremely happy by not giving in to it. So, she and her H decided they would be happier getting D'ed so they could sleep with other people? Good for them. It makes me wonder if they both may be still in some sort of MLC.

She was not MLC then and it seems that you either do not know her story or you are reading into the words of someone whose beliefs are different than your own and using those differences to diagnose MLC. She and her husband remarried each other and we both support the Coalition for Divorce Reform and its Parental Divorce Reduction Act.

I won't judge them, but still I think she should speak only for herself and not generalize her beliefs to the overall population.

But it sounds like that’s what you are doing.

And how about her countless attempts to say that they never used the word abandoned? Hmm... maybe that made her feel better, but I doubt her children would agree.

It was not about her children. She and her husband mutually agreed to end their marriage. Now it is about the children—and each other—because they have since learned about the detrimental effects of divorce on children.

Here is what I told her a few minutes ago in an email.
These feelings of being abandoned bring up a lot of defensiveness in the Left Behind Spouses (LBSs). Their spouses are cheating and often flaunting it and they are blaming them for everything. And the LBSs feel they did nothing wrong. Maybe they didn't, but it doesn't mean they were perfect and did eright either--their wrongs were not marriage breakers.
I think maybe they took offense because you said it implies blame. I agree with you that it does. It's one reason I don't like to say abandoned spouses and call them left behind spouses instead. And yet I also admit that I would have blamed Sweetheart for a divorce. But I don't mean that in a grudge holding way either, I mean that it was his divorce and I feel the person actively trying to end the marriage should own their responsibility for it. That doesn't mean I was blameless in breaking pieces of it, but I would not take blame for ending it. If something is broke, fix it.

You guys in this forum are examples of unilateral divorce. 80% of divorces are unilateral. Rachel’s divorce was not unilateral. As for how her children felt about it…here is part of her letter; the emphasis is mine.

We also never considered me as having ‘abandoned’ him or the children, as—at the time—we thought that our very close proximity and friendship would simply make our family bigger. We truly believed that to be the case, and I still believe we would have come close.

She broke up a marriage and a family. She left her husband. That sure seems like abandonment to me whether she wants to call it that or not.

No, she and her husband agreed to break up their marriage; they left each other. Abandonment is unilateral. They abandoned their vows by mutual agreement.

She needs to take responsibility for her leaving and not using a certain word just because she would feel judged if others used it is pretty immature.

She and her husband have reconciled and she is working to educate people about the damages of divorce. Sounds like she’s taking responsibility and beyond to me.

I wonder if she has ever heard of the word covenant. Lifelong vows. For better or for worse until death parts us. She does not have a God given right to pursue her own happiness while destroying her family and the lives of her innocent children.

Maybe she doesn’t have a God given right to anything—you are placing your belief systems over someone else. I don’t know her religious or spiritual beliefs, but I will defend her right to them. Not everyone believes marriage is a covenant and not all couples make their marriage a covenant. Not everyone is Christian and there is nothing wrong with that.

I may wish they did—not saying I wish that or that I don’t. But what I wish is irrelevant.

Maybe she needs to learn the art of self control. She made a commitment.

And she renewed that commitment.

I thought that letter was totally bizarre. I didn't get it at all.

The lack of empathy for what the effects of what sounded like that ghastly 60s fad of wife-swapping were doing to the unfortunate children of these families was chilling. Sorry, but what she was advocating was child abuse.

Wife swapping, yes. My thought this morning was that it seemed much like the modern-day swinger lifestyle. Totally gross and disrespectful to each other if you ask me. Selfishness to the core.

The only references I see to swinger and wife-swapping are from your responses to her letter. Rachel said she made a joke and you ran with it. It’s okay if you don’t find it funny and ironic that the woman who Rachel referred to as the OW was that same friend. She had an OM too. Some of you have done the same thing. Some of you admit you will date when your divorces are final. And yet you are condeming another person for doing something you admit you will do if the situation gets to that point?

You are commenting as though she was doing these things and encouraging these things while married.

First of all.... I'm SO GLAD that I'm not the only one who finds this woman Rachel's letter to be utterly ridiculous justification to try and make what she and her husband did to their marriage OK!!

Rachel does not think it was okay. She is likely more liberal than most of us here regarding marriage and vows, but she no longer thinks divorce should be so easy.

So how many of you are familiar with Rachel’s story—she tells it in her first blog post at her blog on Psychology today?

From the letter I posted here you can surmise she divorced and remarried her husband and that both of them had relationships with other people. He was in a relationship with a friend of Rachel’s and she states it was a year old when the divorce was final. So her husband had a relationship while they were legally married. Her relationship did not become physical until after her divorce was final. And yet I saw a lot of you bashing Rachel and saying nothing about her spouse. Some people separate and divorce is just a legal completion. Not us here, we don’t want to be divorced and thus we are choosing to recongize ourselves as married even when our spouses do not share that view.


Rachel doesn’t share all of your views either. You want to reconcile with your spouses—people who do not share your views, people who are not sharing your religious belies, who are feeling doubt and who are turning away.

When your spouses turn again it may not be toward their former beliefs. They may find new spiritually healthy beliefs—they may be Christian but different than what they were before, or they may choose something else.

See how easy it is to throw stones?
You throw stones at the alienators whose sins are no worse than those of your own spouses and yet you want to forgive and reconcile with one and stone (metaphorically in most cases) the other.
Wow, where’s the Grace in that?

MLCers who return are broken; they don’t usually come back whole and healed. You will get back uncertain men and women who feel shame and guilt and who may have also made some new and exciting changes and discoveries on the journey. You might not like those changes—and I’m not talking about the negative Replay behavior. They may have some new ideas that frighten you and some of you will turn away from reconiliation at that point. But some of you will still want to reconcile.

Standers are Standing for sinners, men and women who no longer meet their standards of appropriate behaviors, and who may no longer hold congruent or complementary beliefs…and yet you still are Standing.

So how fair is your condemnation of Rachel?

Please invite folks to not mistake our clarity, peace, healing and understanding of our experience with being defensive or justifying what they see as their stories. We have a healed and more truthful awareness of what happened to us than those stories allow for. If our truth and peace makes them so uncomfortable, I hope they’ll look at that and ask why.

I will admit I am a bit nervous posting that because of which portions of her statement you will pummel with stones. Her ending is a reconciled marriage—the same thing you want. Her life and beliefs and means of peace may not be the life you seek for yourselves, but that does not mean it is inappropriate, entitled, defensive, justifying or selfish.

[LettingGo]

I did read her original Psychology Today article. Maybe it is her tone that grates on me.... maybe it is her style. You are right, I am judging. Instead of judging, I'd like to say that I truly believe it is her and her husband's right to live their lives how they see fit, however, the article still comes across to me as baloney.... Again, maybe it's just her style of relating her story that I don't like. I also guess that even with my sense of humor, I'm shocked her husband was having a relationship with her friend and she seemed fine with it. I really can't relate to that one....

We all know that humans aren't biologically designed for monogamy. But the affairs our spouses are having are all about RUNNING and REPLACING and EMOTIONAL BONDING, and purely selfish behavior. Fine for consenting adults, but there are kids involved... and for a lot of us, we are seeing a recreation of the SAME abandonment that we felt as children of divorce... yet our spouses are doing these same things that hurt them so badly! It is hard to see it in my own kids' eyes....

I'm glad Rachel and her husband have changed their opinion on the effects of divorce... I did get that from her first article, but they don't owe me agreement with my opinions or values, and I don't owe them agreement with theirs. I don't know her personally, and I'm sure she's a wonderful person based on your friendship alone, but I still don't like the article.