[ArmySpouse]

 As far as looks:
- I have been told she's as tall as me (and I'm 6 foot) ,
- from pictures she looks a little bit more chubby (granted I lost 40 pounds doing this whole ordeal to say that I never was overweight but being 6 foot I had a healthy normal weight ), 
-she has blonde long hair (which I initially did too, when we were dating now it is all short and dark here due to maintenance)
-  I still think I am more attractive  then her ...by the way her tooth is crooked and that's the front one ..
- she has small boobs (which on one comment early he said something like my boobs were  shrinking (weight loss) then I said "why do you care" and he said "of course I care " and then he said "your butt gets smaller too" and I said "since when are you A butt person" and he said "I like smaller boobs- you know like a handful" well that's what she has .. Sure buddy.. My 36DD never bothered you)

 So there's no coincidence other than I have been told the girl he was dating before were all blondes ..so he stuck to that scheme ...

 I think in the end it boils down  to : she was willing and available ..
 Easy to get and not a lot of energy and easy to manipulate and control.

 So I honestly do not know how she is I can't put my finger on it and I think I will probably never find out . It could possibly be his mother... because his mom is a very strong and independent person same like me that's why I think he got attracted to me ..however a person like that must be really weak to be rescued ..
 

[Hopeful Romantic]

I believe the OP has characteristics of the parent these people have the big FOO issue with.  It is one of the things that subconsciously draws them to the person.

After all MLC is a series of patterns and stages, that repeat and repeat until the MLC person finally moves.  Some of the stages are actually repeats of mini stages within the bigger stage.  Some loop back over and over like a car that keeps going around the block because it misses its turn off.  Until the car finally gets it right.

I know i was supposed to stop reading LP, being a newbie and all, but I believe the exact same thing! I was telling my bff that there are three possible endings to this.

1- He figures out his childhood crap and realizes other people cannot make you happy, it has to come from within. If this happens, he dumps her fat ass (thank you to my friend at the gathering saturday for saying that  ).

2- He doesn't figure it out, still thinks that others are supposed to bring about his happiness, and does to her what he did to me when she stops "making him happy", and finds someone else and dumps her ass

3- Remains status quo. He is so deep in his crap that he doesn't want to find a way out, and remains in this with her forever because he has burnt all bridges and feels he has no choice but to suck it up. They live miserably ever after.

After that, it didn't only suck to be her saturday night, it will suck to be her forEVER!

Ah well...I've heard Karma is a bit of a b*tch...

Also, some of these women...wow. Pass the popcorn this way please!!

[Blackhen]

From my experience I would agree that the OW can represent their parent and also that the MLCer “recognises” themselves in the OW.

OW#1 was 35 years younger and a lowly subordinate on a job with aspirations of making it in his industry. Others on the job described her as talented, ruthless and emotionally immature. Over the two weeks of the job, she also hit on several older men. She threw an emotional paddy at a party the team had for her birthday (he told me she “got upset” from something someone said) and ran away into the moonlight. DB followed her to “see if she was ok” and that’s where apparently it all began. DB later described her as having been badly treated all her life by people who didn’t understand her, "having had her wings clipped" and being treated by her family without love.

She got pregnant 3 months into their extremely secretive affair. She had an abortion, and then flew away for ever, professing undying love for him and calling herself his “wife” in letters she wrote to him at the time. Just before she left he introduced her to his youngest two children. His oldest two already knew her because they are in the same industry, and his middle two I don’t know if they knew her or not. His mother only knew about her cos I told her. He was very depressed after she left but in true MLC fashion was all over me like a rash.

Over the next more than a year he tried to resurrect their relationship, flying across the world to see her especially for a month, 6 months later, after which he told me she was  “in a very sad state from which I doubt she’ll ever recover” and said he wished to reconcile with me. This wish lasted 3 days and it is after this I think he hooked up with OW#2 , who had been hanging around him for some time. Three months later he again visited OW#1, spending a week with her en route home from a job. Six months later in May this year he spent three days in her city, again en route from somewhere else, but I am pretty sure he didnt even see her. After this trip he told me she didn’t want a bar of him.

Recently he has said he was attracted to OW#1 because she was as damaged as he was and in similar ways. He said she was like the female side of him.

Overlapping with the gradual demise of this affair, he had hooked up with OW#2, and I think she is playing the next part in the working out of his childhood trauma. She is an alcoholic, vacant brained loser with a drunken abuser family of origin, a failed, abusive marriage and four adult alcoholic/druggie loser/abuser sons, who continually hit her up for money, alcohol, cigarettes and food and have drunken brawls and smash up her house. OW#2’s youngest son (20) and the oldest (30) and his wife are currently living with her. She was born, brought up, schooled and lived with her exH in DB's childhood town and country area and has never lived anywhere else. When she was younger she was the town bike. Now she is the town drunk that everyone feels sorry for, renowned for not being quite "all there”. When DB hooked up with her she was actually living in her childhood home, (looking after her dying father, who had dementia) just down the street from DB’s mother, who still lives in his childhood home. DB's mother is disabled with arthritis and other ailments but is still a big drinker (OW#2 managed to get a job through the local health service helping her in her home and has become her BFF, carting her off drinking every Friday night! ) DB's father died 15 years ago - he was a drunken maniac who beat his mother and him and his seven siblings and I also suspect may have sexually abused his sisters.

You can’t make this $h!te up!

OW#2 is also similar in some ways to his first wife, who he deserted with three children, for a younger woman - he has always professed huge amounts of shame and guilt for this.  She was a local country girl and his high school sweetheart, but a clean living Christian. OW#2, incidentally, went to the same school, although 7 years behind them, so he never knew her at school. She is a train wreck that calls to his Knight in shining armour and he has done many things to help her and her sons, while professing disgust and derision about her, her family and her way of life (needless to say he has kept their R a total secret, even from his kids, who would not believe it if they knew, I suspect!)

I figure he has attracted this broken person as a projection in a bid to heal the trauma at his core, as she inspires the desperate responsibility and pity that he must have felt for his mother and siblings (he is the oldest child). I doubt he is aware of this.

He has told me outright that he is not happy, and also that he "can't seem to stop drinking."

That last is probably what has got him in this latest mess but it was still his choice. It’s like he is trapped inside the mirror, stuck back in his childhood, surrounded by drunks, abusers and victims.

Since I've had confirmation of their PA I console myself with thinking that she is playing an important role in his healing, and there's nothing now to do but get on with my life and let them work it out. It will eventually end in tears, there is no doubt, and that is where he needs to go right now.

[in it]

This ex ow is pretty firetrucked up and he always seems to think he's got it all figured out and together so he's the "savior".

He admitted to me in an email. She wasn't the woman he thought she was and she was sadly not very tightly screwed together.

I TRIED to tell him she was a whack job  before the divorce but he would not..what's the word??... LISTEN.

Also referred to me as being a wrong turn.

He emailed me once and said her childhood was 10 times worse than mine was. I'm sure she turned up the WAHH WAHH exaggerations on that. So I guess that was some attempt on his end to do what? Make me feel sorry for her?

She did prostitute from 14 until 22 in NYC. Her pimp got her pregnant then sent her back here to have the baby because she was "useless" She had a girl.

She steals she lies..they have that in common. I think she was the female version of him. Because it sure as hell isn't me.

I happened upon an old drivers license she left at the house when I went back up there. Her birthday is two days before mine..same year.

She doesn't look or act like me. She always fawned all over him whenever he and I happened to run into her. She would totally ignore me.

I used to think to myself "Can he see THIS?" The cow eyes.. the practically leaning into his chest gazing up at his face? I thought it was quite funny really. I didn't mention it I thought he could SEE how over the top she was being.

When he first met me my life was pretty much a mess..and took a pretty bad spiral down..he was involved in that happening. He played the same part in my life. Knight in shining Armour..smarter than me. I guess he thought he had helped "straighten me out" or some Gosh Darn thing.

He said once when we were laying in bed Post divorce.."I miss you" I told him I missed him too.

Come to find out I have no  idea who he was to begin with. Now I know he's a coward and a bully.

 I think he looked at me as being naive and stupid when he met me in my 20's.. He's 2 years younger than me and had not the quarter of the life experience I've had.

He's got that knight in shining armor complex. But refuses to see his own issues.

[Cdes40]

It's just too hard not to jump on this thread! My initial reaction when I found out who my H was having an A with was shock. She's uneducated, not ugly but not beautiful ( his words) and has a foul mouth. She's twice divorced and her last husband was physically abusive. She has 3 kids and her 19 year old daughter had 13 arrest records ( I googled her). OW also has a bunch of court records on file, hard to tell what for.. Looks like she likes to sue people. She's not much younger than my H, 4 years. So to sum it up, she's definitely an affair down. But low and behold, she owns a horse farm in a crappy town. My H has always wanted a farm. She teaches lessons and her Yelp reviews say 'buyer beware don't leave your horse here, owner is a b!tc# and always says she has no money.' Red flag for me.

Yes, yes, yes they affair down. I think MLCer feel like losers when things fall apart, possible prior to that and find someone who thinks they're great. Who better than a loser, we are too normal

[onlyjo]

hi all
it's so easy for the LBS to imagine that the MLCers and OW/OM are living lives of bliss, while back at the ranch, we, the LBSs are trying to piece our lives back together...

my MLCer's OW (now wife) is definitely an affair down.  no question.  i won't even go into it--a lot of it is on my thread. the MLCer, however, professed to me that she was "kind" "sweet" and something else--apparently the opposite of who i am.  i will give him this--no one has ever, or probably will ever, refer to me as "sweet"--"kind" yes--"sweet"--no.  no one with a mouth that can be as foul as mine can be categorized as "sweet" and i'm fine with that...

for years, the MLCer talked about how trashy and disgusting OW was (she was our neighbor).  then lo and behold, she's the dumsel in distress, and he needs to feel good about himself, so he's firetrucking her and "taking her away from it all"...go figure.

these MLCers know, somewhere down in their souls, that we, the LBSs, are the STRONG ones.  and we are.  we come through this awfulness--we don't run from it, we don't try to go around it--we plow THROUGH it. 

i cant help but think what LP said is true in the MLCer's case:

At first the relationship between the MLC man and the OW is electric.  He is fulfilling needs of hers by playing the knight in shining armour or such.  He is saving her.  She adores and worships him. fulfilling a need in him.  He is manic basically.  She feeds that.  MLC man appears to be addicted to her.  He wants to be with her all the time.  He thinks she is fun and free, bohemian, no pressure, no responsibilities.  He will spend and spend on her and himself.  He is desperate to have fun, to run, to begin his new life, to find and solidify a new identity and a new life.  He is going back in time, trying to get it right this time.  He is going deeper and deeper into replay. 

The OW feeds this devolving.  She is happy while he goes back to being a teenager.  She is more and more certain he is staying with her.  Yes, the wife still makes her insecure but she is getting a big return on her investment.  Perhaps he is paying her bills.  Perhaps he has helped her get raises and promotions at work.  Perhaps he is buying her presents or taking her traveling.  Perhaps he is filling her need for a father figure.  Whatever. 

But then over time, things shift and change for the MLC person and the OW.

The MLC man devolves.  He is not able to maintain the manic highs of the beginning.  The depression in him is growing.  He is becoming more forgetful.  Perhaps the money is running low.  The tidy sum he had tucked away is gone likely.  He may have lost his job or he has had a slap on the back of his head in the divorce arena.  The bills are piling up.  Pressure is rising.

In the meantime, the OW is taking over more.  She is tired of hearing about the wife.  She may be tired of being kept in the shadows.  She wants recognition as the victor in the war over H.  She wants to reap the benefits for her investment.  She wants acknowledgement and recognition from his friends and colleagues perhaps.  She may be pushing hard for marriage if Mr. MLC has not yet married her.  Perhaps she wants a house like the wife has.  She wants a return on her investment.

But the MLC man is still devolving.  In some ways she has to take control since he is just not quite capable and sharp right now.  More and more things fall to her to decide and take over responsibility for.  She is taking control of more and more things.  Perhaps it is his business.  Perhaps the checkbook.  Perhaps she tries to micro manage his social life and activities.  She lays down the law about any further ruminating about the ex-wife.  She makes more demands.  She is beginning to like being in the drivers seat.  And he is leaning hard on her.  She is the parent and he is childlike in many ways in his dependence on her.  This is where the addiction is thorough and even visible to others who really know him.  When she controls the decisions she makes naturally benefit her.  She didn't enter into this for nothing.  She wants a return on her investment.

By now, he has devolved about as far as he is going to and found no answers to his pain and confusion.  He yearns to be manic again like in the beginning.  He is restless.  He may be having flashes of anger and frustration with OW in private.  He may be withdrawing in to himself some.

OW knows that something is shifting.  She senses he needs some drama to help him become manic and in effect be able maintain the feed required for him to stay devolved and her in charge.  She casts about for that.  Why not the ex wife?  She was always good for drama to keep him manic.  Or how about an accidental pregnancy?  Or perhaps a new house?  She has to maintain her position.  She can't let him grow or slip all the way in to the big depression stage.   (Not that the OW is aware of this consciously)

But the more he is restrained the more he begins to resent her.  She is now in full parent mood.  Something inside him wants to learn and grow.  The hole inside him is not filled any longer by OW.  He is frustrated.  He withdraws some.  (Just like he did with the wife in the lead up stage 1 of MLC)

Frustration makes him angry.  (Ladies, remember the anger stage?)  Anger makes him mean.  But OW is also mad.  This is not what she bargained for.  She likes being in control.  She likes him dependent on her.  She is not supposed to be treated like the wife was after all she is special.  She is not (insert adjectives used to describe the wife at the beginning of the affair.)  She either gets him under control or its war.

it's like LP was a fly on the wall at my house before, during, and after BD, because the way she wrote it is EXACTLY what happened in my case, right down to the new house with OW...that's been recently; they moved far away and are currently living out on low rent lane...ha!

i also think the MLCer is one of those who will, as LP puts it:

loop back over and over like a car that keeps going around the block because it misses its turn off.

whether this means he's doomed to be a tunnel dweller is up to him. not me. 

at the end of the day, and knowing what i know about OW, absolutely she's an affair down.  and that's what the MLCer needed.  and if he's "happy" with that, so be it. i can't do much about it (other than HATE the fact that this lowlife is now a part of my children's lives).  if that's his "happy", i'm glad i'm not part of it.

after learning as much as i have about MLC and FOO issues and myself, i really cannot ever imagine a situation in which i would want to be with the MLCer again.  an acknowledgement of the fact that he really firetrucked things up would be nice but i'm not holding my breath. 

onlyjo

[dbpb]

Thought I would chime in here as I have been divorced very long time and ex is still with original OW. They have lived together beginning six weeks after divorce. No marriage plans per ex. My ex met her at a dance club[bar] when he was stationed out of state. They got paired up taking dance lessons, back when line dancing was so popular.

I know what she looks like but have never spoken to her. I do know that she was married once and divorced followed by another live in arrangement that had broken up before she met my ex. She is one yr older than him, is now a retired maortgage broker. She is wealth off because she owns many rental propreties. She has no children of her own.

My adult children do not particularly care for her, stating she is not very friendly, is kind of aloof and is nothing at all like me.
Over the yrs my ex and her do a lot of what I would call upper middle class lifestyle-they go on frequent trips, etc.

My kids noticed a change beginning in ex a couple of yrs ago-he seems to be more interested in being around his kids more and is enjoying being around grandkids when they are in town.

All of the kids say he and the OW have a strange relationship, but I don't know any specifics.
He and I get a long fairly well, but I have not gotten an apology for the affair and the leaving our marriage after 29 yrs wed.
I have also noticed  a change , more of who he used to be, but he is still pretty deep in replay.

[Seekingpatience]

Hi all 

This thread got me thinking about "affair down"/ lingering feelings of "not enough".

On the surface, the Parasite was obviously an "affair down" for a whole host of reasons. But there is the small voice that said/says " but that is what H wanted, what he risked/ continues to risk our M, our family for, so that's what H thinks/thought (values) more. Right?

This edited quote from another site gives insight gained by a LBS which to me was empowering at a time I needed the strength. Hope this helps someone else too.

After some time had passed, I realized that I was romanticizing and glamorizing what went on between him and OW.

I finally realized that it was OW who had never been enough. Had she been that fantastic, she wouldn't have been involved with WH to begin with. If she was enough, she wouldn't be playing the waiting game for someone else's husband. If she were enough, she wouldn't be someone that WH had to shower away and keep hidden or sneak around to be with. She wasn't. She was just as broken as he was.

With more time, I realized that it truly was WH that wasn't enough. I realized that WH had a bottomless void inside of him that no one could ever fill regardless of how many wives or OW he had. WH went through his days sucking the life and joy out of everyone around him in an attempt to fill that hole, and it was never enough. Back then, WH was unable to truly appreciate everything he had. He was too busy looking at what all he didn't have instead.

IC did a lot to help me realize that I am more than enough in both my marriage and in my own life. No, I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I like who I am. My attitude now is that if I am "not enough" for my WH, he is more than welcome to divorce me so that he is free to search for someone who is. And that would be his loss.

Just to add, this is the attitude of Parasite (posted on her social media), which is eerily echoed by  a lot of OWs/OMs! Maybe they have a script too.

Her MEME to live by:

"I am going to do what the F@@k I want
Because people are AssH@les
And will judge you anyway

To me that says "broken--stay out of the drama"

Peace and strength

[Stillpraying]

  I think in the end it boils down  to : she was willing and available ..
 Easy to get and not a lot of energy and easy to manipulate and control.

That really jumped out at me AS.

I think my exH just does NOT want the work involved in a true and healthy relationship.  When it's new, 'she' (including me) is easy.. Infatuation covers the faults.  There is fun and happiness.  But when the real world settles in and the arguments happen or stresses of life...then he get's 'sick' or runs away.  Does it to his mum and friends also.  It has to be EASY or he's out.  To him, conflict means there is something terribly wrong.  We should all agree on everything 

Hugs,
SP