[ArmySpouse]

Simple rule is usually if their is another person anywhere around they are still in REPLAY or ESCAPE and Avoid.

 So do you figure usually does not stay in their life past that stage is that correct ?

 Because I read another article that when they had entered "liminality" ( The stage after separation which includes escape and avoid )- that usually they do not drag The affair into that stage..
 however if they do , then it could be that they will end up marrying the person because they see no other option of getting rid of them or maybe are into deep into a commitment ..??
 Or They don't know how to get rid of them ..
 Or even saying I don't want to be alone I rather have them before I have no one ..?

 Is that anybody's experience ?

[Absolutely Fabulous]

Short answer: yes.

[ArmySpouse]

Short answer: yes.
[/quote
 ... .. So they do sometimes? Get dragged along I mean..

[kikki]

Sadly yes, these are all potentials.
While we're all dealing with MLC, each person is an individual and their response and handling of it towards the end of their crisis will be as individual as each one of us is.
Just as it is up to each LBS whether the door will even be open to their MLCer.
Tends to depend on the longevity and amount of destruction the MLCer manages to create.

But we hear stories of people getting back together after enormously long periods of time, such as 14 years.  Anything is a possibility and depends on the two people involved. 

But rest assured, if a MLCer chooses to say with the OW/OM, then that relationship will most likely be one of extreme dysfunction, immaturity and selfishness.
If they don't come out the other side of this thing, then sadly, they will be difficult for us to have back in our lives anyway. 
If they do, and we are willing to try to reconcile, then great.  But that's no walk in the part according to those that have reconciled either.

We just don't know, which is why all we can do is pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and live the best lives that we can without them.  Whether they can catch up to us, time will tell.

[ArmySpouse]

Sadly yes, these are all potentials.
While we're all dealing with MLC, each person is an individual and their response and handling of it towards the end of their crisis will be as individual as each one of us is.
Just as it is up to each LBS whether the door will even be open to their MLCer.
Tends to depend on the longevity and amount of destruction the MLCer manages to create.

But we hear stories of people getting back together after enormously long periods of time, such as 14 years.  Anything is a possibility and depends on the two people involved. 

But rest assured, if a MLCer chooses to say with the OW/OM, then that relationship will most likely be one of extreme dysfunction, immaturity and selfishness.
If they don't come out the other side of this thing, then sadly, they will be difficult for us to have back in our lives anyway. 
If they do, and we are willing to try to reconcile, then great.  But that's no walk in the part according to those that have reconciled either.

We just don't know, which is why all we can do is pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and live the best lives that we can without them.  Whether they can catch up to us, time will tell.

 I agree on that one.. I just had him pick up the kids and he was fine around me wearing the wedding band (however not mine it's something new for the last three months and I think there's a different meening with the other woman involved like they already feeling like married) .. Because usually when he comes along to my house he doesn't wear a ring at all . In fact every time I ask him in the past  where my wedding band is the one from us he says he doesn't know where it is he lost it ..

 that's why I'm wondering if he already at this point didn't already make a commitment ??which I know means nothing -because that's just a stage she's in and come a year or two it will be totally different or maybe not ..

I agree however on one thing :that a relationship like this will never survive.
 it's just built out of misery and deceit and lies and unhappiness for the other person that was left so suddenly ...that there is no way something like this can ever be happy or successful in the long..
 in my case my Inlaw family all of them are very supportive of me and I know that they will never except her in their life anyways! so sooner or later he will realize that this woman is never welcomed but again he's a teenager right now that doesn't see anything ..

[kikki]

a relationship like this will never survive.
 it's just built out of misery and deceit and lies and unhappiness for the other person that was left so suddenly ...that there is no way something like this can ever be happy or successful in the long..

Absolutely true. 

Glad to hear your in-laws are supportive, that is more often not the case.

At around the two year mark I noticed my MLCer wearing a ring, but not on his ring finger.
When he saw me looking at it, he got very agitated and after a few minutes he took it off and slipped it into his pocket.

After that, I noticed a chain around his neck and rings hanging from them - he was never a necklace wearer pre-crisis.  He keeps them tucked inside his shirts, so the rings can't be seen, but must be enough to placate the OW. 

[ArmySpouse]

a relationship like this will never survive.
 it's just built out of misery and deceit and lies and unhappiness for the other person that was left so suddenly ...that there is no way something like this can ever be happy or successful in the long..

Absolutely true. 

Glad to hear your in-laws are supportive, that is more often not the case.

At around the two year mark I noticed my MLCer wearing a ring, but not on his ring finger.
When he saw me looking at it, he got very agitated and after a few minutes he took it off and slipped it into his pocket.

After that, I noticed a chain around his neck and rings hanging from them - he was never a necklace wearer pre-crisis.  He keeps them tucked inside his shirts, so the rings can't be seen, but must be enough to placate the OW.

Oh no he got that ring about a week after he got home from his latest deployment in Germany and he ordered it and he said "there's a ring coming I ordered it for my collection" ( he collected World War II stuff -  yet that ring has like Irish stuff on it )..
 so when it came in the mail he put it on right away and he said "I like this better than the wedding band"..  I said that it doesn't have any history with me and I would rather him telling me that he wanted that so I would've bought it for him so again it would've had some history for both of us and it would've been a gift ...

Anyways he just wore that ring from then on and after we moved 3 weeks later, all of a sudden my original wedding band was lost and he starts wearing that one ...but on the other hand that he would've worn it for me ..(he always wore his wedding band on the right ring finger as Europeans do and I wore my wedding band on the left hand as Americans do... But all of the sudden he wears his wedding band on the left side instead on the right side ..- so I know this has nothing to do with me ..)

 And sometimes he doesn't wear it at all and he says it does feel like being married and then all of a sudden he wears it again ?!? Yet like I said it is not my ring ... Very strange

[ArmySpouse]

 So please move me if this question already exists ..

 if your midlife crises spouse says that they "love the other person" :

what kind of love is it ??

1)is it the same love that if they had with you at the very beginning or is it an altered state of love and they perceive it as love but it's not ..
 2)Can it be really deep love ( or that I just think it is but it's not )??
3) Can it become real love ?

and if it's not how can you kind of describe it ..? Or explain..

 The way that I understand it and please correct me if I'm wrong ,  is that it is a love made out of a need and out of perception and infatuation .. Somebody else (OW/OM) fills a need and he/she thinks he's in love ..

 Is that correct or is there more to it ?

[31andcounting]

ArmySpouse,  I can only answer based on what my H said to me.  We are reconciled and honestly have not talked too much about his love for OW2.  I have not idea what he "felt" for OW1 as I was unaware of her, unaware of his crisis until OW2 was in the picture.  All I know about OW1 was he ended it as he thought it was about to become a PA rather than the EA that it was.
While he was with OW2, he actually said to me, I LOVE HER,  she is the person that I want to talk with and be with....
but after the tunnel, after he came through he said, I NEVER LOVED HER.  So to me that said that he was merely infatuated with her and with the idea of her and a life with her.   I do not feel he loved her, it was more of an addiction to her.
Not sure if that helps....
31andcounting

[Albatross]

Ditto 31 ! Your husband project own anima in that OW2, so he idealized her when he were in FOG, after he go out from MLC  FOG and projection go away and reality kicks in.