[Anjae]

One day I hope to find someone capable of a more mature and true type of love, one that is not based purely on a hormonal response and a desire for no emotional responsibility.

I second that. Noticed your MLCer is on his mid 30's jist like my husband was at BD. My husband went for e 30 years old woman and OW2 was also on her 30's. None of them was on their early 20's but I suspect that their maturity was as regressed as my husband's one at the time.

The irony is, at 17, when we meet, he was very mature for his age. He would have not put up with a woman like OW1 or OW2. He could have if he wanted. There were several like them at school. He never liked that sort of woman. MLC really changes everything.

[Trustandlove]

This is now a few pages ago, but to reply to OP, it doesn't put a different twist on her MLC, but it seems it's her decision not to reconcile, rather than her H's -- we talk here a lot about it eventually being the decision of the LBS.  So it seems her H didn't get to choose, as we say so many eventually do. 

So it seems that while she may regret her actions during MLC (which she seems to do), she still doesn't want to go back to her H. 

I didn't notice anything about children, so that doesn't seem to be an issue.

I agree, the insight into her crisis itself remains the same. 

[BraveNewWorld]

This insight from a woman in MLC was interesting to me too. It would have been a neat and tidy package had they reconciled and we could point at a 'success' case. There seems little in this that is neat and tidy though.

Early on after bomb-drop for me, I joined another online group. There, briefly I exchanged emails with a woman that told me she had come out of MLC. She had married another man, after first going through an emotional affair. She had walked away from her own family to assume a wife/step mother position in a new family with two young daughters. She was on the other forum because after two years of marriage, she was torn and agonized.

She had realized that her own children no longer wanted her in their lives. She had grandchildren that she was not in the lives of. She had realized that she loved her first husband. He had moved on ( she didn't say what this meant - whether he had a new relationship or whether he didn't want to be with her ). She was in a lot of pain, but said she was determined to make this new family work - to not destroy another family. Her words to me were that my wife wouldn't know where she was when she comes out of this crisis.

You know it's virtual reality in some ways. All of these recollections and forums - while they're real lives, the writing is edited parts of stories that we hear just one side of. You don't really know what is happening in people's marriages. It turned out that we didn't know what was happening in our own! But because of our experiences, we can relate to the stories.

And they are real too. Real 'left behind spouses', real spouses leaving marriages, real [ choose your own word ] alienators, real children.

There is no formula, but there appears to be a pattern.

The consistent pattern at the beginning is that there is a sudden, unexpected change from a spouse, frequently associated with an affair, followed by blame, and then separation. Then there is a time lapse, while a big percentage of our lives goes on in some form. Then inconsistency. Some of our spouses remarry, have new children, move away, or 'vanish'. Some of us LBSs do the same.

Some of us reconcile. Some of us hope for that.

The certain thing for me is that my wife quitting on our marriage, finding more value in another man, sharing our children was absolutely not what I would have expected from her. And another certain thing is that it completely knocked me out of orbit. I've been trying to get back into orbit ever since. It isn't the same orbit, and I have big wobbles that change it from time to time.

I can see reasons for my wife to be unhappy with me. On the other hand, I listen closely to friends, relations and co-workers, and I don't think our family was so different from theirs.

I think it helps to see patterns - to hear some kind of consistency that there comes a time of realization for at least some 'MLCers' - from the cases we've seen - like RcR, HB, Stayed, DGU's friend, AmyC, the woman I talked to.

I believe that the mystery I experienced when this first began was real. It didn't add up. My wife told me it didn't for her either. She told me that she didn't know how she could just throw it all away. It was genuinely a mystery at that time to us both. And because that was a real mystery, and because it has been unreal in a lot of ways since then, I believe that our story hasn't finished.

I'm not sure what the outcome, and at the moment it doesn't feel optimistic for reconciliation, but I would be grateful for a realization at least like Amy, or the woman that I spoke to.

I think the damage is permanent too - at least the wounds will heal, but the scars will remain. Deep wounds, visible scarring.

And - change. If this hadn't happened, I wouldn't be running a half marathon, be learning a new language, be a happy vegetarian, helping a global charity, or be playing guitar and singing to crowds of people. Surviving, and making new goals. I'd give all that up to have a whole family, but it makes me at least see some of the potential in myself that I didn't see before.

I read some of Amy's writing too - she mentioned at one point that she wised up after an accident, and that her husband 'stood' until he had to stop for his own sanity ( I recall ). I don't know what that meant - she didn't explain. I think her realizations about that time fit for me. That helps a bit. Every scrap of hopeful realization helps me in this.

bnw

[OldPilot]

This is now a few pages ago, but to reply to OP, it doesn't put a different twist on her MLC, but it seems it's her decision not to reconcile, rather than her H's -- we talk here a lot about it eventually being the decision of the LBS.  So it seems her H didn't get to choose, as we say so many eventually do. 

So it seems that while she may regret her actions during MLC (which she seems to do), she still doesn't want to go back to her H. 

I didn't notice anything about children, so that doesn't seem to be an issue.

I think she and her husband did reconcile, although I do not believe they were divorced.
Then he had his own MLC, which included him being an alcoholic and he was not giving that up.

She wanted to go back to her husband and I do not believe she wanted him back as an alcholic,
just like none of us here want our spouses back while they are with an OW.

Her son was a teenager at the time and now he just went into the army.

[Thundarr]

Very well stated, BNW.  I feel I am one of the most guilty of falling into false hopes and reading into things I should not.  I don't know why I can't just quit and move on, and sometimes I curse myself for finding this site and LT as I would likely have already moved on if not for my belief in the knowledge I've gained.  Is it real or are we all just followers of a flawed and mistaken belief system based in our own denial?  I don't know, but I hope for more stories to end happily regardless of whether we are correct or not.

[Trustandlove]

Thanks for the explanation, OP.

And BNW, that was very well put.  You're right -- each of our situations is actually a real life, and it's a lot more complicated and untidy than can be written on any forum.

[kikki]

and sometimes I curse myself for finding this site and LT as I would likely have already moved on if not for my belief in the knowledge I've gained.  Is it real or are we all just followers of a flawed and mistaken belief system based in our own denial?  I don't know, but I hope for more stories to end happily regardless of whether we are correct or not.

Thundarr - our family counsellor, who is also a psychotherapist - says that this is something that he sees reasonably frequently.  In his experience, some people pop out the other end of it, and some don't - they remain stuck. 

[OldPilot]

and sometimes I curse myself for finding this site and LT as I would likely have already moved on if not for my belief in the knowledge I've gained.  Is it real or are we all just followers of a flawed and mistaken belief system based in our own denial?  I don't know, but I hope for more stories to end happily regardless of whether we are correct or not.

Thundarr - our family counsellor, who is also a psychotherapist - says that this is something that he sees reasonably frequently.  In his experience, some people pop out the other end of it, and some don't - they remain stuck.

Well Thundarr if I was DGU or RCR I would say

TRUST THE PROCESS.

and

MLC TAKES TIME.

[hyperglad]

and to add to OP's post...eve when they come home it still takes time

[xyzcf]

and sometimes I curse myself for finding this site and LT as I would likely have already moved on if not for my belief in the knowledge I've gained.  Is it real or are we all just followers of a flawed and mistaken belief system based in our own denial?  I don't know, but I hope for more stories to end happily regardless of whether we are correct or not.

3 years into this and the same feeling remains as in the beginning. I did not fall out of love with my husband, he left me..this was all his decision.

So where am I then? Do I change my core values that believe that marriage is a sacrament that cannot be broken? Because he changed his?

I am finding myself...alone..it is very very lonely but I don't think another person will be able to fill that void anyway. MLC or not doesn't really change things for me. I still have to live each day.

The theory of MLC does explain and help me to heal...it removes our marriage as the cause of what has happened so I don't beat myself up that somehow this is my fault.

Thundaar, I am moving on regardless of my marital status. Bit by bit, it's not the life I want really, it's not the life I had planned on but I do not feel stuck. I was in the first 2 years perhaps unable to see a life without him...but reality has a way of hitting you and the memory of life as it used to be is growing dim.

If nothing else, MLC allows me to hope that we may get another chance. So I'd rather have that little bit of hope than have that totally removed. It doesn't stop me from living.