[LettingGo]

Ready, I don't know how you do it without strangling her, for real! She is out of her mind, and you know it. No one who was sane would think they could carry on a "love affair" openly while married!! It's insane! Remembering something Newman said on his blog, that he never stopped loving his wife, he just DISPLACED her and carried on with OW. I just think you've been displaced... like she's sticking her fingers in her ears so as not to hear you. Well, you need to do that too so you don't have to look the affair in the face every day...

Have you ever considered asking her if she'd like you to buy her a ticket to the UK? I wonder if she would really follow through with the fantasy... I mean, OM hasn't sent  her a ticket.... she hasn't bought one herself, although, there have been issues about money for moving out  if I remember correctly? OM isn't planning any trips to the US, either... What is stopping her?

Maybe you should buy her a new piece of luggage for Christmas for her trip... just sayin'

[rwhite123]

I found the below posting from Mimi on the "Runaway Husbands" website and it struck me as being very profound.  I think that many of us can appreciate this post regarding our MLC husbands

Here is what I have concluded...we are all very capable women. Most of us did it all, including covering for their defficiencies. Ultimately, they get to the second half of their lives and feel insecure and inferior by comparison to us. They feel we are so connected to our homes, our children, our lives, our friends, and they have been on major disconnect. They feel like AND ARE Losers. So, instead of connecting, they go out and find the other woman. And it doesn't matter what she looks like...she just HAS to be more screwed up than him! That is the only way he can feel superior. She has to believe that he invented the wheel!

It all comes down to this, men are competitive. Relationships are about power and control to them. They know that we are formidable competitors, they know they are not strong enough to beat us....so they move into a weaker arena. It's been going on since the battles in the Parthenon. Men are fighters, warriors, and they need to "win" at all costs.

To me, they have LOST so much. But their only goal is their sense of self...and the OW, needy, obsessive, baggaged, horrid as she is, thinks he hung the moon!!!

[hopingfourbetter]

Wow what a statement about men, someone must have really hurt this person. Hfb

[rwhite123]

Of course not all men are like this!  However, I see in her statement a concise summary of the affair down that RCR talks about.  My husband could never handle the fact that I made more money than he did and he really started to put me down any opportunity he had in the year before BD.  I always sensed that he felt inferior to me even though I never said anything to put him down and tried to show appreciation for all of the things he did for me (he was a wonderful handyman and did numerous projects outside and inside the house that save us quite a bit of money).

I know for a fact that the OW is definitely more broken then my husband when they met although, at this point, my H is pretty much right at her level now.  I am not even angry at my husband most of the time.  If anything, I feel sorry for him that his self esteem is so low that he ended up with such a mess of a girlfriend.  I pray that, if anything, he goes through the whole process if MLC and does not get stuck so that someday, he can be a father to our D14 again.  Since BD on 7-26 he has only seen our D twice and has been NC with her for about a month now.

[readytofixmyselffirst]

I wish it was that simple. If it was simply a conquest item or competitor issue,  MLCer would opt for the one night stand and book on ow. RCR talks about depression and that the male MLCer is very vulnerable to actions to mask the pain.

OW creates an Eros love that many of them have not felt in a while. The butterflies in the stomach, the only thinking of that person. Feeling worthy of love again, all hit a confused an lost MLCer like a ton of bricks. If it was just about sex, the MLCer would go for a prostitute- same thrills and no commitment. They are lured by the "true love" and this must be it than just sexual attraction.

Now, I could be wrong. After all, I am a LBSer. I have been with my wife for seventeen years and I have never even thought about straying or being involved with another woman other than friendship. It is not in my blood.

Even in my situation, my w is not sexually attracted to the OM. It is an emotional connection made by someone she has never met. However, the mind is very powerful and it has allowed her to create a combination of fantasy and reality that is very hard for "totally" real me to fight against. If my w was just interested in sex, she could have her choice in the local area.

I think that both men and women in MLC are looking for an escape relationship. They want to feel young again and what is a better way to feel young again then to fall in love all over again. It is something new, it creates excitement, and it sure beats the day to day routines of their "normal" lives.

This is not most people, it is those that are affected by the crisis. I also know that the MLCer selects oddball mates. After all, what type of twenty-thirty year old is interested in a married forty-fifty year old male?

I am not defending the males on this site. I am just saying that the relationship between the MLCer and om/ow is much more than a quickie. It is a chemical connection/high than helps then MLCer avoid depression and mask the pain they are in. I don't have statistics, but I am quick to add that I bet that most r's between MLC and OW/OMs do not survive.

Well, that is my take on it. ((((Hugs))))

[justasking]

Ready I agree.

My H told me he had considered a prostitute but wanted a new relationship.

I also think that the OW/OM they choose reflects something that has been missing in their lives. My H is living with a 'woman' who mirrors his mother at the same age. H always had abandonment issues as he was his mothers carer and she died and never thought he had done enough.

So it is very true that OW/OM is just a symptom of the MLCers crisis and no more. That's why when they wake up and look at this person they can't believe they affaired down so low.

But the low self esteem also has a part to play. My H certainly felt he was never good enough!

xx

[hopingfourbetter]

Who is mimi anyway? I do not believe there is a simple solution to MLC. I would love to have a wife that was able to have a better income, and yes I am competitive in most things that I do. I am curious how did you get a good paying job did it fall on your lap or was it something that you worked very hard for. Were you the best choice for the job or the 10nth best choice? Our world is a competitive place  I am a firm believer that it takes two to tango and if the window of communications are not open it will go to hell in a hand basket.

  My opinion in MLC is that we slowly drift apart and we do not feel the love from our spouse, my wife put our kids first so I was fourth fiddle. I tried to put my wife first. after years of wondering when we might be that person to our spouse when we first met,  we fill our time with other things to do. These other things do not take our spouses involvement or our spouse is not interested in the other things and the drifting continues. We almost make separate lives without even realizing it. When we were young we tried to spend as much time together as possible. There is a lot more that could be said on this. Hfb

[rememberer]

 In my case, I can relate to a lot what is documented in the "Runaway Husbands" post.

My h was very successful in his business, but I think felt very inadequate as a husband and father. He was good at providing for us but not relating to us or connecting with us on an emotional level.

He kept working more and more and became somewhat of a 'workacholic' and I think in a way he was running away from the home situation where he felt inadequate to deal with both myself and our kids.

My therapist explains it all as him being afraid of intimacy and a conflict avoider, and this relates back to the family of origin issues he was raised with. His family are all like that, and have always swept any issues under the carpet, and compensate by buying lots of material goods, and having everything appear 'normal' and 'successful' from the outside, when really on the inside they are lacking in real values and priorities in life.

I was growing more spiritually and emotionally as time went on, and demanding more of his time and wanting to connect on a deeper level. He was feeling more and more incapable of giving that to me and bolted. Afraid to look inside and feeling not able to give that way.

It kills me that he's feeling 'in love' with the OW, and I find that all hard to understand. He couldn't give to me, but ran and now is giving to another.

All I can think is that, that will eventually fade and he will be back to square one. However some people can live their whole lives like that. Not me, not anymore. If he can't reach that level of emotion and connection, what's the point? I will never be happy with that, so better to cut my losses now, and find someone who can. The matieral 'stuff' just never fills the void.

[hampc0cv]

Remember,  I can see what you are talking about.  I the past year I was trying to get closer and closer to my husband.  I tried everything to make him happy and want to spend time with me and the family.  All I wanted was for him to come home after work and spend time with me and the family.  He kept staying out later and later and I asked what was wrong that he couldn't spend time with us and his reply at one point was that he just didn't want to come home.  Nothing had happened at all.  He likes to gamble and the only time I got to spend with him by myself was when we went gambling.  I would move money around like crazy so he could gamble and I could be with him.  From Oct of 2009 to April of 2010 we were gambling every weekend except maybe 4 or 6 weekends during that time.  We gambled a lot of money and when we would run out he asked for more.  I was just as guilty as I was enabling him but I couldn't see that he wasn't seeing it as spending time with me it was all about him and his happiness at the time. 

I was devasated when he walked out. No warning, just came home from work early (Not like him at all) and said he was taking clothes and leaving.

Now he is with ow and goes straight to her after work and couldn't do that  for his family.  I am crushed over this because at one time his family meant a lot to him.  I don't know what happen but I feel he feels good about himself because she hangs on his every word and it makes him feel young, like he still has it and he feels he is happy now.  I have been told once it wears off or it gets old he will realize that no matter what he does or who he is with it will not changd the fact that he is unhappy within himself. 

They tend to blame the ones that love the most and that is their spouses.  i guess that see us as the evil ones and we are why they feel so unhappy.  I just hope all of them will wake up and realize that what they had a along was what they were looking for.

I understand how you feel.  Hugs to you

[mercury]

I think ready opinion is more correct.  The r between the two meets something they think is missing, it doesn't mean it was missing only they think it was.  Mine is reliving us 10 years ago.  The R is a symptom of the mlc of course this doesn't make it right and it sure doesn't stop the pain and having a mlc R doesn't excuse them from the betrayal.   I don't feel that MOST mlc and the op will make it as partners, the few that do I believe will be miserable. The average for affair is 2 years, about as long as replay. I do feel any relationship build on someone else hurt is doomed. They choose easy messed up partners, we are all see this.  No one who has morals and a solid head would move in with a married person, and go out of their way to destroy a family and a marriage. 

HFB yes all relationship grow apart and then back together, that is the pattern of a long term relationship.