[limitless]

There are many of us who are living this.

Words and phrases like stuck, limbo, same, same, same....but different - all come to mind.

There was quite a bit of discussion on my previous thread about the middle.  How it felt to be there.  What comes next?

I thought I would start a thread for discussion.

Go at it!

Hugs,

limitless

[JD]

Yes,
Difficult, frustrating and demoralizing are words that come to me about being in the middle.
Your mind recognizes some progress, but all you emotionally register is same $h*t different day.
It gets very old. You want to quit.
Or you want to get out of the MLC car and push if necessary!  Provoke something.
 Something, anything to make it bearable or give you something to work with just a little while longer....

What comes next, I don't know.  I'm in the I want to quit part.

[Anjae]

I don’t like the middle. Nothing happens, it takes ages. Like JD said, get out of the car and push it is better than “same, same, same....but different”. I’ve been on this for so long… the beginning, weird and harder it was, was better. Things were happening. Change was visible, even if not “good change”. Now just the same, nothing breaks, nothing gets solved. It is tiring and boring.

What comes next… depends. If the MLCer returns and we want them back, a time of trial, then, from the experiences we’ve read in the board, the marriage/relationship will be much better than before. If they return and we don’t want them back, I guess we will be divorced and starting a new life on our own. If they don’t return… for our sake I hope we’re divorced, finances issues sorted out and that we have managed to heal, forgive and move on.

[OnMyJourney]

That is exactly it...no movement and no change.   I wonder sometimes:

-- If my finances were settled would I feel okay with the limbo.  I sometimes think I would be but maybe that's an illusion like when I lose 20 lbs then I can start living, or if I had more money then.... etc., etc.
 - If our spouses also feel the need to create some movement? 

Do we have any return/reconciliation stories from those who were in a middle for several years?

OMJ

[trusting]

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein

This quote reminds me of watching my MLCer's quest for "happiness."  Nothing he has tried is working (his words), yet he keeps it up.  I don't get it.

The middle part is tedious, nothing changes, there is very little cycling or what looks like movement (forward anyway), and feels like it lasts forever.  So the fun goes on and on.

[xyzcf]

I'm not sure if this is the middle or the end. Or quite possibly the beginning.

My life is no longer entwined with his. I am trying hard to be more than just existing. I "work" hard and fall into a deep sleep at night. I eat and taste food. I enjoy people...and invite people to my home to eat and share their lives.

I choose to travel. I choose to attend activities at the church, to sing, to play golf, to feel alive again.

I no longer analyze his every word or action.....in some ways, he's disappeared off my radar.

I walk through life...sometimes I crawl, I cannot run..I lack the energy and motivation to go anywhere quickly. I am open to seeing pain in the world...I live with a great deal more sadness than I ever did before.

I accept...he's gone. We had a wonderful life together but he is gone. I accept that I cannot expect that love lasts forever. Whatever his crisis is....it is his and I am not a part of it at all...no, not after 39 months apart...I do not play any role at all in his life.

He still does in mine, I miss him, I miss our family but he is truly gone.

I know that for my own sanity, it is best that I understand this. There are far too many variables to make any kind of prediction of what the future could hold for us. In this moment, there is no future for us. He is truly gone.

I yearn for peace. I crave contentment in my day. The tears still come, often when I am driving and I wonder what it is that I cry for now?

I try not to look forward into the future.. I make plans for travel and stuff but cannot see what might unfold in the future. I hope it doesn't stay gray the way it is now. But I realize that the cure that I seek isn't easy to find. I do know that it is only I who can bring the pieces back together again so that I feel whole, on my own, alone.

Alone, I hate that word. I am not comfortable in this place of aloneness..I resent him for allowing this to come to this ...that I am alone and shall be alone and I have always hated being alone. That is my biggest struggle and I have no clue how to change it.

I have survived, it could have been much worse. Perhaps one day I will reflect positively on this experience in life. I know that others feel as I do and that brings some comfort..that I am "normal" in my reaction to all this.

I do understand that this process takes years and years and years....that neither of us are the same people anymore...that the hurt caused will never totally be erased. You learn that to live means that you cannot really choose between the good or the bad...they are both part of living and we really need to embrace both in order to understand the fullness of life.

[OnMyJourney]

XYZCF -  Wow, what you said was so profound and has really touched me.  I can relate to so much of what you're feeling and I hope I get to where you are....soon.

I think one of the things that keeps me from getting to accepting he's gone is that he lives two doors from me and has not made any movement to divide finances or divorce.  Threatens it but doesn't do it. 

I tell myself it's because he's undecided but I fear it's because he doesn't want to be the bad guy...and he doesn't have the energy to make a decision to take action.  Really, he is gone and although I believe I'm in his thoughts I'm certainly not in his life in any way.

Thank you for posting your thoughts.

OMJ

[Stillstanding71]

Alone, I hate that word. I am not comfortable in this place of aloneness..I resent him for allowing this to come to this ...that I am alone and shall be alone and I have always hated being alone. That is my biggest struggle and I have no clue how to change it.


Dito!

Cant escape it and we have to embrace it. If we run like they do we will end up nowhere. Like they do.

No external solutions to any of our internal problems. For us as for our MLCers.

Thanks XYZCF!

[OnMyJourney]

Just on another note from what xyzcf said about this taking "years and years and years"  it reminds me of a man I met at a class for separated and divorced Catholics that I went to right after bomb drop.

Warning!! This is not a happy story so you may not wish to continue reading.T

The group was facilitated by people who were divorced or separated themselves.  One facilitator was a 65 year old man who had been separated for 10 years, moved to a province on the other side of the country when he left his wife and still not divorced (also not sure if he left or she told him to leave--different stories.)  He spent more time talking about himself than supporting us, kept saying his wife controlled all the money over and over, when asked why he didn't get a divorce he had a different answer every week (none of which had to do with his religious beliefs...it was always blaming the lawyers or something about what his wife did.)

I knew a little bit about MLC at that time and I thought this man is in MLC and is really stuck.  He had gone through a drinking phase (overcame it), a spending phase (has no money) and his relationship efforts with women have not been successful. He seemed so broken and it was 10 years later.  He did seem to be starting on more of a spiritual journey at the time.

What struck me was he was still blaming his wife 10 years later. He had some insight into his own needs and at that point  was only just starting to take interest again in a hobby he had before he left his wife.  I found him to be an extremely needy man and I overheard one of the other facilitators mention that he had to spend a lot time listening and supporting this man.

To this day I wonder what his wife's side of the story is and what he is doing now, which would make it almost 13 years after he and his wife separated.  He really wanted to be in a relationship with someone but clearly stated that it was definitely not with his wife.

OMJ

[kie]

I feel stuck too. Almost 50! months in, still living in the marital home, divorced since February 2010, I have a vanisher. Hardly any contact. Sometimes I ask him a favour and he's still not responding. I do that to see where he is in the process. I am no stander but I feel stuck in my life for a very long time. Sometimes I have a date but I can't seem to find another love in my life. The biggest wish is my family back together but like XYZCF says: he is gone, I have accepted that.

Because of the joined property I am still not free to make a fresh start in a new home. For four years I want a new house, a new job, a new partner and nothing seems to work, it is so frustrating. And then I wonder: is there a bigger plan which I don't see. Do I have to wait and sit tight?