[Reinventing]

Apparently, the MLCer doesn't trust the LBS's changes when they first return. They apparently return with some of the rewritten history firmly ensconced in their brains from what I can tell from others stories.

Perhaps we see the story as they betrayed us, while they see the story as we let them down and therefore they betrayed us. So they don't trust us to not let them down again. Those who have reconciled or read more about this may understand better. That's my sense from some things said here and there on this forum.

[Trustandlove]

My take, FWIW, is that they don't trust that we really can forgive; for example, they can wonder what we must be up to when we ask for any information, wondering if we're going to try to "get" them with it. 

Don't know if that stems from them thinking that what they've done is so bad that it really can't be forgiven, from what "others" have told them, or what. 

[StillStanding]

This certainly gets tested during MLC, but I find myself agreeing with him.

[StillStanding]

Regarding trust, I really don't see why would the LBS have to worry with regaining the MLCer trust. The other way round it makes sense.

As I said before, the MLCer can come back to the marriage with trust issues from their time in Replay; the alienators can turn out to be manipulative and deceitful. I think Reinventing is right, too; they don't know if we really forgive them, or if the renewed marriage that we promise will actually work out.

Also, not a lot of LBSes handle the Bomb Drop with grace, especially when it becomes clear the MLCer is cheating on them. Heck, there was a period of time on the Divorce Busting forums where people were flat-out encouraging LBSes to spy on their cheating spouses!

[Anjae]

Thnaks for the explanation StillStanding.

[Reinventing]

SS, loved the commitment piece.

Yes, I hadn't though of the deceit and manipulation of the OW affecting the trust issues of the MLCer. That makes sense.

[StillStanding]

How To Be Alone by Tanya Davis, on YouTube.

If you are at first lonely, be patient.

If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.

We can start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library, where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books; you’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.

There is also the gym, if you’re shy, you can hang out with yourself and mirrors, you can put headphones in.

Then there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there’s prayer and mediation, no one will think less if your hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid being alone principles.

The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by chow-downers, employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town, and they, like you, will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner; a restaurant with linen and Silverware. You’re no less an intriguing a person when you are eating solo dessert and cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it’s dark and soothing, alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.

And then take yourself out dancing, to a club where no one knows you, stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one’s watching because they’re probably not. And if they are, assume it is with best human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats, is after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating. And beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things, down your back, like a book of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, they are always statues to talk to, and benches made for sitting gives strangers a shared existence if only for a minute, and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversation you get in by sitting alone on benches, might have never happened had you not been there by yourself.

Society is afraid of alone though. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if after a while nobody is dating them.

But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it.

You can stand swathed by groups and mobs or hands with your partner, look both further and farther in the endless quest for company.

But no one is in your head. And by the time you translate your thoughts an essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those “sappy slogans” from pre-school over to high school groaning, we’re tokens for holding the lonely at bay.

Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed, and alone is okay.

It’s okay if no one believes like you, all experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be relieved, keeps things interesting, life’s magic things in reach, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t connected, and the community is not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.

Take silence and respect it.

If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it, if your family doesn’t get you or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.

You could be in an instant surrounded if you need it.

If your heart is bleeding, make the best of it.

There is heat in freezing, be a testament.

[StillStanding]

I was watching Game of Thrones when I heard a line that sums up what we Standers face:

“A craven can be as brave as any man, when there is nothing to fear. And we all do our duty, when there is no cost to it. How easy it seems then, to walk the path of honor. Yet soon or late in every man’s life comes a day when it is not easy, a day when he must choose.” —Maester Aemon

[StillStanding]

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/depression_signs_types_diagnosis_treatment.htm

Are you depressed?
If you identify with several of the following signs and symptoms, and they just won’t go away, you may be suffering from clinical depression.

• you can’t sleep or you sleep too much
• you can’t concentrate or find that previously easy tasks are now difficult
• you feel hopeless and helpless
• you can’t control your negative thoughts, no matter how much you try
• you have lost your appetite or you can’t stop eating
• you are much more irritable, short-tempered, or aggressive than usual
• you’re consuming more alcohol than normal or engaging in other reckless behavior
• you have thoughts that life is not worth living (seek help immediately if this is the case)

[StillStanding]

http://adultingblog.com/post/80590733488

If you need someone — how they make you feel, what they do for you, how they keep you whole — then you don’t actually love them, you just love the role they play in your life. The further you can push away from that need, the closer you’ll get to loving the human.