[UnconditionalLove]

Well, we aren't talking about a person who is thinking properly.  I think we have to remember just because they say they have been thinking this way a long time doesn't mean they have been or if they have been it's because they started the MLC journey.  You can see the patterns.  They don't want out of the marriage usually till they have a reason to be out and that is the OW/OM.  They get a high from that and it's all they can think about I believe.  They don't want to work anything out because they want that other person.  They blame you for everything because they have to so they can run from their guilt and they blame you for everything because they really believe that but later I'm told when you are gone they realize they are still running from something and it's not you.

So, even though I question so much I also see where my H is with his MLC even though I sometimes question me nd my part in that.

[MyBrainIsBroken]

UL,

I'm so glad you started this thread because I struggle with the same questions. The OM is such an affair down that I can't believe W could be happy with him but who knows? I'm less than 4 months into this and I'm having a hard time finding the strength and hope to go on. But here's what I know.

W really wasn't enthusiastic about going with this guy. She expressed reservations to me, her sister, and my stepmother. Yet she moved in with him and has been living with him for 3 months now.

She told me she hadn't been happy for years and had been looking for a way out of our marriage. Yet she couldn't give me a good reason for having been unhappy and friends and family say they don't believe it. They thought we were both deeply in love.

I go back and look at our photos and videos and I can see that she's happy and in the videos I can see that she loves me. And I can see her start to change 12 to 18 months ago when she began losing weight and dressing more attractively. And looking at pictures from last fall I can see the depression settling in. And I know she was seriously depressed late winter, early spring when her A began because she expressed her concern to me that she didn't know what has happening but that she was tired all of the time and didn't feel like doing any of the things she has always enjoyed.

I know that we started dating just after she turned 16 and I was the first boy her mother would let her seriously date. And I know she fell "in love" with me and it lasted for 36 years. So I think when she was depressed and felt she had fallen "in love" with OM she had no basis for believing it wasn't real love and it wouldn't last.

She doesn't seem happy now. I think she's drinking a lot, whereas with me she only drank occasionally. She's stopped by our house a couple of times recently when I wasn't home and each time when she left one of my wine coolers was missing and there was a fresh empty in the recyclables. And a month ago she heard my D's boyfriend was looking for an evening short order cook and she told D she could do that. When my D said sure, you're going to work all day and then spend your evening working at the restaurant, W said why not, she didn't have anything better to do.

W has always been a country music fan. My granddaughter said lately she's been playing a boy band song  called Amnesia over and over. She said it's her favorite song. Here are some of the lyrics.

Sometimes I start to wonder, was it just a lie?
If what we had was real, how could you be fine?
'Cause I'm not fine at all
...
The pictures that you sent me they're still living in my phone
I'll admit I like to see them, I'll admit I feel alone
And all my friends keep asking why I'm not around

It hurts to know you're happy, yeah, it hurts that you've moved on
It's hard to hear your name when I haven't seen you in so long

It's like we never happened, was it just a lie?
If what we had was real, how could you be fine?

'Cause I'm not fine at all
...

If today I woke up with you right beside me
Like all of this was just some twisted dream
I'd hold you closer than I ever did before
And you'd never slip away
...

I wish that I could wake up with amnesia
And forget about the stupid little things
Like the way it felt to fall asleep next to you
And the memories I never can escape

'Cause I'm not fine at all
No, I'm really not fine at all
Tell me this is just a dream
'Cause I'm really not fine at all

Still, I don't know. All that I know is that my W has changed, she's living with someone else, and I miss her every minute of every day and it's getting harder to find reasons to hope. And I don't know if I can make it through 2 to 7 years of this but I'm not interested in being with anyone else. I pray daily for all of us.

[terrified_in_TN]

I have not read all the replies, so I might be repeating what has already been said...

I am very early on in my Ws replay stages, so its way too soon to even really give this much thought, but one way to look at it, is yes the OM/OW may be your spouses 1st choice in their current state of mind, but do you honestly think they would be their first choice after they leave the tunnel?

Or you can look at it this way...your spouse prior to MLC is your obvious first choice...But in their current state of mind are they still your first choice?  In my case, I LOVE who my wife was; I do not even like who she IS NOW, but once she leaves the tunnel, I could easily go back to loving her again.

-Terrified

[MyBrainIsBroken]

Good point, Terrified. Right now my wife acts often acts like a spoiled teenager, even pre-teen at times. Yet, I still love and miss the person she once was and occasionally I think I see glimpses of that person.

Ironically, one of the things I loved about my wife was the almost childlike joy she often exhibited when presented with new things and new experiences and I hope that, in the process of growing up, she doesn't lose that.

-MBIB

[Searching4Answers]

However, he did choose her over me. 

I know that the OW is the worse part of all this and we have a very hard time getting our heads around it but he did not choose her over you.

Very early on I was able to talk to my H about things and I asked a lot of difficult questions. One of those questions was 'How can you leave me for her?' he said 'I am not leaving you for her - I am leaving you for ME'. I really believe this and I am sure that this is the primary reason that I have never given OW much head space - it has nothing to do with the OW.

He rescued her and her kids....and she was available, broken and willing!!

This is why they find an OW! The MLCer is projecting - they don't know that they have to fix themselves - they think that if they fix someone else they will feel better. The MLCer is broken, the LBS is not - they MLCer cannot project himself onto the LBS any more because they need to look within but they don't realize that for a very long time.

[blackice]

last night my h told me he woke up from sleeping and decided to come home and gave me a detailed plan about it. not even 12 hours later he is telling me now he is never coming back and truthfully wants to be with ow and doesn't want to ever come back. so yeah. i just told him well that's your choice, you're and adult and make your own decisions and left it at that, i am not even upset about it because i didn't believe him in the first place.

[MyBrainIsBroken]

Very early on I was able to talk to my H about things and I asked a lot of difficult questions. One of those questions was 'How can you leave me for her?' he said 'I am not leaving you for her - I am leaving you for ME'.

This is why they find an OW! The MLCer is projecting - they don't know that they have to fix themselves - they think that if they fix someone else they will feel better. The MLCer is broken, the LBS is not - they MLCer cannot project himself onto the LBS any more because they need to look within but they don't realize that for a very long time.

It still hurts, whether W left me for OM or for herself, but believing it was for her, not OM, helps me to maintain some hope that the A will eventually end.

The part about projecting makes sense. I'd never considered this. Thank you. Maybe I should show my W that I am broken too, then she could come back and project onto me again. 

Yes, I know it doesn't work that way because she won't need the OM once she realizes the projection is not working and the problem is with her. I just worry that she will never reach the point where she realizes that and begins the hard work of fixing herself.

[living with Hope]

My friend had a crisis and ran away from her husband and child. She was gone for over two years. In that time, she had a few flings and then found her "soul mate".  She gushed about him. She honestly thought he was the ONE.  She had such a connection with him and he was all that.  It lasted  for almost 2 years.  I am not sure why it ended. I am not sure how either.  This guy did not know the truth about what she was doing.  She was not honest with him.  He honestly thought she was almost divorced and in the clear.  He was a nice guy who was lonely.  Her and him had a nice time together.  No drama between them. To all outsiders, it would have looked like a great relationship.

But once she came out of her fog and started moving towards being herself again, she is shocked by how she honestly thought he was the one. She sees him now as a total affair down.  They had nothing in common.  He was just a way to avoid and to fill the missing of her husband.  The OM came to see her the other day in hopes that  they could rekindle and she had coffee with him.  She can't figure out what she ever saw in him. She is embarassed that she thought he was her soul mate, the one she waited her whole life for. That she threw away her marriage for him.  All she said  is that he is a nice guy and she is stunned by how blind she was to reality back then.

Something to think about....

[riverbirch]

Well my life has two sides. I was in crisis and had an affair in 2004. He was someone I worked with,had stuff in common dont you know! He was 31 I was 38. He was going through a so called divorce. He hit on me at work and I was going through a bad time in life. All I needed was the flirting and to feel good again and thats what started it all. Mine was short lived only a few months. He broke it off and then my husband found out. Later I heard some things about him that werent so nice,but what does that matter he chased after a married woman and he knew it.

Then with my husband. Before we married he hooked up with his ex high school girlfriend. We were 21 and 23 at the time. Then he went into full blown crisis blaming my affair situation for his leaving. We also divorced 7 months before he left. It was suppose to be for financial reasons but thats a whole different story. We divorced in March of 2012 and a few months later I found out he friended his ex once again on facebook! When I confronted him about it he gave me some spiel about me being on there and that he didnt know I was on there. I was hiding it so he said and trying to hook up with people. Um no! That was him.  October 2012 he left and kept her a secret. They were just friends at first texting. Then I caught them the following october ,in his camper home. December he started coming back around the house again. Twice he has come right out and told me nothing happened and I think thats because I saw them together and he has other issues too. Now he's home. As far as I know shes gone. She was some piece of work too.

[Janus2014]

I am having a really rough time in the last couple of weeks because I realized that my H is definitely planning to leave to be with OW.   OW, H and I are currently in 3 different countries.  Last time I saw H a couple of weeks ago, H just looks through me.  The worst is, H won't come clean; H is trying to stage manage his way through a visit at Thanksgiving/my birthday so that he looks like a "good guy." 

H has always been "protective" of OW because H said he told OW that H was getting divorced when they started their A.  (Never told me that.). Since H met OW during an overseas job assignment in OW's country, OW wouldn't necessarily have known.  However, once H came home - H didn't even tell OW he was leaving her country- OW knew, and OW did not run away.  OW came at H with the emotional blackmail.  H then took another overseas job and OW ended up with a lot of our money and foreign trips out of this deal. 

It appears OW has always given H attention and praised him, whereas I became angry and upset with H on occasion when I found this out.  My IC said it would not have been normal to accept finding out about the extent of H's betrayal without becoming angry.  The only good thing to come out of this is that I have recently developed a calm way of dealing with H.

I realized that OW may, to most people, be a nice, pretty woman who loves  H.  OW thinks I forfeited my rights to H, so she believes she is not in the wrong.  In recent years, I may have taken H for granted a bit, but I worked very hard and H and his kids got the benefit.  The worst is, when H has wanted another chance, I have given it to him, but H will not do the same for me.  Yet H won't admit that he has a plan to go. 

Most bizarre is that I am now being cast as the OW in their relationship.  I can tell that after fighting with me in July, H made some kind of commitment to OW in August, but then met up with me in Oct., telling OW it was a pre-arranged trip for other reasons.  Then H went to see OW.  And now H calls me and talks about his Thanksgiving trip home in a very sexual way.  I doubt OW would want to hear that.  Little does H know that there will be no sex for him from me anymore.