[stayed]

Lisa Lives, I hope you always LURK.  When I see that you have posted, my pulse quickens with pleasure and excitement.  I know that things are going to get lively when you post.  I love your insight.  We need to hear, you always make our gray cells twitter.

Keep us thinking Girl... hugs Stayed

[HeartTattoo]

LL,

Thanks for sharing your perspective.  I have wanted to respond to your first post, but I'm still ruminating  .  I am a firm believer that there is no one right way to do this & while RCR has her philosophy & her experience of dealing with her H's MLC, she leaves plenty of space for others to craft their own path.  A newbie just wants his/her partner back & to try to understand what bus just hit her.  Then you absorb the HS party line & then a little more ways along the path, you begin to see the different ways people pick up the pieces & arrange them into a new pattern.

First comes healing from the shock, the trauma, the grief.  There is the struggle of "unzipping" yourself from the bonded R of your M.  Difficult in the best of healthy situations, even more complicated the more "co-dependence" there was.  (I really hate that term co-dependence & actually don't think it is in issue in most of the M's I read about here).  I like your concept of "benchmarks".  Without believing in progress, without believing in a good life up ahead, one really does stay stuck.

Hugs,
HT

[onlyjo]

Oops!
I get behind a couple of days and there's SO MUCH to catch up on...

OnlyJo, I think you are at, 3. Isolation: "I just want to sit in this all by myself."  Believe it or not, you have sort of "isolated" yourself.  You have found a happy place with your D's, friends, family.  I think are coming into ACCEPTANCE.  You aren't resistant to a NEW RELATIONSHIP, yet you are not actively seeking one out.  I get the impression you are "being still"!  Enjoying the peace your have finally found. 

Not a bad place to be at all.  I think you are doing what we all should try to do, finding inner peace and are learning to love, enjoy and trust your aloneness.  Contented tranquility is how I see you! No longer fighting the fight. 

You are going to be a wonderful catch for somebody one of these days.

Hugs Stayed 

Awww...stayed.  You are too kind.  Not sure what someone would be fishing for if i am a wonderful catch-ha!!
Maybe you are right-maybe i am in ISOLATION, which to me, has a negative connotation because of all my babbage, i'm sure.  When i think "isolation" i think "hermit".  As stayed pointed out, this is not necessarily the case-maybe this is the stage where i get my "sea legs" again?  I have to figure out for MYSELF what i want and what i don't want, and being still gives me the time to do that.  If acceptance is reaching the "it is what it is" state of mind, i am getting there. 

I still HATE that it is what it is, though, with regard to my children.  They ought not to have to be exposed to the likes of the scum sucking woman their father hooked up. With to make himself FEEL BETTER-what a bunch of crap.  If that sounds like anger-IT IS!! I think i will always harbor anger toward ex h and ow for what they have put my girls through.  Not burning vengeful anger...but an anger nonetheless that two adults can be so cavalier about behaving in such a manner. 

But it is far more productive to have goals and benchmarks than to meander aimlessly.  I am a planner by nature, by training, and very competitive, always

LL-you are the EXACT OPPOSITE of me!  I am a meanderer, a non-planner, and i was the same during my marriage, because ex h was/is an uber-control freak.  I tend to like meandering-you never know wherre you might end up, and it could be the next big adventure!  Of course, i do have to plan for some things, but that is not by nature how i prefer to live.  I would say that i typically have a loose plan, though...BD amd MLC forced me to come up. With a PLAN-aaack!   And actually, once i started planning, i was fine.  I had a date by which i wanted to be out of my former amityville horror marital home, and i accomplished that ON MY OWN and with a lot of legal red tape.  I am still working on my career plan, but have some help and mentoring in that area-so-long story short-i sort of agree with you about setting goals and planning, even if the plan is (as mine is now) to stay as far away from ex h's MLC as i can . That's my plan and my goal, that, and to mitigate the damage caused to my d's by ex h and his selfish selfish MESSED UP self.

I think i move/cycle through the latter LBS stages still...maybe that will always happen-i dont know.  I dont know what will happen tomorrow-man plans, God laughs. 

Healed? I dont know.  Who am i to say? Most days, i function extremely well, and on the days i dont, its not because of ex h and his foolishness...it's because im tired or grouchy or fed up, but not really because of ex h.  I get anxious with his antics re:property settlement, though-he's trying to screw me out of what is legally (and morally and ethically but what does ex h know about that?) mine and d!cking around with the way i wish to live...

I don't think im stuck.  I think i was, but i am not anymore.  Life moves forward whether we do or not...and as one of my friends said at his father's eugoly recently: my dad taught us that there's no rearview mirror. On the high road". This whole MLC thing can be a lose-lose situation if we remain stuck...i called a friend and got a tow out of the mud (or $h!te, whatever it was  ) and now am trying to find my way to the high road.

I totally agree with HT that there is no ONE RIGHT WAY to do this.  It is like a kaleidoscope-for each of us, at every turn, the view will be a little different-VERY SIMILAR-but a little different.  Being able to share thoughts regarding those differences is what makes this forum such a valuable and cherished place for me.

Kind of an all-over-the-place post-my brain is working faster than my fingers are typing...
Thanks to all for support, advise, and though-provoking (and sometimes hard-Anjae ) questions
Onlyjo

[in it]

The high road isn't easy..I'm still on it with NC as far as I'm concerned. I struggle with anger and resentment but I feel it abating.

I think it's because I've had to come to my own closure about this and maybe in some aspects it applies to us who are still married.

Whatever the relationship was is over. A reality I absolutely refused to accept four years ago.

In a year and 7 months I have had nothing to do with him I feel much better. I almost see glimpses of peace.

 I still have triggers that set me off - but due to understanding friends etc I'm lucky I can express them and not be judged or deemed crazy.

I think the hardest thing all of us have to try to wrap our brain around is none of this had anything to do with us.

Now that I have perspective...I'll never allow anyone to control me again... this freedom feels way too good.

[Anjae]

(I really hate that term co-dependence & actually don't think it is in issue in most of the M's I read about here).

I don't hate it but like you I don't think it was an issue for most marriages here. Also, humans do are dependent of each other by nature, so the term is a little puzzling to me. I get it if it is used toward an extreme situation, otherwise it does not make much sense to me.

Thanks to all for support, advise, and though-provoking (and sometimes hard-Anjae ) questions
Onlyjo

You're welcome, Jo. 

I think the hardest thing all of us have to try to wrap our brain around is none of this had anything to do with us.

That was easy for me. For a long while what it was not was to understand what was going on with someone I had know for 20 years.

Now for me everything seems so much in the past, or even like it was all someone else's life and not mine. It is a strange thing.

[nah]

Is that "standing"?  I'm not sure.

It's whatever you want it to be, Nah. We are in similar places. I cannot picture reconciliation, but at least it consider myself smart enough to realize that things may change with time. In the mean time, I'm just living my life the best way I know how.

Yep.

[Songanddance]

(I really hate that term co-dependence & actually don't think it is in issue in most of the M's I read about here).

I don't hate it but like you I don't think it was an issue for most marriages here. Also, humans do are dependent of each other by nature, so the term is a little puzzling to me.

Let's put it to the test then.
What do you all understanding the meaning of co-dependence to be and do you believe that you or your MLCer had traits/elements of that in your R pre BD?

[toomanytearss]

I read co-dependent no more.  Made no sense to me, but then I'm not the brightest bulb in the pack when it comes to that stuff.  I think we each are somewhat dependent on each other, that's what couples do.  But I don't see where I was dependent on him to a point that was unhealthy.  I don't know about him.  I did 90 percent of everything, could have just been because he was lazy or a user.  Who knows.

[nah]

What do you all understanding the meaning of co-dependence to be and do you believe that you or your MLCer had traits/elements of that in your R pre BD?

Well, I take the term "co-dependence" as one-sided. 

Yes, he depended on me for things, and I depended on him for things.  After almost 30 years he never had to write a check or do taxes, I never had to worry about when my car needed an oil change.  For us, I felt it was a true partnership that worked.  I did what I liked and was good at, and he did what he liked and what he was good at.  I took the kids to most of their appointments, he coached most of their sports.  It worked.

Mine is not a clinger, more of a vanisher, so I don't have much of an opinion on the dynamics after BD.  He left and I detached as quickly and as best I could.

[Medusa]

Co-dependence is an unhealthy relationship where one person winds up feeling responsible for the emotions and behavior of another. She will do whatever she has to to make the partner happy. Also, boundaries are blurred because one partner often sees the other as am extension of himself rather than as an individual. Guilt is a huge factor in these kinds of relationships.

I was in a co-dependent marriage. I learned over time that his happiness was my responsibility (I know it wasn't, BTW). We had a dance of trying to control each other. I did so many always trying to make him happy; he did so by always trying to make me feel guilty and unworthy. If Medusa would have just done a little bit more, everything would have been okay. The result? Unhappy people.

One of the hallmarks of co-dependency is that people are left feeling not good enough. It really hit me when my kids shared with me, independently, that they never felt they could do anything to please their dad. Me and the kids learned we were responsible for his moods.

I think its wrong to say that all or none of our relationships involved co-dependence. I had no idea I was in a c-d relationship until I started IC. He came to a couple of sessions with me, and after he quit, the therapist flat-out told me I was c-d because of how I acted around him.

I place no blame on anyone for the way the relationship was. I am the product of an alcoholic parent. I grew up co-dependent. Both of us came from passive-aggressive homes. You never say what you want, but you manipulate to get your way. And he was made to feel responsible for his mother after his father died. His mother still piles on the guilt. Its a reflection of her own self-esteem issues.

We can break the cycle of co-dependency. For me, detaching and limited contact is the key. I know, now, that not only am I good enough bit I always was. My kids know the same. Breaking the cycle is about changing the messages in our brain. Tell yourself something enough and I does become your truth.

By the way, this doesn't mean that we had a horrible relationship or that the love wasn't real. We had a good relationship in many ways, and the love was very real. Had we know years before that we were c-d, perhaps we could have worked through that part of our relationship. I, not saying MLC still wouldn't have happened because it go so much deeper than that. But I do think I might not have been quite the puddle it was for so many months had I not felt entirely responsible for his happiness, etc.