[in it]

A little off the subject..

Anjae I was glad to read the update about your grandmother. God bless her. And you for being an aid and comfort to her.

And after these last few years I have become a " Be grateful you have a glass and there's something in it" kind of person.

[Anjae]

Braveheart, wanting to return, or reconciliations? They are two different things.

A few years ago it was probably too soon to have a good idea of thing.

We are now on a timeline of MLC average 3-10 years, HS is 6. Early on the timeline of MLC average was, I think, 2-5 years.

How did you did the rates if we do not know the info on many members? What criteria did you use?

Thank you, In It. 

When I used grandmother as an example, and said I am doing things to help her, I was not suggesting we should be doing to help our MLCers or try to influence their crisis. I was refering to the odds and how sometimes things may not confom to those odds.

[Reallytrying]

I did a lot of digging on return rates a couple of years ago and was almost burned at the stake here for even suggesting Return rates were rare. Rates of remarriage with a former spouse across the board was around 6%, the majority of them had been apart for over 20 years. It stands to reason that if you filtered out all the other reasons for divorce other than MLC, the return rate for MLC spouses is tiny...

I'm sure this is true but there is a major confound here. Many mlc couples don't divorce. So they wouldn't be captured in remarriage rates.

I think it's clear to most of us that the odds are against us. I know when he firstBD me I thought I just had to love him back but it was very quickly clear to me that was not to be.

The problem with batting around rates, odds, etc without true study is that we cannot control for the many variables that exist in a relationship. Are reconciliations low because the mlcer truly doesn't want to return home, had too much pride to admit he/she was wrong, is afraid he/she will be rejected by the LBS, the LBS is so longer interested, one of them dies? Hard to know without investigating the nuances of situations. It's also hard to use the posters as anecdotal evidence because so many stop posting and no one knows how their situation ended up.

I need no reminder that the odds are against me. I live that everyday I live apart from my H. My choice to stand is not about odds but about a belief that my marriage is worth my time. In the meantime, I use the time  to figure out  who I am without him and how to learn to love the life I'm living right now.

[lawprofessor]

Good evening Hand Puppets,
The legal disclaimer addresses that there are no guarantees, meaning reconciliation, meaning the entities that make up the forum cannot be held legally responsible.  That is not what the blog post discusses.

This is the first blog post where Rcr discusses in some detail the issue and states her position clearly with little room for interpretation or misunderstanding unlike the comment cited.

How is it not clear enough?

Because Rcr decided it is not based on her observation and interactions on her board. 

2nd did you notice T in Tennessee's statement?  He's not even close to being the only one who feels/felt this way. 

Patient preference?  OK.  Since party x's preference is not to know/discuss etc, does that mean I should also not be told when my preference is to be told? 

As to advocating, I have no idea if Airmid is advocating anything or something. 

I am advocating support for Rcr, her right to write this blog, and her right to publish it on her forum first of all

Second, I support the idea that this forum speaks to all members, not just a certain subset, and that includes standers, non standers, and those unidentified or in between the markers at present principally as related to the discussion presented by Phoenix some pages back on the previous thread.

Third, I am advocating full knowledge availability.  Adults have a right to have the best information that is currently available to them to help them make informed decisions.  It is their responsibility to make use of the resources available to them, weighing, considering and or discarding pieces that they decide are either important or irrelevant to them.  Or perhaps somewhere in between I suppose.   In that vn, is the idea that deciding what a poster should be able to read or judging what they should not hear is disrespectful, patronizing, controlling and even infantalizing.  It takes away their right as adults to exert control of their lives and their futures.  The person reading has to decide for themselves what to focus on in the readings.  My opinion. 

The exception is that Rcr has a right to decide what she wants on her forum.  And readers then have a right to choose to participate or not.

Unnecessary to respond to the silliness as to the waiver comment.
 
Lp

[terrified_in_TN]

My statement about "odds of successful r is low" would indeed be a hope kill.  I don't write as eloquently as RCR.  But there *HAS* to be a way of keeping hope alive, WHILE at the same time being honest about the chances of success.  I am not the one to figure that out, but there HAS to be a way.

Anjae, you make it sound as if the people who no longer post could be successful r stories, and they chose not to return and put it behind them.  True.  Its possible.  Its also possible they moved on with their lives, and chose to put this all behind them and never r with their former spouses.  I get what you are saying about you can't look at just the active posters and come to any kind of conclusion-but I disagree.  Its a "sample group", just like we use "sample groups" in my business to determine ranking.  Just like the polls use "sample groups" to determine who is in the lead in the political race.  Is it a 100% fool-proof way to measure something-no of course not.  But I do believe it to be a fairly accurate representative of measurement of a larger group.

I've seen it mentioned several times that there is NO WAY to come to any sorts of conclusions because there is just no data on MLC.  What about those that "stay stuck in the tunnel for the rest of their life"?  I have seen it over and over again that those MLCers "are the exception".  That those MLCers that stay stuck are "rare".  Really?  Well, if there is no accurate data on MLC, how would we know?  Maybe MOST MLCers stay stuck....The point I am trying to make is, you can't have it both ways.  Either there is a sufficient enough "data" from a control group to form some opinions or there isn't.  Which is it then?

I know we often bias our opinins based on our own unique circumstances.  And YES, my opinion on this matter is very much biased based on my OWN circumstances which is this:  Had I have known the odds were low in the beginning, I might have handled my situation very differently and came out far better.  Again, maybe I read things into the articles there weren't there; maybe I interpreted certain things wrong.  I don't know.  I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so I appreciate a more "direct" approach.  And as I stated many times before, although it is CLEARLY STATED "there are no guarantees", that is an ambiguous statement for the reasons I already mentioned above.  And the way the articles came across to ME was that eventually there was a good chance that this madness was all temporary [but lengthy].

Using someone's stage 4 cancer analogy above, lets say the person with cancer required many expensive surgeries or treatments to combat the cancer.  Maybe that person doesn't want to burden their family with enormous medical debt if the chances of successful treatments are low.  Maybe they just want to live out the rest of their days as God sees fit without human medical intervention.  Of course maybe they don't care about the odds and want to do anything they can to have a fighting chance.  The point is, unless they know exactly what they are up against, they can't make an informed decision.  Doesn't mean the doctor has to constantly remind them chances are they aren't going to make it.  Just have that serious discussion ONCE, make an informed decision and stay the course.

I realize this site is all about HOPE.  No one wants to dash hope.  But as someone who found this site via google search, it would have been nice to have been armed with as much info as was available ALONG with providing hope.

-T

[Reallytrying]

The people who continue posting do not count as a sample group as in political polling because they are not randomly selected. They only way that would work is if we looked at all active posters and then randomly selected a percentage of those to see what stage of the process they were in. That would probably be interesting data.  Even then however the info isn't always reliable. For instance I see many cases where the mlcer is more present, etc but it's not yet known if they are reconnecting. That's part of why it's hard to quantify because the answer if what's going on often becomes apparent in hindsight.

I do think many people who either reconcile or stop standing also stop posting which definitely skews the information available. I saw someone just today say that they don't post as much since they reconciled because mlc is no longer so central in their lives.

RCR has developed well thought out theories based on her personal experience and anecdotal evidence of people she has encountered. Those theories have no guarantee and currently have no quantifiable data to support them. That does not make them useless - quite the opposite. Many theories fail to be proven. It yet make sense anecdotally. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the work involved in developing the materials present here BUT I shudder when I see statistical statements made that are not supported by research.

[terrified_in_TN]

RT-I get what your saying, and I agree this isn't a scientific certainty just by looking at the forum, BUT I still think it to be an accurate depiction of the odds.

Throughout this thread (and the former) we have talked statistics, odds, whatever you want to call this data.  Lets go back and look at EXACTLY what RCR wrote:

"A guarantee does not exist for reconciliation and right now, more situations end in divorce than in reconciliation.... Most reconciliations happen in the early years. That is not to say that they do not happen later, but the odds go down with time.".

I am not saying that RCR has some magical powers and is all knowing here, but I trust her research on the matter.  I guess really the only thing that might put all this statistical stuff to rest would be to ask RCR herself where she drew the above bolded conclusions.  For me, it doesn't matter.  I trust her info.  I only wish it would have been presented sooner.

-T

[stayed]

ask RCR herself where she drew the above bolded conclusions.  For me, it doesn't matter.  I trust her info.  I only wish it would have been presented sooner.

I'm with you TN.  Knowledge is POWER!  If you don't like what you are reading STOP... don't read it!  There is so much GREAT information, so many different people, there is somebody for everybody here.  Go read their stuff!  That's what I did, picked through lots of threads before I found some to my liking.  We don't have to agree on everything.

Hugs Stayed

[Savoir Faire]

I have been contacted personally by four people who were very regular posters on this site who have since reconciled but decided not to post details.  They also asked me not to post on their behalf so I have respected their wishes, although I admit to asking more then once for an update so others know there is hope.

I personally don't understand not wanting to shout from the rooftops if my H decided to come out of the tunnel but everyone is different and it's good to know that many here have reconciled but find the pain of MLC too much to keep coming back to update.

I honestly believe if you want reconciliation enough and keep hope in your heart, that it is possible, especially in the case of MLC because the problem was never one of the marriage in the first place.

[Ready2Transform]

I too know 5 reconciliations from this site that either no longer post or post very rarely. I think the average among them is 4-5 years post BD. I've asked them sometimes to post updates too, but they've just moved on! That's the magic of time.