[Trustandlove]

I like the table -- I think it's something we could/should expand on.  Maybe we should also start one that says what works/worked or didn't with our mlc-ers....

I'm still pondering on this.  For example, when I read RCR's reply to I think it was johnrob that we must TRUST that they will get through this, I suddenly felt very calm.  Of course! it seemed to say to me.  Other times that I have gone for different 'strategies' I have often felt that something didn't sit right.  But sometimes they 'worked' in a particular situation, so it's a bit harder to tell. 

My friend who went through 5 years of this said that up until the time that he actually came home at the end she really had no idea what he wanted.  And she had a very strong faith in God, said that she didn't question him much, just trusted that he would do the right thing.  And she still didn't know until the end. 

[MarkedandHealed]

I'm working on putting RCR's coaching threads into tabbed format in my binder and cross referencing items. When it's done, if it looks like something I can distill down and RCR agrees, I'll post it. I'm hoping to have an emergency go to resource for when something happens and I need immediate "what do I do here" info.

[sambriony]

I find these discusions really interesting.I do not go to church but pray very night I am also very spiritual.A numbers of years ago whilst I was away on a business trip.The hotel I stayed in was a huge hotel but very old.The room was dark, very dark and I woke to find two angels at the bottom of my bed. They were not solid forms but similiar to the last screen you would see when the TV shut down. The very dark room now had a beam of light coming through the curtain.Both angels were very tall and looked as if they were communicating.I couldnt hear them, however after reading a number of angls books, you INTUITVELY know thy are communicating.

There hair was short and curled under at the fringe and th back.Their wings were the full length oh their body and they moved very gently as if they would in a gentle breeze. I sat up and rubbed my eyes and they were still there but didnt look at me.I swithed on my bedroon light after watching them for a few moments and of course they were gone.I switched off the light and th room was in complete darkness.

 I had nothing going on in my life then but as I walk through the MLC journey without my H i know I am bing guided and watched. Angels do not intervene in ourlife unless it is life or death situation so if you wanty them to help you pray to thm in the way you would to God.You have the Arc Angels and their bands of mercy and your guardian angels..So far I have prayed to them and god and know intuitively what to do. It tookover two years to share this story.

I often think I have been with my H for 28 years and show know him better than anyone and close to how well he knows himself. Then I think about how much thy are changed by this whole process and start to doubt myself. I do get voices in my head that confirms my feelings at times,They are quiet and sudden and sometimes unrelated to my thoughts eg a real feeling he will come home when I havent been thinking this. I know he is not happy and missing his children yet people tell me he behaves normally. I doubt myself again.
My spiritual healer said H is with her because h does not want to be on his own.It will not last and he will come home but you wont want him. This A has been about him not you and his head is all over the place and he has many issues. You have to let him go and make his own mistakes..strange  but not coincidence the same advice we are given by th vets here.

[Trustandlove]

This is more on the idea of trusting yourself:  It is also leading from HB's response to OP, about people that are sent to help us.

First of all I want to say that I think it is great that HB is able to help OP and others that way. 

Two people have been an enormous help me during this crisis; one a counsellor who I met IRL, one another LBS online.  I am greatly indebted to both; both, however, are no longer part of my journey. 

My problem there was that both offered specific strategies; I was too ready to follow pre-packaged advice rather than trust my own instincts.  In the case of the counsellor he was a godsend in the beginning, then again I over-relied.  I recognised that and was the one to stop talking to him.  In the case of the other (successfully reconciled) LBS, I was loading too much of my own anxieties on to her, and she ended the correspondence, rightly so.  She, too, was encouraging me to use my own brain, and that correspondence needed to stop so that I would do so.  However, she also only had one perspective, which wasn't always appropriate in my case, and also it kept me doing 'strategies' which ended up being manipulative, rather than paving the way.  I'm not blaming her -- I take responsibility for doing everything I did. 

It is so wonderful when someone turns up to help us that I found that I was sometimes disregarding my own intuition, and not using my own brain, thinking that someone else must know better.  That someone else has a 'program', that as long as I follow it to the letter it will 'work'.

I do wonder if I've lengthened the process by not wising up to that sooner...

Developing intuition and using our own brains really is more important. 

[MarkedandHealed]

T&L, I also listened to strategies in the beginning and did some dumb things. In my defense, I didn't believe it was MLC in the beginning. I exposed, I took a hard line, I demanded no contact. I wonder if I will be able to overcome the dumb things I did in the beginning.

I don't get much in the way of advice and from the beginning I've prayed that God would send someone to help me. When I was posting on the other board, I didn't regularly get useful advice, and I wondered if somehow people sensed that I wasn't going to make it and therefore didn't want to waste their time with me. A few times I let that really get to me, because I felt like I needed advice and strategies to make it through. Then someone pointed me to RCR's boards (thank you) and I read the MLC stuff and shared with MIL & FIL, and we agreed that H was MLC. I began to change from having strategies to learning, forgiving, becoming compassionate (I was angry b/c of the earlier A, I thought H and I had come through together stronger, knowing how A's happen and would work through any future problems together and get counseling, etc, but instead he dumped me like a hot potato without ever giving me a chance or telling me anything about how he was feeling.)

In any case, beautiful post - you're right, an MLCer needs that love and compassion and patience that we can give them. They also need to know boundaries when it's time, but not until.

As a warning to people, I struggle daily now because H and I were great friends, doing everything together, and now I am at a loss because of the hurtful things I did in the beginning. He will not let me in, will not talk to me, will not go do activities with me, and I blame myself for that. I drove him away instead of getting it in time. I used strategies and instead of spending this time now in the beginning of his MLC paving the way, I am being ignored.

That being said, some sincere, honest strategies are OK but should be appropriately applied when the LBS knows it's the right time to do it.

[Trustandlove]

I wouldn't beat yourself up about "mistakes"; I'm a great believer in it never being too late.  And it doesn't sound like you lost a lot of time, from my perspective. 

I never begged or pleaded with my H; in between following other 'strategies' I did things myself, most of which were probably more or less right.  When it comes from the heart it probably is right. 

A lot of it was necessary for my own 'journey' (even though I don't really like that word).  It's a long process, no matter how we look at it. 

Regarding believing it was mlc, I did believe it was mlc from pretty soon after he left, it was the counsellor who didn't really believe in mlc as such.  The other lbs was a godsend in that regard.  Also, I look back now at what advice she gave and a lot of it is what is discussed here -- it's just that I tried to do exactly what she did, not taking my situation's individual differences into account.  We were at very different points in the cycle, which I didn't recognize. 

[justasking]

M&H

I am saddened that you blame yourself for pushing your H further away in the early stages. We all made huge mistakes initially until we found wise counsel or got over the initial trauma enough to follow our instincts. You are very strong now and playing it spot on. Your H will look towards you when he has finished running from his issues. Just needs more time and patience.

This thread is soooo interesting. I find my intuition is very strong at times. People would tell me to follow a strategy and I would and do refuse as I know it would be counterproductive. I think of H every night in my prayers.

One night I did have a very bizarre encounter but not a dream. I was asleep and as far as I know not dreaming. In my ear as plain as if he was beside me I heard him say ' ***** I don't know what to do'. It was so plain I woke straight up and looked around and quite expected to see him in the bedroom. It was a definite call for help and advice. Since this 'dream/encounter' H has withdrawn from contact with me and has very little contact with the children. He still visits weekly. His depression has also increased. I am sure I was given an insight into his confusion and feelings of being lost.

As adults I think we often deny what God sends to help us and ride over the advice and support as we feel we may have the answers. I always try to keep an open mind. People have been sent to guide me when I have been at my lowest. They have answered questions I had and pointed me in the right direction. Many I have never met before.

[MarkedandHealed]

Not to threadjack and make this my thread… but wanted to answer. Thanks to both of you, but really, don’t be saddened. I am in a good place and knowing I made mistakes just makes it easier for me to help others now. I see them make those mistakes and tell them NOOOO! LOL. I did push him away, and it’s not like I sit around pining for those days back. I face what I did and I suck it up and move on. It’s the only thing I can do and knowing it was a mistake makes it that much more important for me to not repeat them.

I am a forgive and forget kind of person, always thought H was also, but recently as he has been dragging up things from when I was a child and LONG before I even met him, I know he retains EVERYTHING and holds on to it.

Then again, looking at it from a glass half full perspective, if I was as awful as he told everyone, he would have been able to point out recent faults rather than those from my teen years, right? LOL

I want to post a letter that was posted on another forum but I am not sure as it was already second hand at the time… but I’ll tell you the highlights. It’s something that moved me so much I printed it out and put it under my keyboard at work. This goes to what you said, JA, about praying for your H every night. Paraphrasing it says that MLCers need someone to believe in them, or they will never find their way back. Quoting it says “You have a lot of power if you are a believer in the Word of God. It says that the ‘unbelieving spouse is sanctified (which means literally ‘set apart and made holy’) by the believing spouse.’” It goes on to say how she (it is a woman who went through MLC) came through her MLC and came to know that she was “prayed out” of it, and wondered who had done that. She then got up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water and saw her H kneeling at her side of the bed praying. She knew then that he had prayed her out and was very moved. She also says that the only “foolproof way I know of to tear your family from the hands of the enemy is to lay it at the foot of the cross.” AND this is what gives me chills. She goes on to say (quoting) “Be aware that when you do so, your journey will probably become longer. This is because when you put yourself in that gap on behalf of your spouse, God is first going to deal with you. When you have reached a place within yourself where you can truly look at yourself through the eyes of God and ask Him to change YOU, then you will be getting somewhere. But only if you really, honestly seek the truth.”

Very interesting what happened to you re: H saying he didn’t know what to do. Along the same lines, in the beginning when H was still in bed with me, he would get drunk and come to bed and we’d ML. After one time, he cried and said he didn’t know what to do, he was so afraid. I took this as his subconscious and used it to reassure him that we would always pull through together. He was so drunk, I wonder if he knew it was me or thought it was OW. But I’m sure what you heard was your H. They are lost and when you are able to tap into their subconscious either through the dream state (if God allows it) or by lowering their walls through alcohol (I don’t recommend – but hey, if they are going to anyway) – they seem to know how lost they are.

[sambriony]

MH, it was I who directed you to this site.As I mentioned in an earlier post,I could sense your pain and confusion at your H being such a different person.You were posting in the Infidelity threads I remember and getting such alot of advice thrown at you.I remember asking people to reflect and remind them that people do take serious advice from these threads and saying we have to live with the consequences of the advice we give.Do you remember? There was then a select few who suggested you take some time out to consider you>>>>I then said realising now, at risk of criticism  from some of the vets and the forum,that you should come here and read the info prepared by RCR.I remember saying you will have a light bulb moment , an awakening when you read the info and you will know then if MLC is real and if this what your H is going through.Your H was behaving in a similar way to mine and I just knew he was on the same journey.I was truly concerned for you at one point, the thread was getting longer and longer! When you had taken your few days out you came back a different person and you were back in the driving seat! I hope you don't mind me sharing this as I read your previous post my worry for you at the time cam flooding back.Look at you now in such a different space and guiding other people through this hell that is MLC. You are a good example of how the journey changes people and how you become stronger.
I am a naturally intuitive person.This last 10 ten days or so I have dreamt of my H almost every night.The dreams don't always make sense..one was where he sustained a terrible injury to his back, but in all of them he talks to me about the R not working with OW.She is never in the dreams.I believe I know how my H thinks and can sense what he is feeling by what he is not doing but it frightens me that MLC means intuition goes out the window and the dreams are ones of hope that's in my head.I feel very strong and very firm on my decision not to divorce him,it is something he must take responsibility for, if he so wishes.Like you TL, I never begged or pleaded with my H and have never done anything to make his life difficult or unpleasant.I have let him go because I love him.Then I think maybe he expects me to fight for him,I am disappointed he never fought for us.I was always the one however to hold the relationship together purely because of his lack of strength.
I firmly believe in god taking care of us first..helping us to find ourselves.I know in my mind my H wont make the journey home until I have healed and that feels like some way off.I understand fully why god separated us now and hope someday my intuition of our destiny of being together is also God wishes for us.28years together and we are joined by our soul.

[MarkedandHealed]

Oh, yes, I remember your words very well, I just didn’t want to post anything over here with your name from then. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to be called out. So, now that you did, I’ll say it publicly, thank you very much.  You changed my course for the better and really helped me out. If not for that post, I have no doubt I’d be D right now. You’re remembering it very well. Even when I hopped over to MLC on that forum, I still was waffling for a bit, not sure it was MLC or not. I didn’t want to let go of those posters that were “helping” me at the time. I felt better taking action and not just letting go. However, your words and RCR’s articles just led me right where I needed to be – and letting go was EXACTLY what God was directing me to do. I was so sure of what I was doing since I had traveled a similar path in the past with H having that EA before and having “won” the fight through DBing – I thought it was the same but something just didn’t look or smell right to me until I read RCR’s articles, which you directed me to.

My H never fought for us either. Isn’t that what a real “man” is supposed to do? Although I’m sorry for their pain, I envy the women who’s H’s are on here learning and growing and fighting for their Ms.

That reminds me, your post about the soul connection – in all of this, it would be so easy to become bitter about the whole soul mate thing. However, I still believe in it. My views are changing, and I believe soul mates are more like love is. Our belief in soul mates are like infatuation. We think soul mates are just “drawn” together and somehow we find that right person. Maybe that’s true, but the infatuation chemicals of early relationships play a big part in those feelings that we have found our “soul mate” and really, I believe now that soul mates are built, not found, much like mature love is. That connection you have with your H and that we all do can be broken, but it takes a lot of force to break it. God is no slouch, and when he built us, he made us to have strong bonding. What God has put together, let no man put asunder. Those are not just words, He meant it. They may believe that OW is their soul mate now, but when the infatuation wears off and those chemicals are getting old, the bond and connection we have will be there still.