Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Midlife Crisis MLC or WAS - seems it doesn't much matter...

UB,

This is very well said:


IMP

The fact that H left his children is the part I have the most trouble with. He was always so selfless before. I think it is very possible that these WAS MLCer's are not the right people for anyone after they hit their crisis.

Half

I have to agree with you. My H is not good for me or the OW or our kids. He is not good for himself either. I do feel sorry for him in some ways. I can really see a battle going on in him. The whole I do not want to hurt you but yet he still does. I really do not think that these are just words. I think he really feels this way but can not control it. He actually said this to me yesterday and then walked over to me and hugged me and said it again.

Wow he seems like one really messed up guy. I am sure that you all can see the same in your H's.

Mimi

Thank you all so much for you kind responses. I’ve had an interesting week or so to work with this and wanted to have my head on straight before I committed to paper what has happened with my xh and importantly my reactions to it.

I need to put some of this in perspective first. Thing is, the woman he married (OW) was his best friend’s widow. His best friend died, aged 46, about 2 years before we separated, he died of a horrible, painful stomach cancer that kept him in agony in hospital for the last months of his life. That couple had a tragic life together. They lost their first child to cot death at about 6 months, lost their 2nd child to an invasive and deforming brain cancer when he was 6 yrs old and then had a whole heap of unrelated, but really tragic stuff happen to them.

The widow (OW), who I was friends with too, was/is a tragic woman. She carries so much sadness with her (understandably). When her husband, our friend, died he left her a wealthy, but broken woman. She almost immediately had an affair with a married man we knew that didn’t work out, she had a kind of semi-breakdown. Her depression and grief deepened, there were other men, and my xh felt really sorry for her, he’d known her for 20 years, so he and I did want to support her. When things really went to hell in our marriage, for some reasons other than the inordinate amount of time he was spending with her - well, as they say, the rest is herstory!!

So, back to the present. Things escalated a little after I called him back. He told me again how sorry he was for everything that he’d caused to happen. He told me that his marriage just wasn’t working out, his wife is crazy and refuses to be happy (well… she’s never had much to be happy about). She won’t ‘let him’ play golf or go to the bowling club, she cries all the time. They don’t have any friends in their new town. He hates his job. The list went on and on.

I asked him if it was his marriage that was the problem, or if he was having teething pains from moving to a new place and reminded him it can take quite a while to settle in.

He was adamant that he’s dug himself into a deep hole by marrying OW and he wanted to wind the clock back and pretend none of this had ever happened. He wanted to leave OW, get back with me and carry on our lives. ‘Put the past two and a half years behind us.’ I was like - well, that’s not going to happen.

He told me he was coming to town later in the week for work and asked could we go out for dinner? I agreed, but I said really clearly that I could hear that he was in a tough place right now, but that I would never ever ever do to OW what the pair of them had done to me. I said I’ve got a great life now xh and I’m very pleased to develop a new friendship with you, but I am absolutely firm that it will never be any more than that while you are married to someone else.

So, a few days later, he calls, says he’s in town and asks if I’ll have dinner with him. I say yes and we agree to meet at a bar next door to a restaurant we used to like (I haven’t been there since we broke up). I agreed, but when I put the phone down I remembered how that was his thing, go to a bar, have 3 or 6 drinks before dinner, then I would never enjoy dinner because I was feeling too drunk. I never go to a bar before I go to a restaurant now, I like to have wine with dinner, but I rarely drink for the sake of it. Anyway …. I put doubts aside and off I go.

My first impression of him was that he looked old. There’s a 16 year age difference between us. I’m 36 and he’s 52 now. For the first time ever I saw him as an ‘old’ man. He looked haggard. He looked broken. It broke my heart. He actually had bags under his eyes. Like he was always a sexy, sexy man - of the kind of Gregory Peck mold, but it looked like Mr Peck had spent too long in the booze house.

Not only did he look old, but he sounded old. I was sincerely pleased to see him and I think he was as sincere in his enjoyment of seeing me but it was like he couldn’t increase his enthusiasm past that of an old school headmaster. It was strange.

He talked about what’s going on with he and OW. I suggested they get some counseling. He said he was too scared to raise it with her because if she knew how unhappy he was she might ‘do something stupid’. He said he feels trapped and unable to move left or right because she is too unstable.

And that’s when it clicked for me. He is right back where I left him 2 and a half years ago. He is still the codependent, self absorbed, emotionally immature man who went from one relationship to another without a thought of what his contribution to the demise of his relationships was. He still thinks that everything that happens around him is someone else’s fault and that he has no capacity to influence it by his behaviors.

He still thinks that if he’s not with me he should be with her and if he’s not with her he should be with me or someone else. He can’t bear the thought of being on his own and he hasn’t learned a damn thing about his own capacity to look after himself emotionally or physically.

He still thinks that his unhappiness comes from elsewhere. He’s unhappy because ‘she won’t let him’ do the things he wants to do, he’s trapped because ‘she might do something stupid’. Crikey.

We had a good long talk and a really wonderful night. After I made it clear that I’m not going to be a parachute for him if he decides to leave the marriage, he loosened up and talked more about what he perceived had happened during our separation and divorce. He apologized a lot. I apologized for some things too.

He admitted that he has to do something about his marriage, but he doesn’t know what. I really reiterated that he could get some professional help and that might be good for OW too. I think he took some of that on board. He did agree that he didn’t go in blind, he knew about the baggage OW was carrying when he hooked up with her, and he signed up for it anyway (one small step in him accepting his role in this mess).

After I’d spent some time telling him about my life now (and the lives of our foster daughter and his eldest son, who I have more to do with than he does) he admitted that I seemed happy and he could understand why I didn’t want to jump back into a relationship with him. He asked if I was seeing anyone and I was honest and told him I do have a lover, it’s not that serious, but it’s monogamous. He seemed a bit pissed off by that - but hey - what’s a girl to do!!

He asked if he could stay with us (me and foster daughter) for the night in the spare room - and it broke my heart .. but - I said no.

I went home and cried all night. I don’t know what I cried for, I don’t know why I was so upset, but I was really really sad. This stuff just never seems to go away.

So to the questions from my last post.



I don’t know. A lot of things would have to happen for that to be something I’d need to deal with. He’s married - end of story.

.

If they divorced, if he did the learning I’ve done during these years on my own, if I was available. That’s a lot of ifs.

I think Nicola said it best that he he hasn't had any time alone, though, it would take a lot of time and work for him to become good H-material again.

Finally unbroken asked



Yeah - I think it is possible. I do think that without a sincere 100% commitment to the marriage by both partners you can grow out of each other - and sh!t happens. I also know that in the mad scramble to “marry and have a family” that society encourages we often don’t have the skills in our 20s to discern what we will need from a partner when we are in our 30s or 40s. I see a lot of people meet someone, have that electrifying experience of falling in romantic love (which I think you can have with probably ¼ of the population given the right time and place) and you base an entire life long partnership on this perception that he/she is your soul mate because you get on reasonably well and are physically attracted to each other!!

WB,

I really enjoyed reading your thread. I keep hearing that until the lbs truly let's go of the WAS/MLCer that they won't come back. That they can tell that when we haven't let go.

What does it feel like to truly let go? I act like I have let go and have stopped all contact with my H unless it has to do with our d7. Can you tell me how does the lbs feel when they have completely "dropped the rope?" I guess I thought I had let go b/c I am "acting the part". I have been told by many here that the WAS/MLC can sense that when the lbs really hasn't let go.

How did you treat your H during the 2 1/2 years apart when you did see him or talk with him or was their no contact?

Thanks,
K

Hi KtF

Terrifying at first.

It took me a long time to truely let go, but when I finally did it, it was so liberating. Holding on to him kept me stuck where I was. Letting go of him and honestly accepting that he had a right to chose who he wanted to be with, and he had a right to chose not to be with me was the best thing that ever happened, because it allowed me to forgive him.

It was kind of like, when I was holding out, hoping, wishing and praying that he'd come back to the marriage I was screaming at him with every part of my energy "I don't care what you want. You have to come back to me because we are married" and what he took from that was "I don't care what you want."

When I let go, it gave me the space to figure out what I wanted. I want love and happiness in my life. I was clinging on to some remembered ideal of our marriage as that place of love and happiness, but it meant I had been living with pain and unhappiness for the intervening 12 months or so. Letting go allowed me the capacity to revaluate what I had to do to get what I want.

I forgave him and I completed my grieving. You know stuff happens. Letting go gave me the courage to accept that stuff happens and get on with my life.



For the first 12 months I saw him and talked to him a lot because his boys were living with me. For the next 6 months we talked once a week or so, finalising the financial settlement and just out of habit I guess.

After he got married, I didn't want to talk to him at all. He still called once a month or so.

I really DBed hard right up until he got married, so contact was all by the DB rules. I backslid from time to time, but I usually kept it together.

Thanks KtF7. I think you will find a lot of peace in your situation when you can detach from your H. You could/should also try to detach from his OW. I worry that you spend too much time being angry at her. She's not worth it.

Good luck, keep at it.

Virginia, you are a breath of fresh air.

HUGS