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Lily, I sometimes wonder if the ones who are most conflicted are actually also still in love with us and cannot deal with it. Not our problem, and I don't mean it as comfort exactly, more as an explanation.

It is horrible, this rewriting of our past. But I don't think they do actually hate us, they love us and cannot deal with all the other stuff. That is their tragedy and ours . . .

Hi Ladies,

I know they still love us. Their actual reality is they always will. They will never be free of those feelings.

My H has actually told me he loves me (many times) he has even said he is still "in" love with me.

Our stands are really very sad for this fact. because.....

Unfortunately this awareness will take them years to realize and it's eventually too late when they finally have this epiphany.

I believe some portray/spew hatred towards/for us instead to mask their reality which is guilt and shame over the devastation they have caused to their families.

Given all the hurt they have inflicted they cannot reclaim their
position as our husband and rejoin our families due to prideful ways and saving of face. That would be turning away from themselves and admitting to being wrong and selfish.

I have learned that they don't want us to turn our backs to them. I believe that while they can spew venom they want us to be the opposite towards them ALWAYS. This is a big part of the MLC being.

This old adage comes to mind:
"They can't live with us, can't live without us."

I have an H that is the opposite of this. Mine is very nice and friendly towards me. In my reality this is confusing. I am learning that he wants to be friends with me and I am currently
discovering that I don't want to be his. My friends would not forsake me. My H has betrayed me many times over and in ways that have been very hard to forgive although I have managed or at least I think I have. I am currently having more and more feelings of disgust and dislike for him. I see him right now and I can't believe who he is!

Ladies, if you think about this.....We will never be free of our feelings for them either no matter where the road of life takes us from here.....

I wish you all the very best with warm hugs,

Sanderika

PS: Beatrice, I have created a facebook in the alt for you all. How are you doing with this?

Sanderika - this is all very true, I think. It is painful - my pre MLC xh was such a nice considerate, thoughtful person, and it is so very weird. Even after all this time, learning why, putting it behind us, and getting on with our lives, the personality change is sometimes, for me, still beyond belief.
That is my reality - that man is gone, and I get on with living my life.

Like you, friendship is next to impossible - my friends just don't behave like this.

Beatrice and Sanderika,

Boy oh boy did you both just hit the nail squarely on the head. I just had this discussion with my friend last night at dinner. They do still love us but their pride is in their way. In some weird way, it is almost as if looking like a fool is easier than accepting that they made a mistake.

I once asked ex if he loved me why he kept up his current ways. Amazingly he said that he did not know. Could have been a lie but I was inclined to believe him based on the vacant look in his eyes.

A harsher reality is that we may never know why exactly things got so out of hand.

what I will never, ever understand, or really accept, however detached I am, is the way that so many of them ditch their children. My h has no relationship with his kids, [adults] and now regrets this, but isn't willing to do anything about it.

I do not know how I would cope if one of my kids had lost all respect and liking for me, let alone all of them. If he said he was sorry, truly and tried to rebuild a relationship with them they would welcome it. Given that this was always supposed to be about our marriage, and not about the children, it is one bit I do not get.

Maybe I'm still trying to think rationally here, but I will never truly understand how they think that they can walk away, leave mass destruction and then think that we can be friends w/them again. My friends have never done this to me and I sure as heck wouldn't treat them the way that my xh did.

As for the children, they have lost all respect and will be extremely leery of their mlcing parents for a very long time. Trying to regain that trust and level of parenting will take a very long time and I don't think most they have it in them to do it...it's a lot of work.

"Maybe I'm still trying to think rationally here, but I will never truly understand how they think that they can walk away, leave mass destruction and then think that we can be friends w/them again. My friends have never done this to me and I sure as heck wouldn't treat them the way that my xh did."

I get this totally. This is what I'm telling myself lately:

The only reason that XH has this in his head is that, if he is the classic narcissist/MLCer, and he "fits the profile", then he feels like never in his life has he had it "his way" or "done what HE wants" because he first tried to please abusive parents, then he chose me, a person who loved every little thing he did, and he went overboard with "doing" for me. So now, it's "all about him", as it has never been about him before.

So fine. He's a teenager now. A teenager doesn't make a good husband ;-) Let the OW deal with Mr. Teenage boy.

I'm doing just fine without him, and you know, I miss him terribly. I really do. But I can't be part of his life anymore till he gets this out of his system, and he may have burned the bridges so badly that there is no repairing them.

I think that when we can come to a point where we stop sacrificing ourselves for them that we really become empowered as individuals. And as always, this experience really teaches us who our REAL friends are. Sadly, our exes don't seem to fit this definition...

I agree about not wanting to be with a teenager. It is odd how we miss who they were, and yet know we cannot have them in our lives.

Having non contact is much easier, but occasionally we forget how awful they are, and start to remember them as they were. A reality check is then needed!

They are not our friends, friends care for their friends and treat them well. Perhaps they 'need' this reassurance that they really aren't that bad? I think that they lack the courage ad energy to put things right, if and when it dawns on them that all is not well with them and their strange new world. A few do, and even then it takes a huge amount of patience and encouragement from the lbs, who by that point may well have better things to do than deal with the uncertainty of a person who has been crazy, and may do it again . . .

Ladies,

I think the answers lie in our H's life.

For my situation and many just like mine, I took a long hard look at H's life from a small boy until the day he left, our H/XH never really grew up and that is a huge piece in this puzzle.

I will lay out my H's life in a nutshell, it will help you all if you are able to do the same. You will see the answers as to why they have ended up in a MLC and why they turn away from their children. Mine has done both of these things.

My H was the third son of four.

My H never felt like he was a member of the family.

My H felt like his parents/brothers/authority figures...teachers and coaches, etc...hated him. So...likewise he decided he didn't like people and he became a loner.

As a child, my H was expected to behave like an adult with adult like chores/obligations and was constantly being left alone to fend for himself. Parents were selfish role models.

Hooked up with me at 15 and Married me at 20. Never really got to sow his oats.

H started his own business at age 19, so he wouldn't have to answer to anyone. This company is first in his life and the only true love of his life. He is a huge success with this endeavor. This has helped to inflate the ego.

H had cancer at 26, it went into remission at age 29. This left H with the attitude that he was going to live his life his way regardless of others thoughts and desires, including me.

He became a parent at 32. Never bonded with son because of his selfishness and unwillingness to grow up. I know he felt jilted by me at this point because I turned some attentions away from H and dotted on my new little son. H at that point in life did not want to have to stop his socializing and free spirited lifestyle to be a responsible parent. His selfish ways were obvious to all. Harry Chapin's song, Cats in the Cradle, could have been written about my H.

I became severely depressed when I was 37. H did not have the ability to cope and support me through this. It did not conform to his selfish desires because I was unable to do, do, do for him during this period in my life.

BTW, H and I are the same age...He is exactly 1 month older than me. We grew up together. I know all about him.

At age 41 H lost his mother to cancer. This devastated him. I know he had unfinished business with her. He yearned for her love and attention and she was the first to actually forsake him.
She would ship him off the her mother's at every turn because she never bonded with him.

At age 41 H was burned in a propane explosion and could have very likely been killed. This incident further instilled his thoughts about his own mortality.

H left me two weeks after he turned 42. Blaming me for everything that went wrong in his life. Rewriting history. Abandoned and neglected son to the point they are virtual strangers now. Son has lived the age of 9 to 15 without a Dad. Before that H was here but only as a father.

H was destined to have a MLC. I was once told some men have Peter Pan Syndrome from the onset of adulthood. These men will always lean to the wild and free spirited personality.

H now lives in a world where it is all "me and mine". He is very defensive and cannot accept any fault. He is very quick to criticize.

IMO, they cannot fully reunite to their children.

They would have to humble themselves to their kids and seek acceptance. They do not feel like they did anything wrong, so to say sorry and want acceptance and forgiveness makes no sense to them.

They cannot see why they are being treated as outsiders by their children because they cannot visualize and acknowledge the pain they have caused to their children and their families as a whole.

They want the children to accept their choices and decisions as they are without prejudice. The kids have been severely damaged by the person they felt would never forsake them....a parent. It would take too much work for the MLCer. The MLCer always takes the path of least resistance.

The MLCer parent has to be the one to extend the olive branch, IMO.

The children have us. They have grown accustomed to life with one parent, they reached the point of "do not care any longer" ........long before we did. They are unlikely to reach out to them. They want apologies. It can't be just words...actions have to be included. MLCer cannot be honest.

This will hopefully give you all some things to compare to in your situations. I am sure your H's lives are very different. I am sure there will be many similarities.

Sanderika

Sanderika. the commanility is that the MLCer had critical harsh or judging parents, so that they felt unloved. They are driven by a need to succeed and prove to themselves and the world that they are OK. They never achieve enough to feel OK though, and always, paradoxically feel entitled to more than they are getting.

They were poorly parented and have trouble in relating to their children, they felt emotionally abandoned by their parents and see any actions by us [depression in your case, first bout of cancer in mine . . as 'leaving them'].

Death is also a significant trigger for them - in my h's case my mother's death. Also for older MLcers their children growing up, leaving home, getting married all contribute to their sense that life is pasing them by, and they are being left inthe slow lane.

I think part of MLC for many is their attempt to live life in the fast llane, centre stage. Inside they are the lost unappreciated, and lonely child who cannot fully relate to anyone. They do not address this, and so it festers, and bursts out at some point.

They are angry with us because they see us as holding them back from the life they wanted, as abandoning them, or potentially doing so. They are immature at a very fundamental level and some of them never do grow up.

I would also add that working through the crisis takes a very long time. The 'time line' of 7years is probably an underestimate for most. I think if my h makes it through it will be more than 8 years. But he will likely bail out of the process. He doesn't even realise he is working through it, and maybe I am deluding myself.[Certainly not holding my breath] It would be good for him if he could sort it all out.