I've read the books, DB, Silent Sons, Jim Conway, it all fits. What doesn't fit is this, total black out, total no contact. H last saw sons just after Christmas.
H filed, unreasonable behaviour, total fabricated reason but I didn't contest, not easy to do in the uk. reading between the lines of the communication between lawyers H has OW, he is in a hurry for funds, he is angry with me and suspicious to the point of paranoid. H is questioning my income and expenditure. H has gone awal only contact through solicitor, he does see his family. MIL very defensive and protective of H to the point of cursing her own grandsons. sons 18 & 15 have totally given up on H, I am at the point of no return. The cruelness and harshness of all this has been tiring, I have detached to a safe place along with my sons, trouble is I feel now that I want to close the door on H. I will have to face H in court, I don't know what to expect, I'm not sure if I will recognise him. this is a stage I didn't want to reach but i will be D before the end of the month.
That is shocking not spending time with his children. I don't know if I could forgive that . . .
NC
Be The Greener Grass.
Me 40 H 42 Son 11 Married 15 years. Left May 2006 after gambling spree I had EA August 2006 OW Aug 07 after another gambling spree (she will make me happy - stop me gambling!) I filed for divorce 9th April 2008.
I'd bet that you will see your husband in that book, very very clearly.
My $.02 is that it is good that your sons have given up on their father right now. They may want to rebuild a relationship with him later, but keeping them out of range of the stupidity is for the best right now.
Close the door if you want, leave it open if you want, vow to reopen or leave it closed if you want. It's all up to you, babe.
MIL very defensive and protective of H to the point of cursing her own grandsons.
What a witch! No wonder her son has turned into the man he is. How do you turn your back on your own grandchildren???
I will never forget my MIL from my 1st M (I hate the way that sounds...like I have been married so many times...tried to save M#1 and that didn't work...now trying to save M#2) told me that her son wouldn't have left me if I hadn't argued with him! This coming from a born again Christian woman whose son cheated on me almost the entire M...grrr!
I don't feel it is my place to forgive H for not contacting his sons, H first has to forgive himself, but I don't feel he is anywhere near realising that he has acted in a way that requires forgiveness. H has hurt our sons but I really don't think he realises that he has, he hasn't got to that point, I'm not sure he ever will.
Our sons will be able to forgive, they have good hearts, but only if H ever works hard enough to gain their trust again, I'm just not sure if H wants them in his life enough to sacrifice some of the things that stand between now.
Son 18 has moved away to college and H has missed out on this life changing experience.
I am so proud of our sons, they have shown maturity and stregth though all of this. They love H but realise that they just can't help the situation he has chosen to get himself into.
I maybe able to forgive H if he ever recognised the hurt he has caused.
H had an A 10 years ago, no lessons were learn't, apart from I recognised straight away that he was displaying identical behaviour, only this time he has shown no remorse, there seems to be no guilt, it just feels as though he is entitled to everything. He has even convinced the MIL that this is the case. When he nearly cleared the house out as he left MIL told me, he has only taken his own belongings, excuse me he took half the furniture, ok so he brought it with him 20 years ago but I didn't realise it had name tags on it.
He continues to work and appear 'normal' to the outside world, people tell me he seems to be enjoying himself, he's been seen out socialising.
H tells MIL that he tries to contact our sons but they don't answer the phone, this is a total lie but she believes him and then she shifts the blame over to lads, at 1st this used to upset them now they just laugh.
The past 10 months have been the most difficult months of my life, I feel it has been a battle to hang on to everything, but we are getting there, hopefully I will be able to keep the family home, but I guess that depends how the court decides we should split. The asset splitting is a complex situation and due to H being non directive it has had to be taken through the court, H wanted a simple payout but wouldn't come up with a figure so hence the court date.
H has been heard to say I'm being awkward, I guess this is because his new life and spending has been interupted by the costly legal fees, he hasn't paid any maintainance but is in debt, he earns a very good salary. I earn enough to pay the bills and enjoy life so I'm ok with this, I just get pi*sed off when he questioned my expediture via the lawyer, cheeky basket case.
I don't know if any of our mutual friends have seen through him yet, none of them have keptin touch so I guess they are not the mutual friends I thought they were, but it may just be that H is a very convincing, confident man & he has probably told them a very convinceing tale. I haven't told my story to the general public, just my very close friends, this board and my immediate family,even then I have never cursed H. I did send MIL a 2 page letter at Easter, expressing my frustration at her taking the word of her son and being critical of her only grandchildren, this has resulted in her not speaking to me since, but I am glad I sent it, there were some home truths in that letter that needed saying, the whole family have wanted it saying for years, it didn't change anything but at least we now know that she is incapable of change.
This long journey has been very educational, I have learnt to value the simple things in life, I have learnt that my friends are so valuable, I already knew how much my family loved me, all this has made this journey easier.
I haven't posted in a very long time, but I have read daily, this board has given me the insight into MLC, posters have helped me come to terms with changes to our life that H's choices inflicted on us.
I think H maybe disapointed to see me succeed through all of this, I really do feel that he is angry with me because I have managed without him. I don't feel any praise coming from his direction, his silence has been cutting and wounding, but the wounds are beginning to heal, they don't hurt anymore, just itch a little now and again. I do feel that H's no contact is his way of feeling in charge, I feel he has deep issues with control, he once said I was controling at MC 10 years ago, although he did say later that I was far from controling, this time he said he had to leave because of my intense jealousy, umm he was having an affair with a D'ee neighbour who had 2 young children, which he denied for months, but eventually addmitted this to his mum, but told his mum it wasn't serious and didn't mean anything. ( so glad I wasn't the OW ), the A was over within 6 months of him leaving, this is why I question MLC, I wonder if H's A was simply an exit affair, and that he did just walk away, this is why I have named my thread.
I'm not ready to date, I have a lot more strength to gain on my own before I meet anyone else, I do not want to enter another relationship until I feel 100% settled with the fact that H is no longer playing an active part in my life, i'm not quite there yet. I do have an active life and I have my family and friends to thank for that, they have stuck with me through thick and thin, sick and sin.
I do not know if H has another OW, non of us know anything about his life other than where he works, we don't have a contact address, everything is sent via the lawyer, MIL knows his address, but hasn't disclosed it to our sons, I really do not understand this behaviour.
so there it is a shortened version of the past 2 years, but long enough for the DB board.
Just went through all this with my XH. Divorce became final last Tuesday. He has not seen our kids since last May, son is 11, daughter 13. He has told anyone that will listen that I have turned the kids against him, and that they won't talk to him. He calls once or twice a week tells them he might do something on the weekend with them, then doesn't follow through. Months of that has left my kids not wanting anything to do with him. But he gets more sympathy making it look like I am the one who ruined his relationship with them, not him.
My X-MIL hasn't seen the kids in years, she is 100% behind my XH, and so is the rest of his family. Which makes me wonder what it looks like from the other side of a MLCer. How do family and friends support someone who causes so much damage? Are they blind, or do they become brainwashed? He has become a master manipulator, and from what I can tell, any energy he used to put into our M he has now put into convincing friends and family how miserable he was, and how horrible I am. It will be interesting to see if he comes out of this how, or if, he turns them around again.
I am coming up on the two year mark of the A, but I believe he has been in MLC for almost four years. He started to come out last year, but when his X-OW became pregnant, he ran way back into the tunnel. He is very petty with money and other things just like your H. He tells me I am the "spoiler" since I ruined his R with OW, never mind the way she spoiled my M. He is a very bitter man right now.
One positive thing I will tell you, the divorce is not that bad. I fought it tooth and nail, and am glad that I did, but there is a certain relief when you are finally free from it all. The power is back in my hands, and my XH can no long control me with the D or the OW. He is free, but so am I, I don't think he likes that side of it.
I agree with you about not finding forgiveness until he realizes the hurt he has caused. Right now the most I have gotten from him was an "I'm sorry for any pain you have been experiencing," nothing about him being sorry for being the one who caused that pain. But that is out of my control, and something he will have to come to on his own. I know forgiveness is for us not them, but I still can't bring myself to do it right now.
Your H may not be praising you for succeeding through this, but you have done well, and do deserve to feel proud of yourself for the way you have handled things. This can be a learning experience for all of us, as horrible as the experience has been, it is possible to come out the other end better than you were before. He may even reach that point one day.
Hi Lael, I have been following your stich. H did show a glimmer just before Christmas, he said he didn't want to hurt us anymore than he had done so already, but then reverted straight back to his odd ways, so we felt this was a just a little Christmas spirit, we haven't seen anything like it since, maybe because we haven't had the contact. I have e-mailed him a couple of times to up date H with news and once to express how hurt we were but I gave up with this after Easter as it was a cheeseless tunnel and he didn't respond.
Unfortunatly I've been down a lot of those cheeseless tunnels.
Christmas brought out a different side to my XH too. There was a lot of pleading and tears from him and he begged me not to walk away, but by the end of January, he had decided that he wanted to be with OW. They lasted exactly one week. I think if she hadn't gotten pregnant that week, he might have given things one more try, but that kind of sealed our fate.
I'm not sure if it had any effect on him or not, but my H started antidepressents in November, and then went off them in mid January. I don't think he liked facing the feelings he had underneath his depression. For him it was easier to go back to what "felt good," then to face the damage he had done. Your H's lack of contact may be caused by him not wanting to face his demons either. As long as he can keep at a distance, he can rewrite history any way he wants to, but one day he will have to face reality. Your MIL seems to be protecting him from this, but he can only hide for so long
MLCers are WAS. WAS may be MLC, but there is not DNA test yet to prove it. So we are all left wondering, WTF?
Your H seems to be at that magic time in his life for his little brain to explode. You can't help getting some gooo on you, but it sounds like you are doing a good clean up. Keep it up. The best contact with aliens is no contact. There are lots of theories about how to communicate so they know the door is open and you will be their friend. This would be right if the alien weren't spewing to family and friends.
We don't need those friends and neither do you. Let It Go.
Some LBS on these threads have posted stories of in laws having to eat crow after the MLCer woke up and admitted all their lies. Unless he does, expect MIL to believe any kind of lie that spews out of H mouth. Expect OW to promote the lies. It makes her less evil in all this. You are blessed to have sons that know right from wrong. We all hope they learn the true measure of a man by watching all this.
At the beginning of my Xw alien orbit she met with an interested male friend from work. He allegedly told her to think hard about D because "when his W went crazy and he D her, the kids stopped talking to him". Does anyone else smell MLC lies in that?
This likely alien MLCer then told my X that if she did D, he would be interested in dating. Of course he would. That is almost certainly why he was no longer M and ignored by his kids. They see life inside out as it suits them.
Don't go near the gooo.
Get all you can in court. If he wakes up one day, and the OW helped spend his last dime, you won't regret it.
Send your post man a Christmas card, not your MIL.
