Hello all, been a while since I posted, and I only read ocasionally now days, this one caught my eye, I have been exposed to MLC land for about three and a half years now, my XW did all the usual, I was a true stander and I am a true believer in MLC. my Divorce has been final for two years in August and my XW got remarried to the dirtbag she had the affair with last weekend, I have for a while thought of writing a similar post to what Braveheart has said.
I think I understand what he is trying to say, and I don't think it shows disrespect for standers, for me at this point in all of this, I have some huge regrets about the way I handled things, and a lot of that from things I learned on this site, I think this is a very special place, filled with very special people, in the darkest hours of my wreck I spent many hours here reading, learning and took great comfort in the fact that I wasn't the only one in history this has happened to, which is how I felt when it started.
My regrets come from the fact that in the beginning I read Hearts Blessing and the six stages and convinvced my self that was exacly how my sitch was going to go, I just had to show LOVE an be P A T I E N T, give her space, work on myself and everything would be fine, even if I had to wait 2 or 3 years, I did show her love, respect, gave her space, I was patient, I worked on myself, had an excellent C that I saw for about a year and a half, I read a Library of books, and in the end I am a changed person, and a better person by far than I was before, but I stayed so positive that I would one day be telling my success story on this sight, I spent a long time in denial that it might not happen, even with all the zero expectations advice given here, all the while I was being positive, my W was running around openly having an affair, slamming me every chance she got, mad at the world because everyone from her family, my family, her oldest best friends, my friends, our common friends, and everyone she knew was on my side.
I guess my point to this rambling is, new people here are so fragile and so confused as to whats happening to them, MLC is so offensive, so agressive, and such a very rude awakening, I think its so admirabe to stand for your marriage, I sure did, and so awsome to be understanding to their condition, and to learn all you can about whats happening to them, but I hope for everyone's sake we don't give so much hope that in the end, its another hurt to go through and another let down, that theres not a happy ending to this nightmare at least not in all situations.
I have heard and read many statistics from many view points through these last few years, I don't believe any one has an accurate stat, and I don't think its possible to find an acurate statistict to recconciliations after MLC, or the desire of post MLC'rs to recconcile, but I will tell you what I have been told seen and heard.
When my sitch first started I had a bookkeeper who is also a friend of mine and my X, she had a MLC, her and her husband divorced, and had since remmairied, and have been happily so for many years, she was the first to start my MLC education, she ran off with a dirtbag, biker, began using drugs, got addicted, lived the high life for a while, had her crash, and returned through some friends to her husband, and tells everyone she has the worlds best marriage and is the very happy now, I asked her one night to read the six stages and see if she agreed, she said she didn't need to read it she had lived it.
I worked for the Fire Dept. in my home town for many years, my first Capt. had a W who left him to to have an affair with her Boss, they moved to another state to live together, I can't remember how long the affair lasted but it was a while, I don't know if they got Divorced and remmaried or stayed married, but I remember it was a mess, they have been back together for about ten years and are on their way to happily evere after.
My parents best friends were a couple that had been married since they were kids, when I was about twelve or thirteen they split up, he opened a CB shop during the radio craze and had a hired a guy from out of town to run the shop, his W had an affair with him and he ended up living in there house, they Divorced for several years, and eventually got back together and remarried and are still married to this day, she had an MLC and my Mom said that during that period she thought her friend had lost her mind.
I also had a step Uncle, who I had known all my life, a mans man he had been a Mormon Bishop, worked at the same job most of his life, been a devoted family man, a guy who you would have told your kids to pattern their life after, he was almost sixty years old when his W came home and found out he had taken their life savings out of the bank and left with his new miss woderful, after a couple of years he came home, and they worked it out.
My XW's Dad had an MLC, ran of with his secretary, my X caught him and told her mom, they split up, Divorced, she got Cancer and died shortly after, A a couple of years later we were working in the yard, he called my XW and cryed for a couple of hours telling her how sorry he was for all he'd done and told her if her mom was still alive he wouldn't want to be any place but home with her.
I know of several other MLC's I've had the pleasure of watching, they left and never came back, at least not yet, I have a good friend whos W is MLC, or was, after six years of this he has finally gave up and filed, she is now maddly in love with him again, and totaly broken hearted he wants a Divorce, this after her second affair.
As for me this has been the learning experience of a lifetime, I am better, smarter about this, and finally at peace with this like never before, this leaves a scar, but the bleeding does stop.
As for my XW'a wedding, I have only heard from one person who attended, which is my friends W who is MLC, she told my friend my X looked really bad, she said it looked like X didn't even comb her hair and had no makeup on at all, and seemed totally miserable, they got Married at the house me and X bought, and I spent four years remodling and landcaping, the guy she had the affair with and has now married has done three terms in prison for drugs, has I.V. drug user Hepititis, has been diagnosed, with Obsesive/Compolsive disorder, and is so debilotated by his medication, he almost can't function as a normal person.
I wish everyone here the best, you are the best for being here and opening your minds to all the posibilities life holds, To those of you who save your Marriages, I applaud your dedication, to those of you who don't, I want you to know you can still be happy, and I'll leave you with two of my favorite sayings, The thing I have learned about LIFE is it goes on, and "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change", best of luck to all of you, regardless of what happens, in you sitch, your special for trying, and special for trying to understand and show compasion for the Alian that MLC, creates, see you at the top. Livin.
