Jaybee - it is odd how differently they go through this. I would say that my h is just about where he was, emotionally, two years ago. He made some progress in 2006, and spent most of 2007 going backwards, further and further into the tunnel again, until he is about where he started. Getting angry and blaming everyone but himself again. Telling all the same tired lies about our relationship. In fact the lies are more pronounced and odder . . . does anyone else have a MLCer who is getting worse and worse.
Angelica, I do think my XH is about where he was emotionally two years ago, although to be fair and honest, his conversations with me are so entirely superficial it would be hard to be certain. I attribute this in part to his having chosen a T who called himself a "life coach" and who XH used to help him "move forward". Not much introspection on XH's part, I'd guess.
I suspect he does tell lies about the mutuality of our D, at least to anyone new who is likely to believe it. His preferred view of himself wouldn't allow him to say out loud "I Dd my wife of 21 years against her will!"
Someone just posted about "splitting up"...I went back through the thread quickly to see if I could find who but couldn't...this just sets me off! When XH dropped the bomb, that was his language "we are going to split up." My jaw dropped...splitting up is something teenagers do. Not (then) 55 year-old men who have been married for 19 years. I asked him straight out, what do you mean? This was before I discovered DB, and I pushed it until he said the word divorce out loud. But believe me, it took some pushing. Talk about passivity!
Whew, I guess my emotions sometimes go back two years as well. Oh well, progress, not perfection on this journey.
Again in fairness, I believe my XH and many others seem to be suffering the covert depression that Silent sons and other books describe. And in my XH's case, he really was a victim of his genuinely awful and unacceptable childhood...but he has never chosen to resolve that first, and then "move forward."
