I am starting a new thread reflecting where I am in my thinking and reading and reflection on MLC. And that is to try and understand a little better the ROLE that the OP plays in our MLCer's life. I realise that we cannot specifically know, but given that there are some startling similarities in so many of our sitch's I wanted to share my thoughts and get some feedback.
For newbies, and others, I have no expertise, and these are very much MY views.
For the purposes of this thread I am taking it that the type of MLCer we are talking about is someone who fairly suddenly 'flipped' and became in most important respects, their complete opposite. That the lbs knew about fairly serous issues in their chldhood adolescence that they had never resolved.
While I don’t approve of adultery I have no interest, here at any rate, in OP 'bashing' . We can all do that, but here I want to try and understand, as a part of accepting and moving forward, if that makes sense.
Snodderly and others who have been around a lot longer than me have described the MLC process dealing with things arising from their childhood and putting the missing pieces of the puzzle back. Again, I am not condoning their method: but it isn’t called a crisis for nothing. I also agree that we don’t have to excuse horrible behaviour, but the horrible behaviour happens, and we have to deal with it.
So, after this very long preamble, the idea I want to discuss is that when we fall in love we are searching for the missing pieces of ourselves. It isn't a new idea, but it suddenly resonated. Does the OP represents for our MLC/WAS the missing pieces they have to deal with? For the longest time I couldn't understand what my h saw in the particular person he chose, in terms of the person he is and what he values and likes in others. But now, in the context of the missing pieces that I believe he is dealing with it all makes more sense.
For they do 'fall in love', in many cases. They aren't doing this just to upset us! I think it also may help to explain why some of them stay with the OP – they may be a better fit overall than we are for the person that they have become, or they may indeed be the crutch that the WAS needs while they deal with their issues.
If we are grounded, we realise that falling in love is not going to solve our problems, but if we are in considerable distress, and looking for help, then there is a tendency to blame the spouse, and assume that it will be better with a new person, so in one sense the MLCer is 'lookingl' for someone to fall in love with.
Falling in love also helps to deal with depression, and is a wonderful distraction. But the particular person they choose is a good 'fit' for their psychological and physical needs at the time. We don’t have to like the OP – they may be very like us or very different, but our spouses have to act out and work through their issues with that person. We will not do. I do believe that many of them choose someone damaged for a whole raft of subconscious reasons, but that is just MO.
