MLC is CRAZY!!! What a Roller Coaster!!!

[tpaschal]

2ndNoah,

I am so sorry to read your story. It sounds VERY much like mine, except that my husband is going through the MLC a few years earlier.

We were college sweethearts (met at 18, October of our freshman year, and were together ever since.) We had a wonderful, beautiful life together. I worked to help put him through medical school, then stayed home with our children. It took us several years for his practice to become really profitable and for us to pay off our debts, but we had just reached the point of being really well-off financially and had upgraded to his "dream house." Our 3 kids are very bright and athletic and well liked and well rounded, my H convinced his parents to move here after retirement a few years ago and we spent quite a bit of time with them, plus he spent special "manly bonding" time with his dad every week or two, we had a really good "intimate" life (although he did complain that it was never frequent enough for him, but when I talked to my girlfriends they all heard the same thing, so I didn't think too much of it), and we still went out on dates and did things together as a family and with friends, etc., etc., etc.

I look back now and realize the things I did that contributed to the break up of the marriage, mainly ignoring him and our "couplehood" because of being so caught up in the kids' activities, not "hearing" him when he talked about things he needed, and not figuring out what his "love language" was. But he wasn't telling my plainly about any unhappiness he was feeling, (and honestly, I don't think he was that unhappy until OW came along to convince him how unhappy he was.)

So him dropping the bomb and then finding out about the OW was a complete shock!!

I refused to file, and he eventually did. (Pushed all the way by the OW.)

What I wish I had known, and regret now, was that I could have filed and then done nothing with it. Check the laws in your state to see if this is possible.....

I have a friend who did this.......she found a lawyer she liked and she made it clear that she did NOT want a divorce. But she filled out the paperwork and her lawyer filed it with the court. Then she did NOTHING. Did not serve him with papers. Did not even admit to doing it. Ignored it like it never happened. But several months down the road when he finally got up the guts (or got tired of hearing his OW pressure him about it) to go file and served her with papers...Bam! She was able to very calmly say to him, "You know that I do not want a divorce, which is why I have not had you served, but I was afraid that you might be pushed to this point and I knew that no matter how much I love you and want to reconcile our marriage, I had to make the children my first priority. So, I did file first."

Now, I don't know that it makes a whole lot of difference who filed first, except that the person who filed first gets to make their case first in court, but I know in some places it's also the person who filed first who can dismiss it at the end.

I mean, if you go through the whole divorce case (even though you don't want to), and it comes time to sign the final papers, you might be able put a hold on it since you were the one who initiated it.

So, my advice boils down to, protect yourself and the kids, because he certainly isn't in any frame of mind to do so right now. I am NOT advocating divorce, and I am not even advocating the FILING of divorce papers, I am just saying that this is a possibility that I wish I had known about.

And if I had known more about MLC in the beginning, I probably would have done what my friend did. Unfortunately, I was still thinking of my H as the man I had known and loved for 20 years. What has been hard to get my mind around is that man doesn't exist right now, and may possibly never exist again. I have hope, but I have to be the one to take care of myself and my kids while he is not capable of it.

I wish you all the best, no matter what you decide is right for you.