Can anyone answer this? Part 8

[Dawn of Hope]

Sun,
I think you are discovering what so many of us have...the wonderful H you had is gone, for now if not for good. At least for us--they might be wonderful with OW, but if they aren't their wonderful selves with us, what does it matter if they are with someone else? We won't see the benefit regardless of whether the dramatically-changed personality is across the board or just with us.

We all want to be the one who gets the miracle, whose sitch is the exception to the statistics. Maybe we will be...we're all still alive, right? The fat lady hasn't sung yet. But we have to do our best given the sitch as it stands wherever we are right now.

These spouses just become such different people from the ones they were before...my H loved riding bicycles. His college graduation gift from his parents was a lovely racing bicycle (which is still his main bike), and he even got me interested in riding, to the point that we completed a century (100 miles in one day) together a year before the bomb, which was a major accomplishment for both of us (although he'd done one on his own before that). It was one of the things we really enjoyed doing together on a regular basis, although he went alone sometimes, because I slowed him down a bit. I even started riding without him last year when he went into full flaky MLC mode and didn't want to spend any time with me at all and was traveling to see OW all the time. Well, it's June, and we have great weather for biking, and his bike is still here. He claimed when he moved out in November that he didn't have room in his apartment for his bike, and maybe he'd come and get it when spring came and keep it in his car. Well, I think that's bogus. I still don't know where he lives, but I can't believe his apartment is so small there isn't room for his bike. I think what's really going on is that he is eating poorly and not exercising and is too distracted by the whole MLC fog and OW to think about biking. OW weighs twice what I do, easy, so there's absolutely no way she would be able to keep up with him on a bike, if she even has one (I worked for years to get to that point with him, and finally managed just before the aliens took his brain, and could still do it), and despite the major fitness program he went on in 2005, he backslid within a year (granted, I think that was partly due to the death of his mother that same year _INSERT BIG RED MLC FLAG HERE_), and I haven't seen him losing any weight in the last couple of years. I don't think OW is nearly as into healthy eating and fitness as I am--that would be a challenge for anyone, anyway. But...biking was always a big factor in his life. And now, apparently, suddenly...it's not.

Well, that got a bit long-winded (sorry!), but I think you get the point. They change. Dramatically. And they stay changed for a long time, if not forever. And there's not much we can do about it. It doesn't mean you have to give up on them, or on the possibility of restoration of your marriage--I'm not!--but you have to at least accept that they aren't who they were, and they may not be anything like that again for years. And accepting is a necessary prelude to taking the best course of action to deal with it.

Take care of yourself, and your S. Look for what you can do on your own to make your life better, and yourself a better person.

Peace,
Dawn