What I KNOW after being HERE for 3 years.......

[Augtan]

It is still amazing and daunting to me that there are so many on these boards with almost the same story as me. It really makes me feel like I am not the crazy one and that what went on in my marraige and how "normal" it was for so many years is the truth. It was only this "alien" called the MLC that took it all over. Hearing that others have lived what I have and continue to do so makes me feel like the "jeckyl and hyde" thing that I didn't think was possible or could happen to me and my family..is real and did happen. We had a good marriage, not a perfect marriage, but it was normal in all aspects, in fact, above normal from what I have learned the last three years.

What is hard to understand is why if there are so many of us out there who experience this it isn't addressed to the fullest by the media, therapists, psychologists, etc. And, why the person going thru the MLC can't read and see all the evidence that this is what is happening to them and get help in time to save so many from the pain and fall-out that happens to the LBS and kids!! I looked and looked for someone to reach out to my XH to convince him that he was making a huge mistake and would reach him in time, but there was no one who understood enough to make him see it and there still isn't. He still blames me, still won't look at reality and still wants to live like he is and now I have learned that that isn't my problem anymore, that he is on his own journey and I am done being anything but a very distant co-parent with him. But, that doesn't take away what has happened and all that was lost and sacarficed because of his "turning to the dark side" of MLC. Little things pop into my head, like today it was.."how could he have just sold our marital bed, the one we picked out together a few months before he went nuts, that we were so excited to be able to afford and one we both loved so much, how he gave our patio set to the OW without a thought or care when we picked that out together for our daugher's 5th birthday party we were hosting" Of couse, there are much more major things he did that are always in the back of my mind, but sometimes the little ones are worse. He lost our dream house to short-sale, not for financial reasons, but because he wanted to no responsibility and to be with the OW!!

We all have these stories and losses, but I guess being the person I am I will never, ever understand how his mind is so far gone that he can't see it and doesn't care, when he was sooo not this person for 20 years, and I saw it and lived it, he was normal, he was a good dad and husband, he loved us and it was very real. I can forgive and move on, but I will never understand. Family is the most important thing in my life, I don't get how he is missing his kids grow up for no reason at all when he loved them more than life for 16 years, and I saw that love and it was real, and now he just could careless all the events and times he is missing.

Well, I have gone on and on, here, but I had to vent. I made a promise to myself for 2011, I am moving on, I am clearing my path for a new man to come down it someday, I am not blocking my blessings with and for a man who doesn't want to be with me for whatever the reason. I deserve better than a liar and cheater no matter how sick he is or the MLC. One day he will be the one who is sorry and crying, and I will feel very bad for him and sad for him because I do love him, but reality is he is 44 years old and made his own choices, and is on his own path, at some point he has to be made accountable in my mind for what he has done and the excuses I have made for him because of his childhood, addictions, mental problems, loss of reality, MLC, etc. just don't matter anymore. It is about me and only me, not me working on me to see if he will notice and come home. I am honest in saying that I am glad I have done the work, I have a long way to go, I will always be a work in progress, but I always thought that he would notice and care, and I am done having that as even a tenth of the reason I work on me!! It is all about me now and he is never coming home and I am finally glad cause I would never live in peace with someone who could do all he has done no matter the reasons!!

A