Someone suggest H is having a MLC....I don't know?

[cat04]

Scylla,

OMG, do you realize that in your response to me, this is the first time that I remember reading that you love your husband. And the first time you actually used an emoticon (and they do help sometimes to back up the words)

Not that I doubted it, but sometimes, it really does need to be said.

Until then, you had every other reason to try to repair this M or run from it, the kids, the financials, the time, blah, blah, blah...

Personally, I don't think you are discounting any of our feelings, just our experience with this particular matter and everything that surrounds it. (Depression, abondonment, the effects of divorce, love languages, DB principals, healing)

If you do take the time to read PEI's threads, you will see, I gave her a very hard time too. I didn't like her and she didn't like me. I don't know if I can say that we like each other now, we still can rub each other the wrong way once in a while, but we definately have a healthy respect for each other.

Yes, honestly, communication style is a huge part of it. And the words you listed, they do show a defensivness.

An example

"I went to the store for oranges, but they were out so I got apples." (good use of the word as an explanation).

"I want to lose weight, but I just love my french fries and pizza. Why should I have to give that up?" (example of it as an excuse. You know what you need to do, what will make a difference, and yet, you refuse to because you don't want to do the work).

Do you see the difference? I hope so or someone else is gonna have to explain it better LOL

This thought pattern allows us to not really do the HARD work. The kind of work it sounds like you are trying to do with this program.

Listen, some of the things your H said, may be true. I doubt all of them were. And looking at them, is hard and it hurts. We have all been there. It is scary to look in that mirror and see what the world sees. It is scary. It is easier to NOT look. Or to ignore it and dismiss it. It really is. And it will hit you hard at first. Because once you look, there are only two options. Remain the same and wonder why people say things like you are defensive, controlling, mean, lazy, etc... OR start to dig. And uncover the reasons behind those things AND make the decision to change them.

You also come across as defensive because you are waiting to be judged by us. You may not think so, but we all start out that way because we have been judged by our spouses and others. So you explain, you justify, you defend your actions and you use things like statistics to back them up.

Personally, I hate statistics because they can be so easily manipulated to fit whatever circumstance you want them to (I studied research methods in college).

While it may not feel like it right now, here, you will NOT be judged. Honestly, neither will your h. There is little that you could type that will shock any of us. There is little that we haven't seen, heard, or lived. If you tell us that you were controlling, we will ask you why? We will try to explore it. We will try to help you learn how to not be that way if that is what you want (and sometimes even if you think you don't.) We will point out things that come across to us as controlling. (I am using controlling as an example) But we will not judge you. That is something that I can almost guarantee.

There is a saying around here, if someone says something that stings, (makes you angry, defensive, argumentative) then that is something you should look at. Why it stings? Is there anything you can do to change it?

This is a process, just like your program, that takes time. Patience with yourself is key here.

I hope you make the choice to stick around for a while. Learn a thing or twenty, about MLC, about yourself, about others. It is a scary but wonderful journey.

[Mach1]

In that 6 hour seminar I took, they made the example of this you have:

Your marital relationship
Your business relationship
Your parenting relationship

Your business/working relationship remains to some degree
Your parenting relationship in collaborative raising of your kids stays intact in most instances.
Your marital relationship is over.

Wow, that must have taken some time to cover that last one then....

I agree with the first one...

The second...to a small degree...

What you will encounter (most likely ) is a situation called Parallel Parenting. It is where decisions will be made independently from each other. and while you may not like his decisions, you will have to honor that they are his.

The third....

There are thousands of books and courses on how to be Divorced. Although I am fairly sure there aren't too many on how to do that and remain emotionally healthy. Where the heart and the mind are reconciled in the same place....

Understand Mach1, the H has done almost nothing to move ahead and has said he's not returning. He's pretty much standing pat and waiting for me to initiate action.

That would be an assumption of what you might think he is thinking. Not a good place for your head to be. I can assure you that what you think he is thinking, and what is genuinely going through his brain, are not even close.

The monsters that come out and play in your head are not necessarily what the truth is. And will be far worse than what is going on. It also allows you to remain focused on what he is doing instead of doing for you and your children.

He sent me a separation agreement he got off a government site somewhere,filled in his name on the form and wrote: "Fill in what you want." I didn't do a thing with it.

Good for you....A word to the wise....

Don't ring any bells you can't un-ring here...

Find yourself first , so that your decisions can come from a place of rational thinking and one that reflects your inner core.

I'm understanding it's about their internal process and there isn't an F*&%ing thing that I can do to help him move through it, find his own centre , help him see reason, or that we have anything to salvage.

No there isn't...nothing

The challenge I have with this Mach1 is: a) I'm not getting any younger. I just had my 49th b'day. Niether are my kids, pretty darn soon I'll be handling two teenagers all by myself.
b) I want a partner, lover, friend and husband. He chooses not to be one.
c)LOL, you think it's easy to find someone else that you like and likes you back, that's willing to do the work of relationship? I don't take it lightly by half.

Last time I checked, there weren't any of us getting younger....

I have very little anger left

I disagree from what I have seen you post...Although I will reserve this until I get a better glimpse...

Mach1, I'm sorry you see it as rebuke, it's certainly not intended that way. I'm doing my level best to answer questions here and in my own mind and heart honestly and completely.

No apologies for me....I'm not the only one who sees it....and its okay to feel that way, as long as you can see it too...

I have done a lot of deconstruction of what's he's said to me and tried, really tried to see his POV. I think I've stated that if I saw me the way he sees me, I'd not want to stay married to me either. The picture is very distorted though and I think you know that, given your understanding of MLC which is better than my own right now.

It's okay to see things that way as long as you can eventually spin the proper perspective on them....

If you can separate the things he says to you, and see them for what they are. Not everything he spews is your reality, not everything he says is false. Try to not take them personally and let them eat you up from the core.

Take them and hold them up to a mirror , find out what is your truth and what is his truth. Your truths are the things you should take a deeper look at.

If he says you always burned the water, yet you are a top notch Chef at a five star hotel, then his truth is bogus...

If he says that you always burned the water, and you just threw out a pan this evening...then his reality is not all that whacked...

See the difference ?

Mach1, that five year plan is the WORK. It is the digging deep, it is the finding of my core personality, it is the purging of the bad crap; the vicious memes, and poisonous life commandments I've been given that have dictated how I should be behave, what I MUST do to get approval and acceptance, and how I unthinkingly react to old triggers. It is rewiring my brain and getting rid of trauma programming from abuse.
It takes three years to rewire a neural network. It takes fuve years for the new neurons to have myelin sheathing thick enough to make it "stick", and the old neurons to die, shrink and be absorbed for the new network to take it's place.

So...you are willing to give yourself this, although it goes against your " I'm not getting any younger" you just said above ?

But you are unwilling to give your husband this ?

And what if you were to burn it all and go out and find someone new ?

Are you really willing, to go out and drag someone else into this right now ?

Let me ask you this...

The last time you were dating...I would venture that you were....21 ?


Who were you then ?

When you went on those dates, all those years ago with your husband...did you have children then to worry about ? Bills ? A Divorce hanging over your head ? A whacked out spouse who thinks you are the Devil ?

Who were you then ?

I would imagine you were a young woman with a clear vision of who she was....and knew exactly what she wanted....


She knew who she was at the core of her existence instead of who she had become because some knuckle-headed MLCer , said she was less than perfect...

That is why it is so important to do that mirror work, so that you know your truth..

Find that person again....

That is why you are being pushed here....because we can all see that young girl inside of you....


Can you ?

[Twink]

Who were you then ?

I would imagine you were a young woman with a clear vision of who she was....and knew exactly what she wanted....

She knew who she was at the core of her existence instead of who she had become because some knuckle-headed MLCer, said she was less than perfect...

That is why it is so important to do that mirror work, so that you know your truth..

Find that person again....

That is why you are being pushed here....because we can all see that young girl inside of you....

Mach, this is so well-stated, and I thank you. It is something I've been working on for some time. While I never lost all of her, I did lose parts of her -- the most noticeable and important parts being trust, optimism and self-esteem. I suspect that is true for many of us here. It isn't easy recovering those things through this. Detachment, reflection, support -- all of these things are helping -- but I suspect it also takes time to let those forces work, and far more time than most of us would wish.

Scylla, I may be the oldest one here, but I am still willing to give this time.

[Queen_of_Swords]

Scylla,

OMG, do you realize that in your response to me, this is the first time that I remember reading that you love your husband. And the first time you actually used an emoticon (and they do help sometimes to back up the words)

Not that I doubted it, but sometimes, it really does need to be said.

Until then, you had every other reason to try to repair this M or run from it, the kids, the financials, the time, blah, blah, blah...

Personally, I don't think you are discounting any of our feelings, just our experience with this particular matter and everything that surrounds it. (Depression, abondonment, the effects of divorce, love languages, DB principals, healing)

If you do take the time to read PEI's threads, you will see, I gave her a very hard time too. I didn't like her and she didn't like me. I don't know if I can say that we like each other now, we still can rub each other the wrong way once in a while, but we definately have a healthy respect for each other.

Yes, honestly, communication style is a huge part of it. And the words you listed, they do show a defensivness.

An example

"I went to the store for oranges, but they were out so I got apples." (good use of the word as an explanation).

"I want to lose weight, but I just love my french fries and pizza. Why should I have to give that up?" (example of it as an excuse. You know what you need to do, what will make a difference, and yet, you refuse to because you don't want to do the work).

Do you see the difference? I hope so or someone else is gonna have to explain it better LOL

This thought pattern allows us to not really do the HARD work. The kind of work it sounds like you are trying to do with this program.

So use of the words: but, however, therefore, as, so...are seen as defensive rather than explanatory. O.k., gotcha.

Listen, some of the things your H said, may be true. I doubt all of them were. And looking at them, is hard and it hurts. We have all been there. It is scary to look in that mirror and see what the world sees. It is scary. It is easier to NOT look. Or to ignore it and dismiss it. It really is. And it will hit you hard at first. Because once you look, there are only two options. Remain the same and wonder why people say things like you are defensive, controlling, mean, lazy, etc... OR start to dig. And uncover the reasons behind those things AND make the decision to change them.

Yes there is a certain "blindness" we develop about ourselves.
Wish there was a 4 way mirror for that, along with a little numbing agent so you can take the criticism without having your self esteem collapse. Where are Clinton and Stacy for that makeover?

You also come across as defensive because you are waiting to be judged by us. You may not think so, but we all start out that way because we have been judged by our spouses and others. So you explain, you justify, you defend your actions and you use things like statistics to back them up.

I've already been judged and found wanting TYVM. Over and over again.
Hypercritical/perfectionists are also self-critical and self destructive in some aspects. I'm no exception, and I know how I got that way.

Personally, I hate statistics because they can be so easily manipulated to fit whatever circumstance you want them to (I studied research methods in college).

Figures lie and liars figure. Heard that often, and have seen how stats can be juggled and massaged to show just about any result you want.

While it may not feel like it right now, here, you will NOT be judged. Honestly, neither will your h. There is little that you could type that will shock any of us. There is little that we haven't seen, heard, or lived. If you tell us that you were controlling, we will ask you why? We will try to explore it. We will try to help you learn how to not be that way if that is what you want (and sometimes even if you think you don't.) We will point out things that come across to us as controlling. (I am using controlling as an example) But we will not judge you. That is something that I can almost guarantee.

There is a saying around here, if someone says something that stings, (makes you angry, defensive, argumentative) then that is something you should look at. Why it stings? Is there anything you can do to change it?

This is a process, just like your program, that takes time. Patience with yourself is key here.

I hope you make the choice to stick around for a while. Learn a thing or twenty, about MLC, about yourself, about others. It is a scary but wonderful journey.

I understand about the "sting" and investigating if it has merit or not.

I honestly don't know if I will stick around.

Seems to me all that's left for me to do is to detach as best I can, and accept I will be living my life partnerless, perhaps for a very long time and along with all the things that go with having a partner in life.

That, and accept H is pretty much gone for good, for all intents and purposes; the formality of paperwork completed, filed and served, or not.
I also appear to need to begin to forget about H, what he's doing what he says, what I feel, because I have to get to a stage where none of it matters.

At least that's my interpretation of what you all are saying.

[cat04]

Scylla,

I am gonna try to make this short, cuz I am tired.

Detaching, is important. It allows you to step back from the stuff they say and do emotionally. It gives you room to see it from the outside and decide what YOU want to do with it, how you want to react to it. Or if you do at all.

As far as giving up on your M, we don't encourage that here at all. That is each of our own call to make, hopefully when we are a little bit more emotionally stable than we all are/were when we came here.

The MLC forum, often, is the last stop for those of us trying to save our M. Very few, come to this or any forum thinking that their spouse could be in a MLC, and we expect that this is something that can be fixed in a short amount of time.

However, MLC, truly is a different animal than a WAW/WAH. Usually, in those cases, the D or attempt at reconciliation happens fairly quickly. In MLC, they don't happen so quickly. Many many MLCer's, do exactly what your H did. Move out and let time pass. Eventually, they may file for D or the LBS finally does.

In my sitch, my H told me he wanted a D in 2007. And did nothing. He pretended that everything was fine. That we were working on things. Then again in 2008 I heard this. And he did nothing for a few months. Then he moved into the spare bedroom. And more nothing. By this point, we were not speaking to each other. And we didn't hardly speak to each other until mid summer 2009. When he again told me he wanted a D. And then when papers were delivered Fedex a few days later and I asked him if they were D papers, he became insulted that I would mention it. In late 2009, I agreed to his D. What it would look like, when it would occur. By this point, I was moving on with my life. Sharing a house or not, I was moving on. Through 2010, he is the one who has struggled with this fact. He is the one who has had difficulty finally accepting his choices.

In 07, I was shocked and depressed. In 08, I became suicidal. And angry. And I hated my H for doing this to me. It took that for me to wake up and realize that I had to get myself together before I could even concern myself with him. Because I was a mess. I spent a lot of time, reading, praying, and meditating as ways to help myself heal. I was led to MLC. When I began reading about it, I wondered if the people who wrote the description of it, had been in my living room at various points in time. I could not believe that anyone else on earth had been through, heard, the same crap that I had heard from him.

I went forward and backwards for a long time, working on my stuff and understanding the process that he was going through. As I have to really understand things before I can process them emotionally, I read everything I could get my hands on about MLC. I spent months, silent, reading, researching, trying to rationalize, asking God to try to help me make sense of all of this. To show me what I could do to help him.

I learned that I could NOT help him. I learned that I was trying to make logic, where there is none. MLC, is illogical. It makes no sense. Until you get to know it as intimately as you can without experiencing one yourself.

I learned that IF the time came when my H wanted to return (and I still wanted him) that he would be more damaged than he was at that time. I learned that I would have to be the strong one then and that my feelings were not going to count with him for a very long time. I learned that if I wanted my M, or even a shot at it, I would have to be as whole and healed as I could become. I also learned that if I chose to make the choice to not be there when and if he woke up, that the best way to do that, was to be healed and as whole as possible.

I learned all of that here. From some of the people posting to you, some of the people still posting in this forum, and from some that are no longer here.

I felt as you do, often at first. I didn't know from one day to the next, for a long time, which way I was going. Was I still going to do this, stand for this idiot that I had married while he told me he hated me, while he lied to me, while he was off having a wonderful time, while I was miserable. I had done all during our M. Why should I be the only one who cared about our M? The only one who wanted to save it? Then I realized that I wasn't doing it for him. I was doing it for me.

With MLC, there are no guarantees. I wish there were.

This isn't something that I would wish on my worst enemy.

However, it also isn't something that I would trade for the world.

I wouldn't be who I am now, if this hadn't happened.

How long you wait, is up to you. What you do with the time you are waiting is also up to you. I can't tell you to stay or go. It isn't my choice to make.

This place, these principals, the people here, saved me. DB didn't save my M (that became MY choice) but it did save my R with my H to a great degree. We can talk. We can co-parent. After all of the spew and silence, that in itself is a miracle. It isn't because he changed. He hasn't. He is still mired pretty deep in MLC land. That is my reality. I can't make it yours.

Oh hell, so much for short

Sorry for the rambling novel. I hope you can make some sense out of it.

[Queen_of_Swords]

In that 6 hour seminar I took, they made the example of this you have:

Your marital relationship
Your business relationship
Your parenting relationship

Your business/working relationship remains to some degree
Your parenting relationship in collaborative raising of your kids stays intact in most instances.
Your marital relationship is over.

Wow, that must have taken some time to cover that last one then....

Yes and the presenters were also divorced. One was a lawyer and the other a social/family worker; and they stressed the end of the marital relationship, and the need to work together with the other two.

I agree with the first one...

The second...to a small degree...

What you will encounter (most likely ) is a situation called Parallel Parenting. It is where decisions will be made independently from each other. and while you may not like his decisions, you will have to honor that they are his.

The third....

There are thousands of books and courses on how to be Divorced. Although I am fairly sure there aren't too many on how to do that and remain emotionally healthy. Where the heart and the mind are reconciled in the same place....

Yes parallel parenting was mentioned, along with dealing with a hostile spouse. The courts here don't try to get involved on a legal level unless there is severe violence/abuse. They'd prefer not to use the adversarial legal system, but the family/collaborative law system.

Understand Mach1, the H has done almost nothing to move ahead and has said he's not returning. He's pretty much standing pat and waiting for me to initiate action.

That would be an assumption of what you might think he is thinking. Not a good place for your head to be. I can assure you that what you think he is thinking, and what is genuinely going through his brain, are not even close.

The monsters that come out and play in your head are not necessarily what the truth is. And will be far worse than what is going on. It also allows you to remain focused on what he is doing instead of doing for you and your children.

That is his pattern of past behaviour. To wait until someone else takes the initiative.
I've already gone through the possibilities in reading the MLC links Cadet provided, it's bad enough, and I know if he decides or has already taken up with an OW, started to do drugs, decides to move to Houston, or indulge in any other behaviour, it's out of my hands.

He sent me a separation agreement he got off a government site somewhere,filled in his name on the form and wrote: "Fill in what you want." I didn't do a thing with it.

Good for you....A word to the wise....

Don't ring any bells you can't un-ring here...

Find yourself first , so that your decisions can come from a place of rational thinking and one that reflects your inner core.

Thanks. I'm trying not to say anything or do anything that just is another nail in the coffin.

I'm understanding it's about their internal process and there isn't an F*&%ing thing that I can do to help him move through it, find his own centre , help him see reason, or that we have anything to salvage.

No there isn't...nothing

The challenge I have with this Mach1 is: a) I'm not getting any younger. I just had my 49th b'day. Niether are my kids, pretty darn soon I'll be handling two teenagers all by myself.
b) I want a partner, lover, friend and husband. He chooses not to be one.
c)LOL, you think it's easy to find someone else that you like and likes you back, that's willing to do the work of relationship? I don't take it lightly by half.

Last time I checked, there weren't any of us getting younger....

I have very little anger left

I disagree from what I have seen you post...Although I will reserve this until I get a better glimpse...

True, all of us are getting older by the minute.


[

quote=Scylla_Charibdis]
Mach1, I'm sorry you see it as rebuke, it's certainly not intended that way. I'm doing my level best to answer questions here and in my own mind and heart honestly and completely.

No apologies for me....I'm not the only one who sees it....and its okay to feel that way, as long as you can see it too...

I have done a lot of deconstruction of what's he's said to me and tried, really tried to see his POV. I think I've stated that if I saw me the way he sees me, I'd not want to stay married to me either. The picture is very distorted though and I think you know that, given your understanding of MLC which is better than my own right now.

It's okay to see things that way as long as you can eventually spin the proper perspective on them....

If you can separate the things he says to you, and see them for what they are. Not everything he spews is your reality, not everything he says is false. Try to not take them personally and let them eat you up from the core.

Take them and hold them up to a mirror , find out what is your truth and what is his truth. Your truths are the things you should take a deeper look at.

If he says you always burned the water, yet you are a top notch Chef at a five star hotel, then his truth is bogus...

If he says that you always burned the water, and you just threw out a pan this evening...then his reality is not all that whacked...

See the difference ?
[/quote]

I understand what you're trying to say, but to try to apply it to his criticism of me I honestly have difficulty with. Some things I have absolutely no argument with. Yes i am critical, yes I didn't listen well ( I tend to listen for content/problem solving, not empathetically) , etc. etc. Other things H has said about my character I disagree with.


[

quote=Scylla_Charibdis]
Mach1, that five year plan is the WORK. It is the digging deep, it is the finding of my core personality, it is the purging of the bad crap; the vicious memes, and poisonous life commandments I've been given that have dictated how I should be behave, what I MUST do to get approval and acceptance, and how I unthinkingly react to old triggers. It is rewiring my brain and getting rid of trauma programming from abuse.
It takes three years to rewire a neural network. It takes fuve years for the new neurons to have myelin sheathing thick enough to make it "stick", and the old neurons to die, shrink and be absorbed for the new network to take it's place.

So...you are willing to give yourself this, although it goes against your " I'm not getting any younger" you just said above ?

But you are unwilling to give your husband this ?[/quote]I am giving myself the five years, 14 months of which have passed so far, as: a) I realise I have a garbage truck load of stuff to address, and b) for my kids. So I don't hand them my legacy of garbage and continually reinforce it until they’re adult!
I am not unwilling to give my husband the time, I have dedicated to my emotional health and well being. What sticks in my throat he's living the same old pattern in a different location far as I can tell.
God I pray on my knees he addresses his own crap, the sooner the better for our kids and any relationship we might have.
You've all told me there is nothing I can do about it, and I know it's out of my control and influence. He is resistant and just as stubborn as he claims I am. Of course he believes I'm the one that's nutz

And what if you were to burn it all and go out and find someone new ?

Are you really willing, to go out and drag someone else into this right now ?

Let me ask you this...

The last time you were dating...I would venture that you were....21 ?


Who were you then ?

When you went on those dates, all those years ago with your husband...did you have children then to worry about ? Bills ? A Divorce hanging over your head ? A whacked out spouse who thinks you are the Devil ?

Who were you then ?

I would imagine you were a young woman with a clear vision of who she was....and knew exactly what she wanted....

Of course when I was 21 I did not have the challenges I face now. I did have different ones, and no I didn't have a clear vision of what I wanted, contrary to your belief.

At least if I found someone new, I'd have someone that cares. That wants to share the best and the worst with me, that wants to walk beside me, that wants to be a part of my life and my children's lives.

She knew who she was at the core of her existence instead of who she had become because some knuckle-headed MLCer , said she was less than perfect...

That is why it is so important to do that mirror work, so that you know your truth..

Find that person again....

That is why you are being pushed here....because we can all see that young girl inside of you....

I'm glad that young girl/woman is gone. She was wound much too tight, too idealistic, worried all the time, suffered several physical maladies due to self inflicted stress, was always trying to please the adults/authorities in her life, and seldom judged good enough. In short she was a mess.

Can you ?

So far Mach, with the work I have done, I've found a very damaged young girl. A girl outwardly confident, and confrontational if necessary, but inwardly always with butterflies in her belly. A girl hiding behind her intellect and knowledge base as a safety mechanism. Someone that was forced to be too responsible much too soon.

[PEI]

That is why it is so important to do that mirror work, so that you know your truth..

Find that person again....

That is why you are being pushed here....because we can all see that young girl inside of you....

I'm glad that young girl/woman is gone. She was wound much too tight, too idealistic, worried all the time, suffered several physical maladies due to self inflicted stress, was always trying to please the adults/authorities in her life, and seldom judged good enough. In short she was a mess.

Can you ?

So far Mach, with the work I have done, I've found a very damaged young girl. A girl outwardly confident, and confrontational if necessary, but inwardly always with butterflies in her belly. A girl hiding behind her intellect and knowledge base as a safety mechanism. Someone that was forced to be too responsible much too soon.

This young girl .....

Damaged, full of butterflies, hiding, judged ....

Severe physical maladies, stress, safety mechanisms ...

No wonder you’re glad she’s gone ...

... but I wonder Scylla, where did she go?

[Queen_of_Swords]

She hasn't really gone, just aged, changed and grown some and overcome a few challenges.
Do I want to be her again? No.

[Queen_of_Swords]

It's taken me a while to respond to your post here. I've had to read and re-read it about 5 times before I could come anywhere close to thinking of one.

Thank you for your transparency, empathy, understanding and honesty here.

I still haven't made any decision. To stand or stand down. I am still thinking, weighing and evaluating.

Coming here was an additional blow I never expected to take, finding out that this may be a MLC another bomblet for me to find among the ruin of what once was a "good life."


Am I growing? Yes. Will I continue to grow? Yes. Have I changed? Yes. Will I continue to do the work necessary to make those changes possible and permanent? Yes. For my own and my kids' sake, yes.



The way I see things, this is no win situation from what I'm reading and discovering about MLC and in what you all have told me.

It's not what I want, not what's best for my family, with no alternatives that don't involve a heavy price.

[crushednstuck]

The way I see things, this is no win situation from what I'm reading and discovering about MLC and in what you all have told me.

I have often thought this myself in month 16.

I am no good at throwing 2x4s but you will read that the winning comes from the improvements you make for yourself and your kids. Evaluating if there actually is any truth in the words of the irrational spouse. You can change those things without him.

I have attempted to reason with my W. I gave her 100 reasons to stay/return. But I now know that no amount of rational thought will have any place among the negative and hurtful memories she's created from our M.

Best of luck on this path. It is the hardest one you'll ever walk.