HB - thank you for this. My h, like so many 'got stupid' and had an affair. In fact he left because he wanted the affair.
I didn't beg or plead with him - although I hadn't found this site, I instinctively knew it would be fruitless. However, even though the affair is over, and we are divorced, he is still deep in MLC. We have virtually no contact, and he has withdrawn from his children almost totally - this withdrawal has been going on for well over a year, maybe two. It is 5 and a half years post bomb.
I still love him, but live a happy and fulfilled life. A lot of stuff has happened while he has been gone - his mother died, and we have both had cancer. I wonder if these traumas have slowed the processing down.
I have no instinct as to whether he will come back. We had an amazing marriage, or at least I thought so, and the children remember life as being very happy. The divorce was a mean and vengeful one on his part, and he screwed every penny out of me, and lied some . . . . but I recognise that this too is part of his problem, and oddly enough I don't feel bitter.
