Great post, but are you addressing my sitch, because you are giving advice to another, I think. I am a bit puzzled.

You say 'Give real life a chance' I really believe I am doing that.


I must have misunderstood what was meant by questions- I have never asked my h questions. The things I questioned are what happened to my h , objectively. If you see what I mean.

I am nearly 6 years post bomb. My h ran so I never had an opportunity to DB. I am divorced and I have not seen him except in court for over a year, or spoken to him.

I worked on me, and I am happy. For me understanding tMLC process helped, much more than thinking it came from nowhere, that it just happened. That would have meant either that it was the marriage, when I knew in my gut it wasn't. Or that we live in a random and cruel universe, which I don't believe we do.

I have not obsessed about my h, except for a little at the beginning. I like and love who he was, and naturally miss that person but I know he is gone, as surely as if i was a widow. My grieving was for loss, and we all need to do that for our own psychological health.

And because GAL worked for you, you believe it attracted your h back. I do not doubt it did But I do take issue with any suggestion that will necessarily work for others. I know many women and men who have GAL and their spouses remain firmly gone. I think this is to do with the length and severity of the MLC not anything we do. Dealing with a long and protracted MLC is very different from a short sharp one. They still hang around on the edges of our lives. In that it is not like death, or a 'simple' walkaway.

I have closure because I have a life, because I understood the process, because although I changed myself his leaving wasn't ultimately about me, but about him and his issues.

He now deeply regrets what he has done, that I know. Your h had enough sense to look at the changes in you and come home. Many don't

25 that is not inevitable they will come home if we do the 'right' things. GAL helps, but we do it for us.

XH is now reconnecting slowly with his children and sending me occasional emails to which I respond nicely.

My MLC experience was very very different from yours, and my marriage even longer!

Sometimes they do not come home and it isn't necessarily our fault. There are no 'sure fire' answers, just handling life with compassion grace dignity and humour, if we can manage it!