Words from an MLCer

[Albuquerque]

I had a very interesting conversation with my H the other day and I wanted to pass along some of the things that he said. For those of you not familiar with my sitch, we were married 16 years with one daughter 14 when the bomb dropped in January of 2010. Like most, I never saw it coming. My H was a completely different person, and I was lost and confused and totally devastated. He moved out in March and by June, he had started a relationship with an OW. I started posting on the DB boards in July. In October, he said he wanted to “talk”. And thus started a journey of having him back in my life. He eventually moved back a few months back in May. You can find my threads here if you’re interested.

Thread 1
Thread 2
Thread 3
Current thread

The fortunate thing about my H is that he has always been open minded and has never been afraid to look within himself and see that he might be wrong. I don’t claim to have a “healed” marriage and I don’t know what the future holds. But the other day, we had an emotional conversation which got him musing about his time away and about how I lived my life without him. This is what he said.

You showed me that you didn’t need me in your life. And you showed me that you were enjoying your life without me. And it STUNG.

I found that to be a very insightful and very interesting statement. And totally in line with what the theory is here on the boards. Too often, especially early on, the LBS is in such fear, and often think that moving on with their own life will send the message to the MLCer that they don’t care. Listen to the words of an MLCer. The best thing you can do for yourself is to live your own life. I didn’t exclude H, but if he wasn’t going to be around, I wasn’t going to wait. There are no guarantees. Your spouse may not return. You cannot bring them back, but you can certainly drive them further away. The other thing he said was

You said all the right things. You were calm. You never got angry with me. You never guilted me. You never used D against me. You were always fun and interesting to be around.

Again, this is exactly what is promoted here on the boards. In fact, it was a silly little conversation we had prior to his traveling a few hours away to work (and I found out later to see OW), that really sparked his reversal. It wasn’t always easy to seem chipper and pleasant. Especially after having a hard week with D with no help, taking care of the whole house and yard, and not hearing a peep from H. But at the same time, when I DID see him, he often looked quite bad and I could see at times, just how much he was struggling. It was then that I felt sorry for him and thankful that, although my life was not how I wanted, at least I had my sanity.

I hope this can help some of you who are unfortunately finding yourselves here. I am not a success story but a work in progress. But I won’t be a success because of getting my marriage back, but I’m a success because I found myself in the process. I became a much better person. I went through some tough self evaluation and am so much happier with the person I’ve become. THAT, is the only success that CAN be guaranteed on these boards if you work towards it.