OK small 2 x 4 coming. I think you said too much in your email - like I said, he isn't interested in you - just wants to feel better about himself. Also you gave him advice. Seriously bad idea.
The other point is that they feel second best and so he has become competitive with you in his response [at least that is how I read it]
So what did you expect? He is in MLC and they aren't good at doing nice and reasonable. Say nothing, if he contacts you again, then decide what to say. But don't play the blame game. Yes, he is a cruel self serving and selfish bastard, who wants to be let off the hook, but if he could admit this he wouldn't still be in MLC.
I agree you said too much about "all happens for a reason" (b/c then you forgot to say "the reason was b/c you were a jerk"...)
but for now, silence IS a response. Sometimes it says more than actual words.
Otherwise, you're fine. And don't sweat this--he's stirring around b/c he's stirring around. Not so happy in happy land.
I sure Hope he LOVES the sea!!
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
I guess I should explain where I'm coming from on "everything happens for a reason."
In my mind, the past week's interactions with him have shown me that the things I suspected that were wrong between us LONG before OW showed up are still there. I have felt for years that he and I were incompatible in some key ways--mainly that I like to be productive and active if things are not good in my life, and I like to be proactive, and he's a complainer who just says the world is against him. Our first conversation ever when I was 19 was that I was an optimist and he was a pessimist. He belittled me for being a polyanna who was so optimistic about life. Then later he said my optimism made me able to handle being with him since he was so dark and troubled. Stupid youngster I was, I thought this was romantic ;-) I was going to pull him from his dark outlook. I had a mission.
By the time things got to the past 5 years, I'd become so much like him that I also sat back and did little to improve myself or my life/job. I just wallowed in self-pity. Anything I did do that was productive, like my first book, I didn't celebrate as a tremendous accomplishment. I knew it made him feel like he didn't do anything "important", so I just downplayed it and every other accomplishment I had. Like I was ashamed of it all and hiding it.
So when I say that things happen for a reason, I mean that him rejecting me was such a wakeup call to me through my own sort of "mid-life crisis" that he triggered that it now is SO clear to me that I cannot be with someone who has his approach to life, who feels darkness is all around him, and who does nothing to improve himself. He is now just like I was, assuming that the perfect relationship will fix him, when you have got to fix YOURSELF to even be in a fulfilling relationship. He just doesn't get it and he won't, until the rel. with her ends and he's alone. Who knows? He mighth find someone after her to escape to. Not my problem.
So while he may take it that I let him off the hook about what he did with "all things happen for a reason", that's not my problem anymore. As much as I miss him sometimes and as much as I will always love him, I am really the person I was supposed to be now, and I'm much happier with who I am and no longer searching for an identity. And I just don't think my identity could survive a relationship with someone like him anymore.
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think I want to be with the person he was before he "snapped" because at this point, that person, even if he were to "come back", no longer fits my needs.
I can't believe I've just said that.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
Honestly the deck hand advice was a way to make myself laugh more than anything ;-) I know darn well that this is a dream, and he thinks he's in a rel. where he has so much freedom. Sure. Freedom to follow OW around while she performs in her musicals. But if he expresses leaving his job for this, she'll never agree. Why? She walked away from living with a guy, in his house, for 6 years, where she was taken care of, to my XH who has nothing but a check for his part of the house settlement--but it's still far more than she's got.
HOWEVER, the divorce settlement awarded me 100% of his life insurance policy in event of his death, which is 3 times his salary. He must maintain that policy for me until he dies or until his pension pays out to me. He cannot give her anything unless he buys a new/separate policy. Until he dies, I get 1/3 of his pension. He worked enough years teaching to collect it.
This is a MUCH older man she has as a boyfriend. I'm sure that settlement check and the fact that he's spending it on taking her on trips is attractive. Should he actually even mention following his dream, which lowers his income at present and in future even more, she'll disagree. And he'll see that he still has no power or independence in his relationship.
Bwa ha ha!!! (sorry, I just had to laugh)
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
Much older man, eh? Even if the diminishing financial returns don't get to her (which I bet she doesn't yet know about), I doubt she'll want to stick around to change his diapers...
Hey A, just wanted to stop by. I'm sorry - I didnt read the whole thread as I am short on time.
I would not have said what you said, but, it's done now. But no worries, he is still in the tunnel and will forget it all soon enough.
I would not send him a reply. I think he was feeling overwhelmed in his life. And he reached out to you because it was a familiar response.
He is still in deep and looking for ways to be happy. Got rid of you, still not happy, reconciles in his mind that his job suck$, still not happy. Now he has to work on the other aspects of his life and trust me, he will still not be happy.
Not your problem, sweetie. He is still needing to walk this journey. He ant near cooked yet.
A, continue moving forward and let him figure out his own life. are
I guess I feel differently about what I've said, especially the first line. I feel like I just made myself the center of my universe and put myself first and not him. I guess you could say I just legitimized his own feelings or came off like I agreed with him. But maybe on some level I do.
If you remove OW's influence on this situation, I would never have made any changes to myself. I didn't change at all when he and I were separated for four months. Any "changes" I made were superficial and didn't stick. I didn't become a different/better person.
It had to take that kind of fracture of the marriage to push me to where I had to change to survive. And NOW I love who I am. That affair was the most devastating AND best thing that ever happened to me.
If I acknowledge that, then I feel like my anger towards him really starts to lift. When that happens, I feel the greatest motivation to GAL fully and forgive myself and him.
If I don't acknowledge that, then I feel like I stay stuck in the past and in my pain and unable to move on.
I guess what I'm saying is that even the OLD him of the good parts of the marriage could not work in a relationship with the NEW me. I'd just keep trying to make him see the good side of things, which I did when he confided about work issues to me, and he'd just keep being a cynic and a complainer with no ambition, passions, or drive. His whole family is like this, and the friends that defected to his side still live like they're 20, in college, with no goals, no drive, no wish but to just party it up when they don't work because they all hate their jobs and have no hobbies or interests, who don't really do any good for others.
With his leaving, all that is gone. I'm better off without him.
I guess it's time for me to leave the board? Ha ha. I just don't think I want to bust this divorce anymore. Does that make me selfish? I guess I just don't want the old marriage anymore either because I can really see clearly that despite all the good times, I wasn't authentically me while in it.
It would be nice if he would encounter a big change like me--and learn to look at himself really closely. I think he's far from it now, but I do pray that he can get to this place. And if that were to happen, years down the road, then sure, maybe we'd have a chance. But for now, I think I'm ready to really let go of him, and right or wrong, my note to him reflected that.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
First off, please do not leave the board. Your contribute a lot to discussions, and show people that they can move beyond this. Your own journey has been tough and moving to read about. I find your insights valuable.
Your post confirms to me what I have suspected for quite a long time: I have noticed that there are [at least] a couple of main types of MLC poster. One is what I would describe as a full blown MLC where the WAS becomes the exact opposite in almost every way of the person they were. The other type is where the MLCer becomes more extreme in what and who they are for example - the drinking moves out of control, there were previous affairs, they replicate the previous pattern of the relationship they have left, and so on.
In the second case, the LBS comes to realise that the relationship was actually unhealthy when it broke up, and that it had become highly co-dependent. The MLcer was already the walking wounded, but the LBS did not necessarily realise it at the time.
But in the first type, although the relationship may have become sticky as MLC loomed, the underlying relationship was healthy, and actually sustained the MLCer for a long time, until they could no longer cope, and 'snapped'.
Of course everyone has issues, and in both cases the LBS has to make changes in themselves and adapt, because either way until the MLCer admits and is prepared to face their own issues, any relationship down the line will not work.
I don't know if this makes any sense?
Anyway, you have handled the interchange in a way that you are OK with, and that is what matters, not what anyone else thinks. You know him and the situation best. Seems to me that you have made a huge leap forward.
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