been gone so long couldn't find my thread! lol!

[AntoniaB]

Just because you DBed in the past, and that's "why" you came to the boards in the first place, doesnt' mean you are somehow held to the standard you set for yourself THEN.

The way I see it, there are all sorts of types of divorces that people try to "bust." Some of them are busted in a time frame that is smaller than the MLC one--by a lot--and as a result, and due to the circumstances of WHY the divorce occurred, there is less fallout, damage, and bridges burned. Because the time frame is so much shorter, and the damage potentially less (as in, if you have a partner who has a fling who immediately WANTS to come back and work things out with you, that's far different from one who is blaming you for everything in the world going wrong who is holding the affair up as a wonderful fated thing...)with some divorces, the busting means that the LBS isn't a drastically different person on the other side.

HOWEVER, in the case of MLC, we hear over and over how important it is to become our own people, fully capable of living independently and being happy without the spouse, because in most cases, there isn't going to be a reconciliation. I'm not trying to kill people's hope here, but let's be realistic, the reconciliations after an extended MLC are rare.

Part of the reason to me that they are rare is that the LBS does so much to strengthen herself and GAL that after awhile, it really sticks, and she/he in effect "moves on". And you've said it yourself, right when you're happy, here he is coming back and "doing this" to you, and I think you feel pulled by him and also threatened by him. You're threatened that all you worked for will be taken away by him or taken away by the part of you who in the past would be taken in by words and not actions.

This is why you've gone "emotional", because your 2 selves are fighting it out, old self who wants him no matter what is going "talk to him", "engage with him", "he's saying I love you!" while new self is saying "are you crazy? look what you have gained! Be scared of this!"

I can't say I think you're lucky for this to happen. I think it's very hard. I think it's nice to see him SAYING he is recognizing some errors, but he is so not doing anything to SHOW that he means it, and maybe he's not capable of that yet.

So it all leads back to time as others have said. You really have to distance yourself on this. You almost have to be semi-dark, in a way, not jumping to answer texts. You have your own life. He's not seeing that. He's assuming that he figured himself out, now he can have you back. But maybe you want to be treated a lot better now. You have every right to be.

With MLC, you DB to save yourself so that SOME day if it works out, you MAY be able to save the rel. with the X. But that's only if you choose to do so. I don't know from your posts if you want to save it at this point. Do you know if you do?

If you are torn, then just don't make any decisions at all. There is no gun to your head telling you to decide. If you decide to piece, then you do, but if you decide that for now you don't want to, then that's your business.

I guess what I'm saying is that you can't live your life today by what you chose to DB for way back when. You are probably a very different person today than you were then. Your goals and feelings about yourself have changed and likely, so is the way you want to be treated in a rel. with him.