MLC or Passive Aggressive or Narcissism

[AntoniaB]

I just wanted to comment on the last thing you said--about feeling some guilt about not continuing to DB and trying to "follow the recipe for success in dealing with MLC."

The sad truth is that while DBing has many great points in terms of teaching you detachment and backing off from marital (or even other) issues where your instinct is to control and instead, you relinquish control, there seem to be very few marriages that come back together after a truly hardcore MLC.

I have always looked at DBing when MLC is involved as a "recipe for success" if the goal was for me to survive intact emotionally after the fallout. If the goal was to "bust the divorce" (initially it was for me but then my goal had to change) then I guess I'd be calling myself a failure right now, but I am not.

I could not survive emotionally if my XH was off with OW trying to decide between the two of us, so I gave him the ultimatum, return to the marriage and leave her, or file for divorce. Eventually, he filed, and I did nothing. I'm in a state where I don't need to agree to his filing, and I also had no grounds to fight him. Had I pleaded with the judge that I wanted to take him back, I was told the judge that the fact that we disagreed on him coming back alone would be seen as "irreconcilable differences" and the divorce would have happened regardless.

The only way I could have my own self-respect was if I did not tolerate his affair while I was still married to him, so I forced his hand, which was not much different from filing on my own.

To be very honest with you, I have one regret, and it is that I did not do the filing myself. The entire reason I did not file was a tactic. I thought if I hung low long enough, that he'd come to his senses. I thought if I held to "I don't want to divorce you" that even after he filed, his rel. with OW would go south and in the 11th hour, he'd run back. It didn't happen.

Now I wish I'd been the one to file. I'm not saying at all this is what I think others should do, but it's what I personally feel after 19 months post-bomb and almost 3 years post-his MLC beginnings.

I still love him. I always will. Were he and I to meet years down the road and he to have finally faced his inner demons instead of running away from them, and were we to still have anything in common, and were we both to be single, would I consider a reconciliation? You bet I would.

But honestly, the only way for me to maintain any level of confidence and self-respect in my own eyes was to put my foot down. He had a million chances to NOT divorce me, and he didnt' take any of them. And on top of that, I still feel I have "DBed" him...why? Because this is what he wanted. He wanted to be free of the marriage so he could pursue OW and have a committed relationship with her. So be it. I let him go. I am not in his life in any way, shape, or form. We have no contact. If he does contact me, I am kind and cordial. But that's it. He has what he says he wanted. I did not stand in his way.

Sometimes the only option left that keeps us sane and protects our own selves and our families is to walk away with dignity and grace. If we are meant to be with these people years down the road, it will happen after we have both learned to be different and better people.