I relate so much to what you have just written, and expressed so well.
Like you I have not regrets in marrying my xh. I might have done things a little differently, but hindsight, as we all know, is a great thing!
I have been able to do all sorts of things in the years I have had on my own, and while I used to resent slightly the burden of single parenting, now they are older i also get all the fun. Sad to say I am the one my children chose to have their fun times with - Christmas, their birthdays, my birthday and so on.
My xh has lost so much. His choices, but nevertheless hard when they come home. Karma, yes, but honestly who really wants to see it in someone you love? That is the triumph, to love with total detachment. I have no expectation that my xh will ever come out of MLC - still firmly in after 7 tempestuous years!!, but it is well with my soul.
I would like him to work through it for his sake, but can also see that it would be so very hard. He was such a fine man, and a great husband and father. Imagine waking up and having to see what you were and what you have become, and who you have been on the journey with.
I can understand why so many of the 'hard cases' do not ever come through to the other side.
I wish there was more understanding and more help for MLC. During the past seven years I have had periods of severe doubt about whether it is 'real' or not, but have come firmly to the view that it is. The legal system of divorce does not take MLC into account at all, and treats it as marriage failure. Whatever it is, that is not what is going on here at all.
