Please do not take this as criticism, because the hardest thing is having to share your living space with a MLCer. Those that take off do us a favour.

OK, you are still very involved with your xh. Yes, you were married a long time, and it takes a while to detach, but you MUST detach. It isn't an option but a necessity.

I have come to see MLC rather differently these days. They are living in an altered reality which makes perfect sense to them, but not to anyone else much. The OW is a part of this altered reality, but in no way guarantees that she will be treated well. Your h might spend money on her, and time with her, but she is a puppet in his strange twilight MLC world. I don't mean this to sound patronising. it is sad actually.

Arguing is utterly pointless. They cannot budge an inch in their current belief. And one of the weird things about MLC is that something that insist on one day they will even deny having said the next.

Comments like never riding in a car with you again are so MLC. There is not externally rational reason for this, but it will make perfect sense to your h not to do this.

Seriously, you cannot argue with a MLCer. Their world is closed, coherent and consistent to them. I think it might actually make them feel unsafe to have it challenged. They survive in the larger world by following the rules that are imposed on them, so they can go on functioning in their jobs, although over times they may become less functional and productive, at least that is what people have reported to me.

The more rule based their employment the better they feel. But if those rules change it is like the end of the world.

I don't think there is anything we can do except state our own boundaries and refrain from arguing. It is not only pointless but it entrenches them in their position. They cannot be wrong. It isn't like with us - 'OK so I made a mistake, sorry' It is fundamental to them that they are right about all they do and say.

It does get better, and the more we see they really are not on the mother ship, and quit trying to bring them aboard, the better we get on.

Your getting the house termite treated is a case in point. There is no reasonableness in his request, and you can say firmly that you are not doing it alone [your boundary] but you will never convince your h of the unreasonableness of his view that you should do it.