Update. Yesterday was my birthday which incidentally was simply awesome from start to finish.
I was making a late breakfast with a friend, and fielding nice phone calls from other friends and family when the phone rang with a number I didn't recognise and I thought someone was going to try and sell me something, but it was my xh, saying 'Hello is it X, I wanted to call and wish you a happy birthday' My response was 'How kind of you to call' (auto-pilot due to shock). First time since BD seven + years ago that he has spoken to me on my bday.
This has been one mean and angry MLCer, and I have not wanted contact with him, and he largely avoided me and his children for years
So I was totally astonished. He was pleasant, and then said how much he has been thinking about the past recently and started talking about when our children were small and some of the stuff they had done, which made me laugh. Told me that he was seeing more of his children these days .... He has also contacted my dil (to whom he behaved horribly, to meet up and try and rebuild a relationship! - she told me that though) He also paid me several compliments, which as I spent many years post bomb as the source of all evil in the world was a nice surprise!
Wants to make plans to meet up when we are both in the same part of the world at the end of this month. I said Mmmmmmm, which is a useful comment I have learned during MLC (works in all sorts of situations with other people too).
Like Antonia, I realised how much I have changed during this time. As a project it is still work in progress, but I really like my life now.
And there is another thing, I think my xh is still in a relationship of sorts with OW2 who he met after we divorced, and i bear no ill will (still struggle with OW1 who was a real witch).
To be frank I am not entirely sure how comfortable I am being in contact with him because i do not feel it is entirely fair to her. I am not yet at a point at which I feel I can ask him outright if she knows he emails, me, sends the occasional gift, and now this call + trying to make plans to see me again.
Prior to MLC my xh was a lovely man, and it is good to see some of that coming back, but his crisis has been very long, and I have made a new life. In any case, he may genuinely be looking for friendship post crisis, and nothing more, which would be OK I think if we can pull it off. i never thought I would write those words, but there we are.
I am glad to have had the chance to grow and change - most of the process was horrible if I am frank, but now I am truly happy, and i want my xh to be happy in his life too.
I am pleased that he appears to be coming through it, and it is good to know that even the most stuck of people can shift. It does take time though, and we are right to move on with our lives. In my case it is not to a new relationship - that is a tough one after a long and very happy marriage, to a great guy, but I have great friendships, and a loving family.
