I cannot tell you how much I relate to that. i think many of the people who post here are not traditional/conventional. But our MLC partners loved us, and when you are being different in a world that is often hostile to difference, being loved and celebrated is very important.
So yes, BD caused me to feel I had got it wrong form beginning to end. My attempts to live my life as I had chosen to do, often against some opposition, felt like a succession of bad choices.
I do not think we have to turn ourselves inside out trying to change. Sure, change what we need to, and there is always room for self improvement, but not simply because the MLCer has used aspects of us that they used to appreciate as weapons against us.
Learning to believe again that the core of me was and is actually OK took a long long time. Abandonment causes us to look deep within, because it is so very rejecting of all that we are. Learning, remembering, it is about them it crucial.
And when we do not have the support of our SO the people who want to bring us down for having lived as we have done can close in. What sort of people do that?
I have learned to be around people who are affirming, and not negative, and to value their opinion, and not that of people whose behaviour indicates that they have their own problems to deal with
