Who is this woman&what has she done with my wife 2

[LoisB]

THX,

Wow! A person goes to take a bubble bath, nap and watch some cheesy shows on TV and just look what I missed on the boards!

Seems like the bottom line for the whole A/age dilemma is...an affair hurts. Whether the OW/OM is 20 or 60, it hurts. It's a pain I wouldn't wish on anyone because it rattles the very foundation of what you believe about life, marriage, love, friendship, family.

I've experienced the results of three affairs in my life. My grandfather's, my dad's and, now, my husband's.

When I was 7, my grandfather, who I learned later had been philandering for years, ran off to Florida with his secretary. Our family was turned upside down. I loved my grandpa and I couldn't understand what was happening, except I saw my dad cry for the first and only time. I saw my grandmother suffer horrible pain.

My mother did this wonderful thing for me...She told me that my grandfather was sick. He wasn't quite himself. Something was going on in his brain and he wasn't able to make good decisions. He didn't mean to hurt us all, especially me. I'm so grateful for that explanation.

When people hurt me in life, I'm able to step back (when I'm not reeling from the hurt and fear) and accept they aren't making good decisions because of something I can't understand.

Call it a disease, mental illness, MLC, bad parenting, lack of breastfeeding, whatever... These people are making poor decisions, but NOT with the intention of ruining my life. Even the mean MLC-er's, underneath it all, are ultimately just very sad people who deeply hate themselves for whatever reason.

A few weeks back, my daughters and I--who have been left with a sh!tload of work to do and an phantom AWOL MLC-er--well, we faced him. My girls expressed their feelings about the past two years and his absence and his poor decisions. For the first time, in all of this drama, I saw the sad, empty, shell of a human being that is described on the boards. He was, as my D11 intuitively observed, vacant. "Mom, dad, doesn't seem to know who he is or where he belongs." BINGO!!!!!!!

I can't imagine anyone doing this on purpose. I can't imagine your wife woke up one day and decided she would shake the grocery bag that was her life and just empty it in a pile at your feet and your children's feet. Something is driving this behavior.

All of this is so fresh still for you. This is a process and you can't rush it. Take today, feel what you need to feel, process all you want on the boards (I write it out too--it helps) and try to let her go to find her own way.

I've done all the ranting, raving, telling the family, acting the like the morality police, b!tching about the example set for our kids, ad nauseum. And, after you do it, you WILL feel nauseous because it doesn't work. It just doesn't. It will drive her deeper into herself.

Take care of your and the answers about what's next will come.

Much Love,

Heather