Hanging on to the roller coaster

[LoisB]

Tiger.

I'm sorry for plagiarizing. I thought the whole handling it like a "champ" thing sounded familiar. My bad. :-)

[tigerlily78]

Haha. Oh no biggie. It's not like I invented the phrase. Just great minds thinking alike, right?

[CallaghanClown]

Having had a great day, I'm in a bit of a slump right now. No expectations is so hard but I'm early on in my journey, so it's to be expected that expectations creep in.

H has just left and I feel......weird. He was relatively 'normal', which I always find so hard. Paranoid still but not in a depressive slump or manic or rambling. Well he did ramble but not incoherently.

He says he was up from 2:30am and his head was racing. I didn't ask why, I wanted to but I didn't do it. He needs to sort through his issues himself.

I found it really hard when he was talking about all these new friends he has. I've known him 18 years and I've never heard of these people. Plus talking about one of these friends children that calls him uncle and cuddles him. It was like a knife to the heart. Says she's like D6.....I bit my lip hard on that one.

Again ignoring everything he says.....

He sat very close to me to show me some pictures of an event he was running.

He got the kids to tidy their room.

He tidied his mess.....after being asked.

He stayed to chat for 45 mins after putting the kids to bed. All about him but I'm happy he feels comfortable chatting.

[tigerlily78]

CC,

Just keep in mind that the ups and downs are part of a well documented pattern. The pulling away is almost always a direct response to the coming closer or behaving nicer and wnjoying time with you. It's not because you are doing anything wrong, and it could even be because you are doing things right.

Don't let it make you anxious.

[LoisB]

Just keep in mind that the ups and downs are part of a well documented pattern. The pulling away is almost always a direct response to the coming closer or behaving nicer and wnjoying time with you. It's not because you are doing anything wrong, and it could even be because you are doing things right.

Don't let it make you anxious.

I soooooo agree!!

Learn from my experience. My H pulled closer in May-Beginning of June. He was coming over weekly.

He, then, distanced himself in June. I panicked. Big time.

I over-reacted.

I made ultimatums and blew all the progress to smithereens.

He is now living with OW again.

Take it nice and easy. YOu can do this. Slow and steady wins this race.

Heather

[CallaghanClown]

Thanks tiger, lois

What is everyone's take on remorse??

My H is showing a lot of remorse for his actions, not just over the OW, but over his years of selfish behaviour. I can see a lot of guilt. I've validated, I've given words of affirmation, but I'm wondering what the significance of this remorse is?

His LL is WOA which I struggle with and always have it at the forefront of my mind when is his presence. My issue is that he isn't doing a lot right at the moment so WOA is difficult.

He spends a significant amount of time using WOA with me (sadly my LL is PT and QT......oh how I miss PT). His secondary LL is AOS but how can I do that when he's not here? How can I do stuff for him without coming off as pursuing?

[labug]

What does "showing remorse" look like?

And if it is true remorse, it's his to handle. Remorse is easy, it's changing the behaviors which lead to the remorse that's difficult. That's what you're looking for, isn't it?

You have the power here, CC. Do you want a M with him as he is now?

[bustingout]

Is it fair to say that remorse would encourage someone to Change their behaviours towards the person they hurt?

[LoisB]

I think it's fair to say remorse encourages a healthy functional human being to make changes in their behavior.

I'm not sure the same holds true for the MLC-er.

History repeats itself. For the last two years especially--In my H, at least, I see him running like a bat outta He!! from any uncomfortable feelings. He may be able to face a small amount at a time. But, I wouldn't expect him to have genuine feelings of remorse and make big, sweeping changes in a single event. I think just about everything is SLOW with the MLC-er. Little bit at a time.

Just my .o2.

Heather

[LoisB]

One more thing...

My H has exhibited MLC behavior and signs of a crisis off and on throughout our marriage. I think he would run anytime the feelings from his childhood surfaced. He would disappear and go use drugs. Sometimes it would last a few months or maybe a few weeks. He slipped in and out of engagement with us.

Around the time we turned 30, he had a major crisis. His father left when he was 2 years old and signed over his parental rights to H's new stepdad. H never knew he was adopted until he was 13. He didn't remember his dad. He searched for him when he turned 30 and found him.

He did have a moment of clarity after that. He sought counseling, met his real dad and came back home with this tail between his legs. He proposed to me again with a big diamond. We had years of peace after this until now.

Based on this history, I don't see my H having a single event where he will face the remorse and come to his senses. This time the pain has pummeled him.