Wife in MLC and getting ready to leave #3

[25yearsmlc]

Thanks FY.
I really don't understand how everything got sped up. I know this is what her father has been telling her to do

how do you "know" that, or are you guessing, and if so, based on what? I'm not giving you a hard time, but I am trying to separate the mind reading from the empirically verifiable facts.

And "facts" that are real facts, can also change as you obviously can attest to.


but I never in my life expected my W to become the bitch she has. (Please, i do understand it's not his fault. It just changed so much when she found someone to tell her it was OK to do these things)


She said she didn't tell me because she knew I wouldn't be happy about it

2 comments.

First, I always call this^^ the "Noble Liar" phase, b/c a lot of WASs say things like "i would have told you (about the horrible thing I did) but I didn't want to hurt you"

(=so I went ahead and had an affair b/c God knows I WILL get whatever I want, and preferably at no cost to ME)

as if the lying is heroic of them. Their lies are often lies of omission as well, so make sure you are very specific when you must ask questions.

I think their argument suggests that honesty would have been the bad thing to do, NOT the act itself. It's rationalization and we all do it, but the WAS/MLCer takes it to a whole new level.

Second, one of the 2 useful things our marrying priest told us was that "deceit is bad for a marriage, but so is giving someone a reason to deceive. if you historically over react to things like a dent in the car, your spouse will have a reason to hide the next dent...so don't over react"... So make sure you don't get into a harangue about things that are not "the issue". She'll tune you out fast anyhow, so what's the point?

Just a thought. You do seem wrapped around the axle about her deposit but imo, you're really upset about a lot of other things.

Also, I'm not clear on your money situation. You said she was a SAHM ---but now you say SHE is the bread winner, and you have no job?

What's up with that? I think it takes a very secure man to be a stay at home dad and in truth, there are a ton of women who claim to be enlightened enough to handle being the breadwinner, but most are not. Turns out most of us DO want a man who can provide & protect us...

There was a great in depth study of what spouses REALLY value in a mate, (I call it the "cave man" study) and I'd love to touch upon it, but your situation is a tad different b/c your wife has some significant childhood issues that were NOT resolved. Too many other things to address first...and

She has to work through them. Seems to me that her dad, at least at some subconscious level, wants to feel a lot better about his mistakes and perhaps by seeing his daughter make the same ones, yet somehow not losing as much, will make HIM feel a little less of an outlier.

Not too many men leave their families penniless and without contact, for decades...and have the nerve to pretend they didn't screw up royally.

Did he ever apologize to anyone for anything?

No matter what we say to ourselves, our parents ARE our role models and we have to consciously make an effort (sometimes daily), to only repeat the patterns we choose, that are loving and healthy, and to avoid the temptation to revert to what we grew up with, b/c some of what those parents did/said, we know is not healthy.

Knowing what NOT to do, is not the same as having a positive behavioral replacement showing us what TO do...

Here's an example from real life...my h's bff is a great h and a great dad. We've known him and his wife for 35 years now, since college. His name is Greg.

Greg grew up in a family with a jerk for a dad, who cheated on Greg's mom repeatedly. Finally his dad got his OW pregnant and left his wife for OW and the new baby.

That marriage also ended and his dad was with wife #3 for about a decade. She left him (b/c it turns out he wasn't a great h, big surprise). But Greg's dad, for all his bravado, fell apart when his w#3 left him. He drained everyone in the family for ways to "get her back" and pleaded and begged and just lost his sh1t.

Then he took his own life on Thanksgiving...

Greg always knew what NOT to do in a marriage and as a dad. But he feared that in times of stress, he might somehow revert to the patterns his dad had modeled for him. So Greg found a positive role model in his father in law AND a mentor at church as well. He learned what TO DO as a father and h, in times of stress and hardship.

Today, Greg is a great role model as a friend, h, and dad.

I would urge you to find yourself some positive role models as soon as possible.

Down the road, maybe, your wife will do the same but since you have no control over her, stick to working on you.



but that cost us so much money! She has to be insane to think the way she is. The look of amused unbelief when I tell her things that are nothing but totally true.

Be a lot more BRIEF with her. She cannot hear you as it is, the longer you talk to her, the faster she'll assume you are lecturing her and thus, she'll be justified in tuning you out. And pick your battles wisely..

Also, I'm going to strike thru some things you either have no control over or are mind reading about or just washing your energy upon...

.

She wants to believe whatever she wants, reality has no place in her mind. If she can no longer deny that something is true, she makes up reasons I'm at "fault" for "letting" it happen! She has, since her father found out his cancer is back, totally lost her grip on reality. She wants so badly what she can't have without hurting everyone else AND herself, and it's made her become a total monster. She has become everything I hate when I see it in other people. Liar, valueless, moral less, she even lost any real faith in God and won't even go near a church! What is left for me to want to have anything to do with her?


That's for you to answer. But stop all the mind reading b/c it's more a downward spiral for you than anything else. It's not helping YOU.

Yes, she is the mother of my children. But even there she hasn't been much of one for a long time.

I know you have been at this a long time. Please read my earlier LONG post and give it some thought. I asked you a few questions and think they are worth your time to consider, although you don't have to answer them publicly.

But THINK out your plans and don't just "vent", b/c more often than not, venting tends to keep us stuck in our victimhood and anger.

Not always, but often.


I have my memories but we don't share those. She has decided she "deserves" to have whatever she wants and rationalizes why that's not wrong even if others that love her (me, kids, her mothers side of the family) are going to be hurt by it. I read the letter from MLC husband. It talks about how he felt the same way. That he didn't care and how he saw his life as a movie and his W as always going to be there wanting him back, that if things got to bad, he had her no matter what he did he knew she was willing to take him back. I can see why my W would feel this way. I have been way too supportive while she went insane and became the kind of person she always said she hated.


Stick to what she SAYS (though half of it is meaningless, it can give you insight or "intel". But the ^^ mind reading and pseudo analysis really does NOT HELP YOU!


The few times I have gone out and was around other women, I have already become friendly with a couple that have been there a few times. I enjoy talking and laughing with them. No sexual feelings at all, just nice to talk to someone who isn't waiting for me to "make them happy".

Because people who are content with themselves are attractive/attracting people. That's why we all advise you to GAL and be upbeat, busy with your new awakened life...


This is how it feels when I'm talking to my W. like she is waiting for me to prove to her I'm able to make her happy. I watch her with other people and its the same.

Stop watching. Start Living. Start DOING and you do that, by GAL--- and that's the only way you will begin to Detach.


It's like she is so desperate to feel better and she is wanting others to do this for her. People tend to feel this from others. It's why certain people you meet you seem to like, while others you don't dislike, but there is just something about them that at some level is off putting. You sense them wanting something from you, while the ones you like seem to just give something expecting nothing in return. My W was never a taker before the MLC. Now she is always seeming to want, unable to give. Maybe because she has nothing to give. I don't know

back to YOU....


but it makes me question why I am willing to stand. Is it love? Is it fear (I really don't think so but who can be sure)? Is it a sense of duty? Is it for my kids?

I need to think hard about why I care and decide if it's for the right reasons.

yes you do, and at what cost? You have children to consider, so if you are going to stand for the marriage a whole lot longer,

you will still need to take steps to protect family assets, b/c that's food out of their mouths.


I know I will never again make the same mistakes in a future R that I made in this one.

Such as? Name some specific things YOU would do differently, please. Tell us what personal work you are doing to become a man only a fool would leave.
YOU control this.


I know if my W were ever to be able to return to the land of the sane, I would be a very different H in so many ways.


Pretty vague sounding....and aren't you going to make these changes, regardless of what SHE does??


I just need to be sure that I would even want my W back if she has become the person she has.

NO you do NOT need to be sure of any of that ^^now. You may never "need" to be sure of that. You NEED to be sure of who YOU want to become. And then, work on that.

What if she comes through the tunnel and still is this person who I see almost nothing attractive in. She is a very good looking woman. She doesn't seem to think so but she is. That part is just so unimportant to me now, after all this. It's definitely not enough of a reason.

Sorry about the rambling, long post! Just feeling ready to panic and thinking makes me calmer.

Hmmm, I'm not sure the "thinking" makes you calmer. To me, You sound pulled in many directions and as if you are about to explode. I get it.

But perhaps writing it all out, does. Not sure, I don't really know you.

My guess is you need to narrow down the areas of your life in which you actually DO have some control. Most of what you have written here, is NOT that.

But when I read over my first posts, they are mostly about my h and "WHY???" and boy, that is one fruitless question to ask. There is no satisfactory useful answer to it. Period.

You need to get your finances in order (and a new job, I assume?). You MAY need to take legal action to protect family assets, and sometimes that requires filing for divorce OR filing for a separation.

I filed for a separation to protect our home, b/c I believed my h might "invest" wherever his "heroes" suggested, like up on the tundra ("A GOLD RUSH!")

and my h's choices cost us well into 6 figures. We still have a few issues arising from that time and it's not easy to be reminded of it. Nope, not easy at all.

A few years ago my h actually said "I'm sure glad WE did not mortgage our house for THOSE guys" as if it had been a mutual decision "we" had reached.

No need for me to correct it, but fascinating to me to hear his take on it. And the bottom line is, I'm also glad "we" did not mortgage our house for them!