I agree that they wanted someone like us, but didn't have the skills to fully emotionally engage. I think we believe they only loved the idea of us, but it isn't quite right. They wanted to love us, but didn't know how. And they tried to love us. My xh gets a lot of brownie points for that.
He was damaged goods - just how damaged I have only gradually come to see. While it doesn't excuse some horrible behaviour it does enable me to feel more compassion than I would have believed possible. And in some ways GGG your h is a pussy cat compared with some of the MLC monsters here.
But the bottom line is that they pulled the rug out from under us. We were dong our best to make the relationship work (in most cases), and they just trashed it all and walked away. That is how it felt to us.
What it felt like to them is different, and while we never know what is in another person's head, from what I have heard from therapists and also those who have come through it, is that they felt trapped, constrained, a failure, that their life was over without them having lived it, and so on. When they disengaged they were fleeing for their life, or that is how it felt.
To them we represent the problem, not any sort of solution. Many of them blame us actively, others more passively.
We can overthink MLC, and much of the time I believe the MLCer is in a fog. They cling on to a few beliefs as if their life depended on it. Sadly for us, for many of them that belief is that we are part or all of the cause of how they feel, and so they need to get away
