The awakening of me Part 3

[Jer2911]

With that being said, I also am experiencing the anger feelings again. I think of him, and see a person who's marriage got a little tough, a lot boring, so decided on flight instead of fight. Someone who decided to throw in the towel and contemplate starting a new life. Who thinks of marriage and commitment, loyalty and faithfulness, as something you give up when times get tough. It infuriates me. I am so disappointed in him, and my mistake, should I have seen this coming? Who did I marry?

Mleigh

I could have written this ... word for freaking word. I see it in my MLCr in just normal things, to hard .. toss hands up .. quit. I am not sure if she has always been this way, maybe they get a bit worse or maybe we are just sensitive to it.

The voice thing ... I hope mine is a cool morning show DJ type voice ... just puttin that request in there.

So as far as the reading thing .. I know the site gets its feathers up a bit suggesting books and what not. I see similarities in you, for some time I have read, read .. and read some more about the MLC, the traits, trying to gather information .. some good .. some not so good for me honestly. I think for me realizing 1.) There is really nothing we can do for them now, can not fix em regardless of the awesome tool box we have ... they have to fix themselves and 2.) I was reading for 2 reasons... the first ... to be honest .. knowing I am smarter than anyone on the planet, I would find the magic cure (yes I am laughing as I typed that) so after I jettisoned that idea, I read things about me ... not your typical self help books, ones that got to the core of MY issues .... and some that actually fed into the MLC and the destruction of my marriage. Am I to blame for her MLC .. no... would have happened anyways ... BUT I could work on me, who knows .. in time I am going to be one heck of a mate to someone, no-one, maybe just a great dad and that's fine by me.

The things I had to dig into ... I can share .. but I am sensitive about not making this post about me .. its about you and lending support. That whole time is a gift thing, its said for this reason, you get a chance to take a step back, look in the mirror, maybe fix a few of those things that you know you can work on when you are honest with yourself.

As far as those anger feelings, don't beat yourself up .. they are normal and part of the healing process ... if we do not have them then there is something to worry about ya know?

I could have written all of that as well!

I think that's what so comforting (if anything is comforting right now) through all of this... The similarities in so many of our sitches really drives home the point for me that 1) MLC is about them, not us although 2) we do have our own journey to take in order to make it through this and become a much better version of ourselves no matter what the outcome, and 3) this really would have happened regardless of who they were with at the age that this hit them...

Do I still get angry that this happened to my life? Heck yes! But I totally get that MLC causes people (our spouses) to all do so many of the exact same things -- including what you wrote about throwing in the towel on the R/M without giving us a fair shot at really working on fixing things. So I do feel anger about that, but understanding what happened to my W really helps me have some compassion for what she is going through. That doesn't make any of it right or fair -- but it helps me retain an unconditional love for her while I also work on detaching enough to go on my own journey.

And to answer your last two questions... Based on my personal experience and what I've read on this site and other related sites:

Should you have seen this coming? I don't think any of us could... Unless we'd been through it before with someone else. I know I never saw this hurricane coming... it formed right off the coast in the dead of the night, increased in intensity very rapidly, and moved in at Cat 5 strength before I knew what was coming. Prior to that it was mostly sunny skies with an occasional short rain storm, but mostly really pleasant weather.

Who did you marry? You married the person you thought you did... Just like I did and just like everyone else here did. We just didn't know that those people had ticking time bombs inside of them that would wreck them as well as everything in their lives. Some of us might have one of those time bombs inside of us too -- I don't think I do because I think over the years I've gone through various experiences that allowed me to work through many of my childhood/adolescent issues, but I still have some issues and now that I know about all of this (MLC) I hope that I can avoid wrecking my life in this manner.