MLC? Maybe you can tell me...

[NLW]

Karen,
I am so sorry that you find yourself going through this nightmare. It’s very hard, I know.

Couldn’t help but see myself in your post:

“Expectations is definitely something I'm working on. Honestly I expected once he was gone for a few weeks that he would show up going "what did I just do?", instead I found out he's really probably with OW. So expectations hit me like a hammer. I need to learn Expectations and Detachment, and fast.”

The biggest thing I’ve learnt from my experience is that there’s nothing I could have done that would have made a difference to my XH's MLC trajectory or to how he treated me and our kids.

So my advice would be to try to accept that you can’t influence him any more - about anything. This was the hardest thing for me to come to grips with.

I’m nearly 6 years in, and there’s no sign that my XH has made any progress or has any insight into how he’s treated us. I’ve heard that he has broken up with OW, and then gotten back with her several times over. We heard he moved to Cambodia to live and then moved back to our town where we think he now lives with his mother (he is 47 years old).

The fact that, at the start, he often cried and told me how confused he was; that he apologized repeatedly for what he was doing (maintaining an affair and walking out on his children, aged 12 and 15 at the time) made me even more certain that he would miss us and eventually come back .

Well, that 12yo boy turned 18 last year, and my daughter celebrated her 21st last week. XH was nowhere to be seen.

Experienced and caring people on this site gave me good advice along the way when I posted in despair: set your expectations at zero, detach, remember that he fired you as his wife; DB is for you, not for him; this is a marathon, not a sprint.

I tried to take this advice on board, but always, at the back of my mind, was the thought that this man would eventually come back to his family, who he had loved so much – I knew in my heart that eventually he’d come to his senses and return to us. I spent months and months, indeed years of my life, trying to strategize and plan and present myself to him as someone he’d want to be with (DBing to get him back, if you like.)

Now in my 6th year without him, what I’ve learned is it didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do in relation to him along the way. I tried so hard to stand for our marriage, even when he changed into monster mode (around the time of D settlement).

Looking back on this process, what I’ve realized is that nothing that you can contribute seems to influence an MLC-er. It seems that for those going through an MLC, the only way out is to keep going. And often that takes a very long time.

This is what everyone means when they say DB is for you; not to try to win him back or make him see the wrongness or irrationality of his choices.

The good news is that eventually you realize that the personal changes you’ve made and the pain and suffering you’ve endured might actually have been worth it. You are a different, stronger, better person.

What I’m trying to say is that, in hindsight, I spent far too long thinking that I could do something to make him come back, treat us better, realize that he still loved us. I really think that MLC is something that can’t be controlled, rather has to be endured and lived through.

Or maybe it’s just that you can never really control anyone but yourself. I get that now.

I truly hope it might be different for you - obviously some come out of the fog quicker than others. Just be prepared for the long haul, and don't worry too much about how he'll react / think about the things you do or don't do.