25yearsmlc 10 Yrs Later I File D part 3

[25yearsmlc]

[quote=PsySara]I am always stunned at how WAWs can shed their obligations like a snake shedding their skin. I sometimes wonder if you could travel back in time and show the WAS what kind of person they become if they would be horrified?


Good question, which got me pondering...
My guess (and partially to console myself) is that it will take the passage of more time before h realizes any loss. Like we'd have to know how it goes for them in 5 years b/c they justify what is going on now OR they don't see the downside AND OR they are in la la land. THEY have their immediate needs met and don't have to look around yet.

To h, as of yet, he got OW's family at Christmas and assumes "in time" the kids will come around. THey're resilient!

D19 told me sometime ago that after college she did not expect much or any contact with h. (I actually think she felt that way before we split). This is suspected by h and now he can save money and not lose more than he already lost, with d19?? The insane part is that h seems to think all of his behaviors are in a vacuum.

How he treats ME affects his r's with the kids, which he does not seem to realize. Ironic since his dad treated his mom badly in the divorce and h always resented that and never said a word to his dad. Think about that....

As for OW - she's the type of Christian who posts on FB about her faith, and dates a married man (this was last summer at the latest) and sees him lose his family but either is happy about it b/c then she gets a DOCTOR (I have to put that in caps as an inside joke from First Wives Club) as a step dad and h,

AND OR she believes I turned my kids against h, and h has paid SO MUCH for HIS (never "our" kids and never "we" paid, just HIM) we should all just be grateful. Plus I must be an overspending wife (God I wish, what with all my bling)

In OW's eyes, the cost of private college for our older kids is a huge amount. It's huge to me. So was h's salary.

Somewhere inside me I fear h will pay for her kids' college. That just occurred to me. Gross.

BACK to the question, we know one thing about MLC/WAS, which is fairly universal.

They do NOT look far down the road in a way that reflects poorly on them, or that has a bad outcome for them.

In my case, I know for a fact that h's bff warned him against going down this road. H's bff went thru this as a child when his own dad impregnated his OW and bff had to meet his "new stepmom/half brother" at the age of 10.

Bff's dad later divorced OW#1, and the halfbrother, and his dad married OW#3

when #3 left bff's dad, the dad fell apart and eventually took his own life. So that is the experience h's bff had in HIS childhood and he has warned h many times that this is a bad road to take, especially for the kids.

By the way, the best husband and father I know, is h's bff. These cycles can be broken.

Bff said "h won't listen, he doesn't get it"...

So we would have to have a telescope farther into the future, like 5 years and see that h is not around or involved in the graduation (I doubt d19 will invite him at all) and if he is invited to a wedding, all the awkwardness of it will radiate.

Will it be THEN that he wishes he'd done things differently? OR will he still say "too bad 25 didn't just come up to Alaska with me like she should have?"

Gosh, in truth I think it'd be easier for h to blame me even then...and never look in the mirror as to why our children and my family (which is huge) and his bff don't see him the same way.

H's bff is really disappointed that h lied to him about not cheating. Says "h swore up and down he did not", but it's obvious now. Why lie to your bff?? Bff would still love h.

That's the piece of this that made me first wonder about the narcissist trait in which what matters is not your behavior but how others see it...

Sara, maybe the answer is that they won't view themselves as bad or wrong or that the choices even cost them anything, (other than money)

unless they know they are viewed differently.



The sad fact is they usually realize what they have done when it's way too late to make repairs. Part of me wonders if this is a symptom of first world selfishness? I rarely read about this behavior in countries where people have to scrape just to eat.

Interesting.

True, most of this behavior is the behavior of the leisure class. And to an extent, so are our views. Our suffering is mostly ego, compared to 3rd world issues. I mean, if a WAH pays CS or alimony and the LBSer gets half the assets,

in the 3rd world, who would complain about that?

I heard a TED Talk by a Vietnamese refugee grown up in America and he discusses the lack of the subjunctive in his language ("would have/could have/should have") A lot of cultures and languages lack the subjunctive.

His point was that we ruminate a lot more than some cultures. His family would just deal with what is and plan for their future, not looking back.

And I have to say he has a point.


Honestly I hate OW for you. I have to ask myself what kind of low life dates a person who neglects their loved ones?

I understand that Sara. Believe me, one of my greatest achievement in this is not ever looking her up on FB and blocking h.

Like how could she encourage him to do this? H dated the letter to D19 early April but she just got it. Did HE pause or what?

I'm told OW posts about her faith in Jesus, God, etc on fb. OW Likes the world to know she's a good Christian. That tells me she cares about how she is viewed, which is really telling. Maybe not so much about what is real, but how she is seen....

h invited s30 to meet her in Mexico in March but s30 declined, OMG I hope that didn't hurt OW's feelings???!! If it did, it would have just annoyed h.

Anyhow h MUST have told OW I turned the kids against him. How else do you explain not seeing your kids since you moved?

Over the years, H said a few times that I "brainwashed the MC's" we saw b/c I'm good at words. Mind you, he was there with me.

We saw 4 different MC's over the years for the SAME issue, which was his obsession with Alaska. Each one gently or overtly said "h, you are not making the decisions of a man with a family
/you are acting like a single man/
you are not considering your w's feelings/
your children moving 2 more times at critical times in their lives",
"when are you going to be 'done becoming what you want to be in life'? etc

no one agreed with him. This caused seething resentment which, evidently, grew and festered over the years. OW lives in Alaska, & is from there. Problem solved !!

So she either blames me for distance between H and our kids, OR She likes the idea that he can supplant her own exh

or who knows? A friend in Alaska called her a "man whore" and I don't know what that means.

I just know h treated me badly towards the end, and I could not have moved there for him, again. And that was the choice I was presented with.