Learning, Growing, Healing

[Treasur]

Well put Treasur...on both accounts. We don't wish our MLC'er to actually get hurt because we love them, but just like an infected sore, sometimes it has to hurt very bad before it heals and feels better. The MLC'er will never be able to comprehend the amount of pain and suffering they have put the LBS thru. Even if they lose the other person it can never be compared to the hurt the LBS felt because their relationship has been built upon lies and deceit. It was never real.

Funnily enough, I've been thinking of my STBXH as a cancer in my life and D like chemotherapy today!
I guess I don't think pain is a competitive sport. I don't know my H is now, but in the first few several months pre-OW, he was a hollow, numb, suicidal shell. I know he was suffering then. Since then I know no more about his hurt than he knows of mine.
I don't feel our M or life together was built on lies or deceit actually. I've looked at it rationally, but my gut says no. I know my H, as he was before his breakdown, loved me deeply. I have no reason before this crisis to think otherwise or to think he was unfaithful in the past. I don't know what happened to break him or why our M was a price he wanted to pay, but I know he loved me and believed in our M. Until he didn't. Eventually, I think you have to cut through the crap and trust your own instinct and that's mine. Like Occam's Razor, the most obvious explanation based on the facts as I see them is a) he had some unaddressed FOO/emotional chickens b) we loved each other and our life kept the chickens in a drawer c) they got noisier and a rough life chain of loss and illness pushed him to his own limit d) it is hard to feel love and connection when severe depression grabs you and e) he made some really crappy choices in how to deal with his depression which destroyed our M and made a huge mess for both of us. Both of us will have to live with the fallout from that. He chose his path and I'm choosing mine.

As far as our MLC'er getting the justice "we" feel that they deserve...some people call it karma, some call it the scales of justice, some people call it the wrath of God. Whatever you decide to call it, know that in the right time, justice will be handed out. For that I am certain.

I'd like my STBXH to find a healthy route forward for himself. He has hurt me, but the self-destruction of erasing 20 years of your life, good and bad, and the mess he's in now isn't good. I fear that he may never stop running because the more damage he's created, the harder it will be to look at it. Yet I hope he will hit a place that hurts enough to trigger his return to life as a healthy man who doesn't need to hurt and control and hide. So, maybe less God's wrath than God's grace is what I hope for him but I will never know I guess.