New LBS, not sure if he's having LMC

[25yearsmlc]

My x is in Alaska and has not seen our children in 18 months. He does not call them, and he & I have not spoken since we separated, although the day he left, we were intimate and I had no idea what was going on.

His bff is not close to him anymore, several of our mutual friends are horrified and he's just not in contact with them. I assume he spends holidays with OW and her family,

With his new FB world of posting about his HAPPY LIFE (and calling the OW the "love of his life" too) you'd think we had never been married or created a family of 5.

Of note - It would alarm ME as a woman, if I were dating a man who did not speak to his adult children. In fact, I am dating someone and that's something I watch for, how he does with his son...it'd be a huge red flag to ME,

but obviously I and the OW and xh do not share the same values.

The part that gets crazy making in all this is when we project our values onto our former spouses, when the fact is they do not now have those values. That's HOW they can do what they are doing.

WE would be mortified, embarrassed, shamed, etc.

But not them. So try not to wrap your brain about all that and try hard to get out of his head.

I asked "Why is my h making these horrible choices???" and "How can he do this???" over 1000 times here on these boards. ( I think that's literally true.)

It Got me nowhere, but a lot of running in place. I stayed stuck asking instead of moving.

So, I pass this on to you.

1) Focus on what you can control which is yourself.

2) Learn all you can about the finances. IF this ends in divorce, the settlement is the most important financial transaction of your life, and you and your kids deserve the best.

3) GAL for real. Join something, learn something, go somewhere and enjoy planning the trip, teach or volunteer or coach or study or learn an instrument, take a class, start a group,

b/c that's how you can crowd out the constant obsessing and sad or angry feelings, with new positives in your life. That's what you can control.

For me, I also found that turning my pain and marriage over to God helped. I had to think it, say it out loud and hear myself say it, for it to sink in.

There is a prayer that Caroline Myss suggests we do, and it was very helpful to me.

"Let me let go of the need to know why. I will never know why. And endless questioning is endless suffering."

((( )))