Hi there cdd. I haven't posted to you before, I tend to hang out in the MLC section as I've been at this for a couple years now. I just spent a little time and read up on your situation. Your H is really giving you the run around. My W had me up and down too.
I'd like to first say that it DOES sound like your H is having a mid life melt down. His actions are not normal and people don't just do this kind of thing. I don't think he just fell out of love with you. You did not break him, therefor you can not fix him. This is all his stuff he has to own. As much as you love him, you do not want him as he is. You want what he was, or what he may become, but you do not want him as he is right now. He doesn't deserve you right now. Even if there was a part you played that you could have been better at, you are human. Not one of us is perfect and neither are any of our relationships. It is not and never was your fault for the decisions he made and is still making.
Detaching is hard. I read so much about it and I could tell you everything there was to know, but I couldn't do it. I faked it, but it was a real struggle to actually get there. You need to cut yourself some slack in that regard. Detaching is something that you need to do for your own healing, not to get any kind of reaction from your H. I don't know how many times I heard that, but I was still doing it to initiate change in W. You will stumble in this, but no 1 thing you do is going to break the whole thing. You make mistakes and learn from them and adjust. Your goal right now needs to be to become stronger again and heal from all that has happened. You are going to have a hard time with that while being so focused on your H. You love him. You know that, I know that, he knows that. Rest assured that he knows you love him and don't want a D...so let go of that in your head and focus on you and the kids. He will kick and scream at times, and he will be loving at times. You may get a little distant and that may cause him to be angry...so what. He needs to go through this and nothing you are going to do it going to stop it.
The marriage you knew and the relationship you had with H is over. A new one may develop, and that might be a good thing, but he killed the relationship and marriage. That is not on you, but it is something that we all have to learn to accept. Lots of MLCers initiate divorce only to never go through with it. Others talk about it but never actually file. Some of them do go through with it, but then reconcile later. And then there are some that actually go through with it and they stay divorced. From what I've read, it seems like the highest percentage of results in the MLC world is the MLC spouse that eventually comes out of the tunnel and wants to reconcile, but the LBS has moved on and doesn't want to anymore. That means that we often end up making the final decision. As for him not being dead set on divorce. No, I imagine not. I am willing to bet he isn't sure of ANYTHING. Thats the problem with people in MLC, they have no idea what they want, they just know they aren't happy and are trying to fix that. The problem is that they search externally for that happiness when its really something missing from inside of them.
There are a few threads on this board that I end up reading over and over that really help me gain perspective. There was a poster named Stayed who reconciled with her H after some time. At some point she had him write a letter which is still posted. If you haven'tread it, you should. Also, check out Amy C's posts too. I believe those are listed in th welcome post you get after your first post. Also, Happy_again. He was a MLCer that came to the boards here and posted to people. His posts are interesting to read too as it really gives a good look in to the mindset of a person in MLC. You can find his if you google "happy agains old posts".
Sorry to have hijacked your thread a bit. I get a little long winded sometimes. I hope you are having a good day today.
