Yes, there are quite a few that divorces that have taken place because of MLC. You have to remember that back many, many years ago, they didn't talk about MLC. It's just been in the last 20 years that people have begun talking about it. Lawyers see a lot of nonsense when it comes to filing for divorces, especially when the MLCer is involved. It is very sad, but MLC has been around for a very long time.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
I look at so many divorces now and wonder how many are actually due to MLC, especially during this replay phase.
That is difficult to say especially since MLC isn't officially recognized in the American Psychiatric Ass'n DSM.
Some of the ex-partners of us are perhaps "ill" in some fashion. Some are perhaps selfish jerks like my own ex (IMO)
To save you the time of reading, we had a good if somewhat unbalanced marriage - she was definitely in charge. Empty nest, menopause, "It's time for me" yadda yadda yadda. A well-off widower falls in to her lap - more or less literally - she has some presumably real conflicts and depression about her choices and then goes chasing off. Spoiler alert - it doesn't seem to have worked out well for her.
DnJ's STBX though, is just behaving weird and there are those who have suggested mental illness or drug abuse in that case. Gordie's seems to have realized that things weren't going to work out for her and is apparently reluctantly getting used to that.
Your own seem to be in some ways closer to my experience. You've just not hung on as long and as hard as I did which in many ways I'm still healing from.
Is the "awakening" when they realize that it hasn't worked out and then try to worm their way back in to the good graces of their former partner? Or is it a legitimate change in attitude? Smarter people than I am probably disagree on this.
And yes - a number of us LBS - even ones who hang around here still like the ghosts at the banquet - can be pretty cynical.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Talked with my life coach today and he gave me advice on staying or leaving.
Staying: be nice, support her etc...,
Leaving: keep mouth shut, stay in your room, give it a week or so, talk with Atty, file temp orders yourself (for what I want) and have bulldog do the dirty work. It will be hard to live under the same roof once the ball gets rolling.
The continual disrespect, coming home at 3am, cheating, lies and using me have taken a toll. If that gets better perhaps I'll give more time. I suspect it will only get worse though.
Gordie 40s W 40s M20+ kids 2016 BD W fantasy affair w OM1 I do everything wrong 2017 I start to DB W says TLTL files for D PA w OM2 2018 I do LRT W drops filing and OM2 situation slowly improving
Hamburg I have been reading the progress. Others are giving you great advice, and mine is just that, my opinion. But I feel like I have to do this, consider this a very friendly 2x4 (it is a metaphor for trying to help by being a little hard). Context for you is I stayed in relatively close but not continues contact with my wife for the first 1.5 years after BD, she talked to me a lot, including hurling very painful comments and insults, and also very connected and caring honest truthful sharing. She swung all the way from shark eyes/anger, back to her old self but in a lot of pain and open and asking for help, and then suddenly asked for divorce and snapped most of the way back.
I managed the 1.5 years by quickly detaching emotionally from her and minimizing my damage. But that was the hardest 1.5 years of my life. You do not sound detached and it must hurt, a lot. No matter what you decide you HAVE TO detach, and as others have said stop focusing on her and focus on you. If you want to decide whether you want to hope to wait for her or not I GUARANTEE you if you do not detach you will take enough damage and pain that you WILL leave and probably hate her, and it will not from a carefully chosen decision, rather from pain and self preservation.
Reading what you wrote she is deep in throws of replay and MLC. In fact she MAY even not fully be in the swing of things and MAY get worse. Nothing you say or do will help her or your marriage right now, no matter how hard you wish you could do both. Trust me and others on this, she is in this alone and you are only a passenger tied to the rear bumper being dragged behind. You are not only not driving you are not even in the car, all that will happen if you stay here is, well follow the analogy. If she goes off the cliff you being dragged behind will change nothing, she will still crash with or without you.
Her "disrespect" and all other painful behaviour towards you is because she is probably in so much inner pain and turmoil you DO NOT exist emotionally in her world, you are like furniture. We don't really worry about what we do to our furniture and how the furniture feels. I sat with my wife and her "friend" on a rock where she took food out of a bag for her and him, and put the bag done AS IF I WAS NOT EVEN there. Because in her emotional world when in this state I was not there, I was a rock. If you are interacting with her and expecting human reaction, specially from the woman you were so close to you will continually be "disrespected" and hurt deeply. So stop. Sticking your hand into the fire WILL burn it while the fire is hot. It doesn't alter the fire. So don't.
When you detach emotionally, internalize the truth of what is going on with her, heal and take care of yourself then you can get to a point where you can decide to "stay" or "go." Right now all that will happen is you will leave or she will destroy any love you have for her at some point. By detaching you may save that love and may be able to reengage one day, but not today. Others have said it, accept this is months and years, not weeks.
Thanks. Started to detach a month ago, I guess it wasn't full effort or perhaps it takes time. I know I have to do it for myself in order to heal. It makes it both easier and harder while being in the house.
Thanks. Started to detach a month ago, I guess it wasn't full effort or perhaps it takes time. I know I have to do it for myself in order to heal. It makes it both easier and harder while being in the house.
It is a lot of effort and it DOES take time, but keep at it. Being in the same house is so much harder. I had the luxury if long periods of not being together, and every time we spend time together by the time she left I would feel how draining, hard and negative it was being around her. But without time apart and/or detaching we tend to "normalize" things and don't realize how bad it really is sometimes. Detaching and going no contact allows us to start registering the pain and difficulty and to find our footing.
