L.O.S (Loss Of Signal)

[Jimbo]

Hi BL42,

I haven't read your threads, but see you're back after a 10 year hiatus.

Call it "snooping", if you will. 😁
But unlike snooping on an ex, this is the good kind.

I was talking with a guy at my church who had asked me if I had ever been married. One thing led to another, and I found myself sharing DB/MLC knowledge with a guy that had most likely had a MLC spouse, and that that had most likely been, at least, a contributing factor in his D. Which led me to think about all the LBS guys I had run across in my time post D. Which led me to a realization the other day about just how far I had come in my life, compared to the days of my postings here. Which naturally brought me back here to the start of it all.

Lots of positive changes to the board since I was last here. Back then, the mods didn't have the "welcome information pack and required reading list" like they do now. They were a little less "hands on" with newbies, and we had to muddle through and really dig through the posts to discover the things that we didn't even know we didn't know. MUCH easier now to get up to speed quickly. Which is a REALLY good thing, since newbies come here during an overwhelming time in their lives, and the last thing they need is to be overwhelmed by trying to figure out by themselves what they need to know in a time of great crisis.

What does "I Am Still Standing" mean from a practical perspective?

It means leaving the door open to reconciliation, but recognizing that you will be ok whether it happens or not, because you did (and are doing!) the work on yourself.

It means learning to apply the idea of Wu Wei: the concept of "action through non-action"...at least when it comes to actions directed toward your MLC spouse/ex.

It means moving from a victim mentality to a victor mentally, by recognizing that you have no control over others and their actions, but you DO have control over YOUR decisions and YOUR actions. YOU decide the boundaries of recognizing when it's over FOR YOU, and when you're done with leaving the door to reconciliation open. And, for me, today is not the day.

It does NOT mean plotting and scheming how you can make your loved one come back or sitting around waiting, hoping, praying your ex-spouse will finally contact you.

You have been on the board long enough to notice the theme here, yes?

The practical aspect of standing is focused on working on yourself...not to "get her back", but for you.

In a sense, my XW and I are on the same journey, just using different roads. Mine is smooth and requires planning. Hers is rough, jostling, and haphazard. I have a GPS, she doesn't. But even with the differences, the objective and methodology are still the same:

"It's all about ME, ME, ME!!!" 😁

If you haven't heard from your ExW in over a decade...have you reached out to her?

Nope. I will continue to give her the gift that she has given me - the gift of time to find herself on her own terms, without distraction. When/if she is ready, she knows where I am.

I will not contact her unless absolutely necessary. I thought that time was here, when I found out recently that the folder containing my vital records (Birth card, Social security card, etc.) that ALWAYS gets placed back in the back of the drawer in the roll top desk promptly after being used, wasn't there when it should have been. But it turns out that replacements are much easier to get than expected if you still have your passport.

No, in recognizing that situations like the one above might require me to know where she is able to be contacted, that is the only "checking", or "snooping" I do. And, by extension, that is the only sort of "contact" I have with her. It's strange how, purely as an unintended byproduct, just that one little piece of info has the potential to speak volumes about where she is in her journey.

have you dated other people?

Yes...but a qualified yes.

MLC is such a foreign concept to most people. It seems like they can't grasp the idea unless they have experienced it for themselves. It's just too far out there for them to wrap their heads around. "What did YOU do to make her leave?", "People don't just leave for no reason!", etc. etc. etc. My friends and family were pestering me about the whole "you just need to get back on the horse" thing. I couldn't seem to make them understand, no matter how much I explained to them. They ultimately wore me down to the point that, against my better judgement, I listened to their logic and dated one woman for a while. It was forced from the start- a sort of "fake it til you make it". And it just went downhill from there. The blessing in disguise was that I had the skill set to recognize over time that SHE was at the very beginnings of having a MLC! Which made it simpler to extract myself from the situation when she eventually told me, "I'm just not into you anymore". It made it much easier to get the hell out of there without hurting feelings, AND had the added benefit of FINALLY getting friends and family off my back. "Well, at least you tried".