I’ve been reading posts here for the past few days. Stumbled across the “Odds and Ends of MLC: Link” thread and my jaw nearly dropped to the floor. Felt I could have been writing so many of these words from my own recent experiences. The “Three Lessons” posts by ‘Tom K’ were particularly uncanny. Is it MLC? WAS? Does it matter? Probably not but after 4 months of hell I figure I could use some support…
W and I are in our late-30s. No kids. We have been together for 10 years and married for 7. She was my best friend and I believed we had a great marriage and incredible future. We have been through a lot together. We met in a different country. W joined me in current country around 6 years ago. We spend more time apart than many couples due to W’s work which is travel-based with headquarters in a different city. But we have always spent loads of quality time together. Of course no one thinks something like this will happen but until recently I believed us to be as connected as any couple I know.
No marriage is perfect but we didn’t have any major recurring relationship issues or personal issues that may lead to marital issues. Of course we had disagreements at times as all couples do but always worked together to resolve them. The biggest change in our lives happened 2 years ago when I graduated from professional school and we to a new city where I began my career after many years of study. We loved our new home and the opportunity for adventure in the surrounding area. The move also brought challenges 1) stress of navigating the beginning of a demanding profession for me 2) longer job-related travel for W.
BD was in November. W sat down and “out of the blue” started talking about how unhappy she was - I wasn’t working out enough. I wasn't engaging in hobbies. I wasn't doing enough around the house. I was stressed with work. I didn’t buy tickets to an event that I should have known she wanted to attend... Suddenly she was talking about our relationship in the past tense. I had no idea what was happening nor how to make sense of it. At the end of the conversation I suggested that we start MC straight away and that I could start addressing all of these concerns immediately. Her response was to sleep on it. I was in shock. The following days were filled with tension but we spent them all together. No more talk of BD. A few days later I took her to the airport to get her to work and a previously planned trip to see family friends in a different country. No clue what was on her mind – too scared to ask.
One week later she told me she needed space and asked that I not message/call. Two weeks later she returned and gave me the classic “ILYBINILWY”. She told me she was going to leave again and spend the holidays back with the family friends and was also hoping to get leave from work in January.
She ended up being gone over the holidays for a total of 6 weeks. We did a few online MC sessions but it was clear her intention was to invalidate the R rather than work on it. The timeline of W’s unhappiness kept going further back in time. The reasons for unhappiness continually shifted and seemed to get increasingly ‘trivial’. Some issues were blown way out of proportion and others were invented out of whole cloth. A month into her absence W told me she planned to move to the city where her work is headquartered. W admitted she had not thought about any logistical pieces such as getting own bank account, credit cards, etc… At the end of the 6 weeks she came home to “pack her things”. W asked me to pick her up at the airport and I obliged but found the request out of alignment with her stated intention. We had an R talk the first night she was back. Home for 4 nights. We spent them together - eating dinner together, watching TV together. Tension and no intimacy but she was smiling, laughing at jokes. No more R talks. W didn’t end up packing anything. W didn't acknowledge having not packed anything but said moving a few items out of shared bathroom was challenging enough. I was beyond confused.
My confusion peaked about a week following this event and some text messages W sent in the meantime. I called and asked what was actually happening. W said she was sorry and wanted to talk but couldn’t talk on the phone because it was too painful. W came home the next week. When asked what the intentions to return home were (i.e. to talk? to talk and pack things?) W stated she couldn’t say and just wanted to talk in person. On the first night we had another R talk. She said she wanted to separate but wasn’t certain she wanted the R to end. She said we needed to talk to a MC again. She packed her things the next few days and put them all into one room. On the final night at home W cried and said she was sorry. Said she was confused. Asked me to give her a break. Asked me for a ride to the airport the next morning.
She took more time off work and went back to her safe zone in the other country. 1 week later - after having sent some messages that felt like connection - she sent me an email with more new reasons for her unhappiness and said she wanted to “live separately and then separate when the time comes.”
2 weeks later we had an MC session. She still couldn't say the D word but when asked if that's what she wanted she said yes. This was the first time she stated a clear intention of wanting to end the R. W blamed me for not having understood this long ago despite her never having said it and all the mixed signals. She seemed cold and angry - convinced that I have done her wrong. I said I don’t believe D is the right path for us but I understand she feels this way. I stated clearly that she would have to file the D. That I will not try to stonewall or avoid but that I will not initiate something that I don’t have a clear conscience about. She says she doesn’t think now is the right time to get lawyers involved - "maybe in a couple of months'. We have had no contact for a week -- the longest period of time since BD. I realize this the only path forward at this point.
Wrap up In hindsight I wish I had done many things differently. However, I can honestly say that since the BD I have not been ‘actively’ pursuing or pleading. I have been focusing on myself and have learned/grown a lot personally. I see that despite great patience in my moments of peak confusion when W came home and was unable to say that she wanted the R to end I tried to rationalize/understand in a way that was very much felt as pressure by her. I imagine the pressure felt very intense. I’ve realized throughout that W was acting purely from emotion with no logic whatsoever but I did not have a comprehensive view that this forum has given me. I am now working to detach. I’m preparing myself for what I think is more inevitable confusion to come. I welcome the support of this group going forward.
