WAW to MLC XH bookends (it's complicated!)

[Unbeatab]

I'll answer these as best I can. 😊

When you reflect on your MLC (if I can call it that),

From what I read about the differences between WAS and MLC, to me it seems more like I was a WAS. I am unconventional, and I was doing all the things my parents and society expected of me.. especially with taking his last name,

What did it feel like?

I felt like a caricature of myself. I missed pre-kids me. With XH/X gone all the time and/or on unpredictable schedules, we couldn't plan anything fun with him. I was freaking exhausted , overwhelmed, and bored being a SAHM... and I was frustrated because my partner-in-crime was MIA. When he was home, it was kids, then bed. No affection... I mean I would have sufficed with a kiss on the forehead, but nothing. Sex was.. sex. It felt like a short routine chore. I felt like he had checked out out of our marriage.

What was your narrative?

I told him that I thought I was falling in love with OM. Hindsight, it was addiction. I didn't know a single thing about this guy, and I moved in with him immediately. I didn't feel it would be fair to either of them if I stayed at the house. I really thought EX/X didn't love me or want me anymore.

What did you 'get' from the OM? What did he provide?

OM gave me attention and made me feel seen... something I was desperate for! Looking back, it felt like an amped up version of XH/H premarital/kids life... the big awakening was when I agreed to get married and try for kids.... I literally woke up one day and said WHAT AM I DOING!?! I didn't want to do that the first time... why am I doing it again, especially with this guy! So I put a stop to it all. But, instead of running for the hills, I started veeerrry slowly physically detaching. Moved to a different room..moved to different apartment in building, moved in with my parents, moved to new building.

This is petty, but one thing that I'm sad to admit is that Im jealous that my XH/X is having "fun" with his OW. My OM wasn't able to... he was able to hide it for months by saying he wanted to be married first. Hence the engagement...despite how awful those years were, I learned to not trust people blindly, I learned to say no, and I learned to start fending for myself again...


Why did you feel that you could/should have a different relationship from your M?

In regards to my R with XH/X post-OM, I didn't feel the pressure of being legally bound to someone like I did when we were M. XH/X and I almost started where we left off, routine feeling sexual encounters. Over time it got better and better, to pre-kids intimacy... but then money anxiety kicked in on his side again, and my terror that he would bail again ramped up... this time he did tell me straight out he wasn't attracted to me anymore. But on the flip-side he was really putting in the effort all those years to be the husband I had wanted him to be, even after he started up with OW.

With (what I now know as) his depression, he somehow managed to parcel out the two aspects of the relationship... being present & affectionate side, from the sexual. I always joked that I felt like his mistress... to myself! Things were starting to get closer to a more typical R, when a few things happened at once... I finally got over my guilt for leaving, and told him full out how I felt for him... this is about the time the trapped comment came about and that he wanted to be in a relationship with me or anyone else, but couldn't. He never actually explained what he meant by that at the time, so I thought it was in a he was scared to way... later I found out it was a "your leaving messed me up pretty bad". Vague, but gave a bit more insight on why he couldn't. With that separation of those two aspects in his mind, I'm guessing it just seemed logical that he'd keep being a great "husband" to me, while carrying on with OW.

The second was finding out he had the defective heart valve. Two years ago, he figured he had 15-20 years, now he's stuck in his head like it's going to happen tomorrow. I mean, he's convinced that he wants to die alone on the farm. With his skewed sense of time, maybe he thinks it's closer than it is? He hadn't seen the specialist last time we had talked about it, so there's no proof that it's going to happen soon.

Then, I ask you what you learned through your MLC? The years before your H's MLC were not wasted years. What have the years refined? What have you learned about yourself? What remains a mystery?

Through the years I learned that I had SO much to learn! The man I knew now was not the same from before... we were growing back together, then his MLC started. I have not bolted, despite my natural reaction to want to. Comparing things he's said to things OM said to me, I am certain OM was going through MLC when we got together. I was 30, he was 45. I just attributed it at the time to his end-stage of his alcoholism, but I'm thinking it was both. I think this has helped me detach from XH/H, because this is becoming way too familiar! That being said, I think that my experience with WAS/MLC gives me a hope that if he can finally get the help he needs (he had said he had been depressed most his life), then we could grow back together stronger as individuals, and as a couple. I'm taking this time to FINALLY get the help I need for my baggage car of traumas... they go waaaay back before XH/H was in the picture (Dad was military PTSD/MLCer, Mom was Schizophrenic/Depressed... but that's for the therapist and the grief councilor to work with me on, not here... 😉).

It is so hard for me to detach, because XH/X had said that after I left, he felt like I treated him like someone that he used to know. The mystery to me in all of this is how he would rather see me with someone else and be my friend than lose me. During his leave me alone rants, I asked him if he remembers why he stuck around me, even though I had left him.... his tone sure changed for the rest of the conversation.

I think the biggest lesson I learned is that I can live without him, but I really don't want to. Do I deserve better? Yes. Am I willing to stick it out until we both come out of the oven and see if our dough stuck together? YES! I know there is a slim chance we might make it work, he's worth the risk. 😊