I, like Angelica, love to read your posts and gain much knowledge from them. I would like to add to the post about the number of MLCers that reconcile. I come from a small town of about 700. Of course, there are more people in the rural area.
S20's best friend's parents were divorced for 2 years and remarried. They have been remarried for 2 years. In a couple of weeks they will be going out to celebrate the anniversary of the first time they met 25 years ago. The wife told me that this was H's suggestion and he had never made that day important before. They tell me they are happier than they have ever been. She is the one that went through the MLC and said that the day their D was final, she could not stop crying. She was in a R with another man and one day realized that she still loved her H and was making the biggest mistake of her life. She said they needed this to happen. She told me that the only thing that she regretted was hurting the man that she got involved with and hurting her H and children.
S17's basketball coach's (from freshman year)wife heard about H and I. She took me aside at a basketball game and told me not to give up. She and her husband had separated because of some abuse issues. She went through some MLC issues after she left him. He had attended counseling and did everything he could to deal with his problems but she refused to reunite with him. They were D and he didn't give up for a long time. She got involved with another man after they were D and was engaged to be married. Her fiance had everything she thought she deserved, big house, nice cars, toys, lots of money, loved her daughters, treated her like a queen. She was at her XH's home to pick up her daughters because her X was working, the phone rang and daughter said please get that. She answered the phone and the female voice on the other end asked is X was there. She said something in the tone of this females voice said that she was seriously interested in her X. She said all she could think of for days was that H was going to get involved with someone else and he would be gone from her forever. A few days later, she broke her engagement and asked her X if they could try again. They have been remarried for 2 or 3 years and they have never been happier in their lives. She said they are truly partners and are totally in love with each other.
Another friend I met through a mutual friend and sporting events our Ss was separated from her H for two years. He suddenly didn't want to be married anymore, was not in love with her anymore, etc. He had another woman, lived with her, spent tons of money on her. They had two sons and they were young but they had married in their twenties and didn't have children until they were in their early thirties. She prayed and prayed, worked on herself, and two years later, H came home and they have been happy as newlyweds. They have improved their R and he is so glad that she stood for their marriage.
I guess my point is that not one of them had heard of this site, or MLC for that matter. I think their are many more success stories than we know as there are many more cases of MLC than we know of.
We have no way of knowing which marriages with be successful no more than we know who will experience a MLC. The point is that each of us have to decide for ourselves when enough is enough and we all have to work on ourselves during this journey and hope that our MLCers will work on themselves.
Everything happens for a reason, maybe Dad needs to find that it isn't better out there, he needs to realize how good he had it here. Maybe he will find God and that is the most important thing when he finds Him he will know he is supposed to come home.
