JTB, I think it is a little of both, all I know is I just want to save my M and give it a goodfight!
There is on OW with my H though. That is where I'm confused. It seems most of MLC have other people in their lives. I know he has it posted on Facebook that he is looking to date, and also has told our D13 that he is lonely.
But I just wish I knew if he used me last Wed. He told me after words that he loved me more than just the mother of his child but then nothing! No more talk about dating, nothing. It was like he changed his mind totally.
Welcome to this board. Sorry you have to be here but this is a wonderful resource and you will "meet" great people here who understand your sich and want to give you support.
Now you have all the tools to read. Let us know how your doing and if you have any questions.
I suggest that you read the entire thread in the resources. You can also pick out some people and read their whole story.
Remember that in the stages of MLC it does NOT go 1,2,3,4,5,6 but can get all mixed up and repeat itself and have more than one stage at once. Depression is the key to the whole thing and it is always present!
But I just wish I knew if he used me last Wed. He told me after words that he loved me more than just the mother of his child but then nothing! No more talk about dating, nothing. It was like he changed his mind totally.
GF,
He may have used you, he may not have…
The truth is, what happened happened and he probably doesn’t even know why it did…
Whether that is something that will continue or not is up to you…
If you are uncertain of his intentions, and they really matter, then continuing that sort of contact might not be the wisest course of action.
People here have handled this very differently and there does not really seem to be a consensus because it is such a personal thing.
What were your motivations in all of it?
Did you do it to see where he was?
To prove that you still love him?
Because you thought it might bring him back?
Or because you wanted to share yourself with this person?
"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it."--Michael J. Fox
Not a lot to add except best wishes for you to "survive" this crisis. That will be a fight for you. We want you to win that fight, for you, and for your kids.
As for your H and the life you expected together forever, no one can promise anything when MLC strikes. No one could have seen it coming, sort of. There do seem to be several common themes early in life, and when they finally raise their ugly head late in life - we all wish had seen it coming a long time ago, move to another country, something. But here you are and this is real. So you need to stay real.
When you two were together lately, he thought he knew what he was feeling. And almost immediately he thought he knew he was not. And he will. And he won't. So don't go looking for some sign of something you can hang on to, because he can't and you won't.
We are moving on to the subject of cake eating now. MLCers want it both ways. The want the normal parts of their life that produce ZERO stress, responsibility or obligation of any kind. They want all the irrisponsible benefits of not being normal and rebelling against everything they ever were.
When you two were intimate he was half way through Alice's looking glass - normal on one side and Mad Hatter on the other. When you asked about making plans to date it was a lot more threatening to him than you can imagine. He will do anything to avoid making a comittment he fears he won't keep, or one he fears will leave him hurt. He hurts enough already.
He is thinking about dating if he is not already dating.
That is part of cake eating. That is why some spouses stop being intimate with a MLCer. It is a risky lifestyle, not knowing the truth, and not knowing what their MLCer has been doing. MLCers lie. Sometimes they don't know it. Much of what they say is a lie.
Other spouses see intimacy with no strings or expectations as a risk worth chancing in an effort to maintain some normal contact with the MLCer, at an arms reach and almost at the beck and call of the MLCer. We don't have general opinions on cake eating, except that it is a fact of MLC and one you must learn to recognize if you are going to make informed decisions.
The only way you will survive is to know the rules and make the best informed decisions you can, based on your own feelings. Just protect yourself from the alien on the other side of MLC.
You are meeting some great resources here. There is a lot of information to absorb. Give yourself time, work on yourself. Give your H time. Make new friends here. Learn. Then help others that will certainly arrive. That is actually something we learn to do here and you will find that very healing as it begins to happen.
Thanks OP for the resources. Iv'e been on this site for almost a year and didn't know what was going on. I was in the Newcomers then. But from what I've been told it is a MLC.
I wanted to be with H because I love him and it seemed to me that night that he was coming to his senses and loved me too.
I guess I had my hopes up way too high, thinking that would happen! I just thought with all this time he had that he wanted more and wanted his family back again.
I know I made a mistake because I felt like this in November when we were together for a few hours. I left feeling the same way. Very very sad and upset.
You are so right SC, I'm not strong at all. This is the man that begged me to marry him and just a week before all of this happened and he left, he was making future plans for us when the kids went off to college.
I never thought in a million years he would have done this to me and the kids. He did leave 1 1/2yrs. prior for a week when he had hit his depression but was only gone for 2 weeks and wanted to come back home. Said he made a big mistake by leaving and that he wanted us back.
