Having a rough day here. I know it's not logical but sometimes I'm still shocked by who my STBXH is now and what has happened...which is ridiculous after 18 months of the crazy rollercoaster. Maybe I just feel grief as part of detaching...I miss my H. I would give almost anything to see his face looking like him. But I know that's not going to happen after so long, but I just miss him.
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
Been a hard road to get here but I guess I've had to reluctantly accept that my M is dead, my H is unavailable and no longer loves or cares about me at all. Might hate me actually. Nothing I can do about it but refuse to believe his version of our pretty happy M or of me. I probably was trying to Stand, but I see no positive signs at all of him breaking through after almost 2 years of chaos, so I need to let it/him go to have a non-WTF life. No idea what will happen to him and to be honest, assume I'll never see or speak to him again so I won't know.
As hard as it is dealing with a WAS, an MLCer is a LOT more difficult and painful from what I've read. WAS's tend to change personality a little, MLCers change a LOT. The previous loving, attentive spouse disappears and is replaced by a crazy person. Someone very self-centered, irresponsible and even dangerous. They follow a pretty set script and eventually come out of the fog, but as Cadet said it takes a loooooong time. 5 or more years is not unusual. Most people don't have that kind of patience and move on long before the MLCer comes out of the tunnel. And who can blame them?
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I suppose I think he'll just keep running for years and won't be quite brave enough to stop and deal with the damage in a healthy way.
Yup.
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But it is sad, because as a natural optimist, in the early days (when I didn't know it might be MLC), I hoped that something strong and beautiful would come out of something dark and ugly.
And it might. But the timeline is really long and even if you decide to wait, there are still no guarantees he'll ever be his normal pre-MLC self again (although it does happen).
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Loving detachment and throwing it over the wall to God while focusing on what next for me without my beloved is the only thing that makes sense...
I agree.
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and enjoying being 4st lighter courtesy of the LBS diet, of course!
I often say it's the most effective diet ever, LOL
It has all been pretty bewildering. My H's personality in MLC has been unrecognisable really compared to who he was and he has done things he wouldn't have believed if you had told him two years ago. Probably more because I'm sure there are things I don't know too.
What makes it hard is how crazy it all seems and how destructive. I think of him every day although I am past the sobbing into my boots stage of last year. You have to get a bit numb after a while. I always knew it wasn't about me really or even very much about our marriage (although I wish I'd known about boundaries a bit earlier!!). MLC makes it feel pretty hopeless that there will be a foreseeable time when it will even be possible to have a normal conversation...so I guess it's easier to assume we won't. D will be finalised and I'll never see him again. At the same time, I know my H used to love me very much and it's hard to believe that he never thinks about me at all after almost 20 years of a pretty happy loving relationship.
Hey ho, off to music festival today to GAL. He's either seeing his parents in Paris for a week alone because him & OW have hit the buffers as he was hinting or, equally possible, he is there introducing OW as their next DIL. No way of knowing so I squish the thoughts when they pop up. Read on someone else's thread that they imagined their H & OW on a postage stamp and covered it with their shoe so I'll try that!
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
Funny how that default 'mind-reading' switch flicks on isn't it? Currently it feels like I'm dealing with two versions of the same MLC person...Evil Teenage Monster in the D process, something slightly different in emails and his desire to talk.
I'd asked him to return, via my lawyer, a couple of sentimental items including a photo album. I was angry when I asked and then it stung this morning to get a couple of them through the post. Things that my original H who was a sentimental hoarder treasured. Off goes my spinning head...well the fact he returned them just shows how little you and your M mean to him now...blah blah in my head.
Toddler detached head said. You don't know how he felt about returning them only that he did return some of the items you asked for. For all you know, he might have felt upset, or guilty that he doesn't deserve them, or nothing, or irritated or....You don't know and it's a waste of time to pretend you do.
If there is any bit of my H there behind the MLC storm, it would have upset him especially the photos. And I was angry enough to want to hurt him when I felt so powerless a few months ago. But I don't know. If I am detached but think 'as if', I suppose I think that I treasure them still even if he doesn't now, that I can keep them safe for him if there is a time when he does again and I have the reassurance of knowing that my photos are not being perused by stalking OW. That's enough.
Gosh though this detachment stuff is like basic mental training isn't it?
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
Do you find that MLC folks lie about silly small things as well as big ones? Why? Asking because my lawyer wants me to take a court route in our divorce because she believes my STBXH has just lied about too much to work with sensibly. And I think - when he recently tried to get me to talk to him last week - he told me a lie about being in Paris. Because of that, I had told my lawyer he would not meet a deadline for some docs - and now I look like an idiot. A stupid lie too because I've just received a tracked parcel sent yesterday from the city where OW lives, a pretty circuitous route from London to Paris!
I've just sent him a brief email inviting him to be honest and saying if I don't hear from him in 24 hours, I'll give my lawyer the OK to go that route which will be much more costly and take 6-18 months which isn't good for me either. Sigh. They don't make it easy do they even when they are apparently getting the divorce they say they want? Nuts followed by more nuts.
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
Yup, spinning a bit today...followed by first email by a second saying don't bother, nothing he could say by email would make a difference so no need to reply. Only actions count and he isn't doing anything to stop the 'horrible mess' as he calls it. Actually I've been reading other's posts and beating myself up a bit. I'm a smart woman behaving stupidly. I don't need to know any more or understand why any more to see the reality that something in my previously lovely H broke and he has run off into WTF land. He doesn't care about me or the consequences of his actions on anyone else. He lies because he wants to and is outraged when the facts are used to challenge him by my lawyer because he's not a very bright liar.
I have written myself a big note right in front of my desk because I need to do more than detach. It says DROP THE F***ING HOPE ROPE.
I hate that this happened to me, our M and erased the person I loved so much. But hating it doesn't change the facts in front of my nose, does it?
I wish my father was still alive to talk to. I miss him. He loved my H but he would 2x4 him now for sure. Gosh, why am I still so shocked by all of this after almost 2 years now? Some of it is because I hate having to accept that this excuse for a human being is who he is choosing to be and that he is capable of doing what he has done. That he is so far away from the man I knew for such a long time. But he is. I sort of feel angry with the MLC version for killing off the other guy if that makes sense? At the same time, I know that these things are also part of the dark side of who he is and that's horrific to accept. That the same man who cried with joy when he gave me a watch is the same man who stole it and either pawned it or gave it to OW. That the same man who worried about me driving late at night is the same man who either sent me anonymous death threats or is happy to sleep with someone he'd known a few months who did.
He said last week that it's a horrible mess and he wants to stop the mess...but obviously he doesn't. My brain says it isn't my horrible mess. My heart just hates that this has happened to a fundamentally good man and a pretty good marriage. Sorry, spinning and feeling sorry for myself - bad day today. Bad week actually. Probably because he threw me off balance by appearing out of the undergrowth a fortnight ago and sounding different...but sounds and words are just lies, aren't they Cadet?
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
Ah, short & sweet, Cadet! Any tips on emotional detachment?
It hurts when someone you loved thinks you're worthless after 20 years. As I'm trying to detach (and currently doing a poor job), it feels like my head fighting my heart. Every step is like another loss and I'm tired of grief and bereavement.
Me: 53 H:38 T:20 M:14 BD ILYB etc 10/15, H diagnosed severe depression S 1/16 PA 4/16 H filed 1/17
Ah, short & sweet, Cadet! Any tips on emotional detachment?
It hurts when someone you loved thinks you're worthless after 20 years. As I'm trying to detach (and currently doing a poor job), it feels like my head fighting my heart. Every step is like another loss and I'm tired of grief and bereavement.
Read the articles in my first post and then
fake it until you make it.
You need to start to DO it then keep doing it until your changes become real
