L.O.S (Loss Of Signal)

[Jimbo]

Was his reconciliation a half-hearted attempt at piecing, or was it more of a "I'm happier now...bye!" ?

We reconciled and had several very good years during which he was very attentive. I did an awful lot of "pick me dancing" and twisting into a pretzel though to make that happen. I also thought I was doing the right thing for my kids although they have since told me they were always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And drop it did as he approached 50 and another midlife crisis.

Once he filed I completely let go. I had peace in my heart that I had done my very best to save my marriage, that I had been a darn good wife, and that even if he came back at that point, there was no way I would ever be able to trust him again. (3 strikes and you're out kind of thing).

I might have been able to be more friendly with him now (thankfully his second wife was NOT one of his affair partners) but for the way he's treated our kids since the divorce. It's clear to me now that he's a narcissist and none of us have value to him unless we are making him look good and doing what HE's interested in doing. I'm forever grateful my youngest was a senior in high school when he left so there were never any custody issues and I've been able to keep communication to a BARE MINIMUM.

(And just for reference, I am still friends with almost every guy I ever dated, EXCEPT him - because I would never be friends with such a lying, selfish narcissistic cheater. )

Wow. I've never had to deal with a narcissist, but from what I've read about them, just....wow. I am SO sorry that you found yourself in that situation.

I've only had to deal with one of the other categories of "unredeemables" - the sociopath.

Was stuck in campus housing with this guy as a roommate for a year. Just thinking about him gives me PTSD. His behavior was so unpredictable, that I literally feared for my wellbeing the whole year.

About the only benefit of the experience is that I can spot them MUCH sooner, and I now have a gameplan for dealing with them.

DON'T.

Just get away, ASAP.

Far, far away......

[Jimbo]

I would see what I thought were crumbs of attention and interest from her after she moved out and into her own apartment including one coffee date where she complained about how alone and lonely she was. Shortly after that though it became apparent that she preferred OM and I just had enough and told her that I was done waiting for her to make up her mind and that the divorce process needed to be started (which took another 6 months)

This seems to be what I call the "Short Circuit"...somewhere deep down they KNOW that what they're telling themselves about the LBS is just a convenient lie that they can't come to terms with, but can blame their unhappiness on. But they keep forgetting the lie and coming back. Bouncing back and forth between us and the OM until eventually they prefer the OM over us, and the contact stops. All because the OM is an escape- a diversion to continue to ignore the work that they need to do in themselves. Ignoring it just as they always have all their lives. Which is the exact reason they're going through what they're going through now.

There was a funny episode a few years ago when a girlfriend moved in for a short while of her lurking across the street in the garden centre. She's living less than 10 minutes away, we obviously still know people in common so if she was curious about my life she could be well informed.

Her "spies" are everywhere! And if she can't spy, she recruits others to do it for her. A lot of the time, they don't even know that this is her sole purpose for her connection with them. When they no longer serve her purposes, she drops them just as quickly. MLCers are incapable of having healthy, normal relationships unless/until they finally wake up. This is also why they usually have losers as their OM: the losers are desperate for ANYBODY in their orbit. So much so, that they will put up with all the $#!+ that the MLCer dishes out, where nobody else would. And of course, along the way, the impressionable MLCer picks up loser ideas from the losers in their lives....

One thing that I believe to be the case, especially if there's not a significant gap between relationships that people expect a new partner to be a version of their old one. One woman I dated for a short while even tried to get me to start dressing like her ex.

I agree completely. You see this in rebound relationships a lot. Also a pretty good indicator that it's not gonna last.

We did have a pretty good thing going here. I do know that she would regularly compare me to friend's husbands and one thing she was always proud of being that if anything ever needed fixing that it got taken care of right away. Her life was mostly about her though and I was a useful incidental appliance that paid the bills, cut the grass and made sure stuff got done. I treated her well I like to think and she would make sure we held hands when we were out together and that every day started and ended with a kiss. I opened doors, held chairs for her all that sort of stuff that I just figured was normal and she certainly expected.

Did you always feel like the useful appliance/walking cash dispenser, or was this a later aspect of your R?

Whether she compares OM to me or not is anyone's guess. From what I gather he's also a pretty quiet guy but with less broad interests. When I was in full detective mode the only things I could pick up were that he liked the local hockey team and occasionally went out golfing. His former wife - who passed from cancer shortly before he got involved with mine - went on one big trip shortly before she died that I don't think he went on.

I have pretty broad interests, enjoy going to museums, parks, art galleries, craft shows etc. A very wide taste in the arts, well informed on politics and the economy. I like to putter and build things.

She's undoubtedly missing the tropical vacations we used to go on, the ability to buy a new car as soon as she needed one yadda yadda. Missing me? No clue. I know on my side that after all this time I don't miss her as a person. The person she is now is someone I don't even know. And I've been doing for myself for so long now that I know that I would have no expectation of anyone new filling her shoes here. She and her shoes are both long gone.

What is it with these OM and hockey??? I don't really follow sport at all. I have most of the same interests you listed. (Used to own my own watch and clock repair shop in a previous iteration of myself). Sport just seems like a big time waster to me. My XW didn't follow them either. That is until the OM, who was a big fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins. I only found that out when I made an incorrect statement about hockey and she took great glee in correcting me! I guess sports fit the bill if you're the kind of person who's looking for yet ANOTHER diversion to engage in...

Yeah, I have no expectation of anyone new filling my XWs shoes, either. Before all of this, she was a critical part of my life, and I would absolutely DIE if we ever parted ways.

And I did. (Figuratively, of course.)

And then I engaged in learning about me. Doing the work. G'ing A L outside my role as a H.

Tackling personal and very literal life threatening challenges.

And the priority of my XW eventually migrated from an "absolutely must have", to a "nice to have".

Whether or not she returns, I'm good. If it works out, fantastic. If not, short of God Almighty Himself dropping another bride in my lap, I'm "one and done".

That is undoubtedly true in many aspects. People, especially when they are going through difficult times will cling to and try to mirror others. I would add though that it my own personal theory that in cases at least like mine that they are finally dropping the mask and becoming the person that they always were and had been trying to suppress.

With respect to your theory, I also would have to add that, when it comes to MLCers, they put on the mask to pretend that they are the person that they always were and are trying to express to the world to convince both the world and themselves that "Everything's great". I had the chance to meet Mach1's XW in full MLC mode (I think I may have also mentioned this event in my threads). It was the first (and last) time I had ever seen her. She had such a facade up that it was transparent to everybody EXCEPT her that she was wearing an "Everything's great" mask- all smiles....until she turned away and the mask dropped before she turned her back to me.

My xW when I met her was a big boobed party girl who then shifted into being a wife and Mom. With the kids grown and gone there was less need to keep that mask up. I'd always had worries about her flirtatious manner and one day I suppose she crossed a line.

With apologies in advance...No offense is meant. There's a saying in the MGTOW movement: "You can't turn a whore into a housewife". I guess it's a more crass way of saying that you can't change anybody's true nature. But I think the psychology in your case may run much deeper than this simplified explanation. She was a good wife and mom to the kids long enough for them to grow up and move out, yes? Then things went off the rails for her. She went into MLC. This would have happened whether she was with you, or with somebody else, or all alone. MLCers tend to revert to the thoughts, attitudes, interests and activities of their younger days as an escape. What was your big boobed party girl doing in her younger days? Whatever it was, it has probably gone into overdrive. It's all about that all important diversion from her problems, and avoidance of addressing them. Which only works for so long, before something has to break....

[Jimbo]

Can you say “Projection”???? Lol.

Can I get an "AMEN"?

[Jimbo]

Hi bttrfly,

This is absolutely true of my exh. He associated with a vile human being who was, at best, smarmy, and at worst - well, let's say that absolutely NO ONE likes him - not even 2.0 (OW/new spouse).

This guy said some of the most disgusting things one day in my and our 12 year old's presence ... exh said NOTHING. I told the guy that he is free to speak however he wants in front of his kids, but in MY house and in front of MY kid, we do not refer to people in that way. Guy tried to challenge me. Wrong move. He's a henpecked coward, so he backed down quickly in front of me and bashed me even more behind my back (and in front of my son). My son finally had to tell him to stop talking about me as it upset him. Yet over the course of 7 years my exh went from thinking this guy was over the top to parroting his BS. My exh went from hanging out with really nice people to losing all his friends except for the guy I mentioned above. I have no idea who his friends are now, and I've heard enough from my son to know exh has become mini-vile guy.

This dovetails perfectly with what I was telling AndrewP- they hang out with losers, and they pick up loser ideas and habits!

Another point, though, which I think is worth considering, is that they create this entire universe out of whole cloth and, at least in my case, there were many things attributed to me that were absolute crap. When he was/is faced with the reality, he became/becomes INFURIATED that his version of truth ain't holding up.

You DARED to tip the vessel holding his deluded fantasy and made him see the reality at the bottom of the cup that he can't face yet. So he became incensed and countered with the MLC logic equivalent of clapping his hands to his ears and loudly screaming LALALALALALALALALALALALALALAIAMNOTLISTENINGTOYOUUUUULALALALALALALALALALALA!!!!

Also, relationships are mirrors. The WAS/MLCr is viewing their spouse through the lens of their own MLC behavior. Case in point (and I was just telling a friend this last night), about 1-2 years before BD exh and I were eating lunch at our breakfast bar. My purse was on the counter next to me. As exh munched away on his sandwich I could tell he was getting really, REALLY angry about something but he wouldn't admit it - not even when he was red in the face, he was so enraged. Finally he spat out - "Is that real? How much did that cost!?" It took me a full minute to realize what he was referring to... my fake Prada. I started to laugh and said, "you thought this was real? I bought it for $5 at the consignment store! Pretty good score, huh?" He DIDN"T BELIEVE ME!!!! I asked him if he realized who he was married to, completely practical, ripped jeans and sweat shirts me, who prefers sneakers and gardening to high heels and designer crap. He was slightly mollified, but I could tell he didn't really believe me. I shrugged it off at the time, but now I realize that he was judging me by his own standards - he needed new shirts so he went to Nordstrom and worked with a personal shopper. I shopped at consignment stores and TJ Maxx. You will never convince him that I wasn't blowing his money on fancy crap, because that's what he was doing himself, but couldn't own it.

You must play the role of "Bad Guy/Bad Girl" in his mind or the whole delusion of control over what's left of his life falls to pieces.

So, there's a lot to unpack in the raving minds of these lunatics.

"The[ir] universe is not only stranger than we imagine; it is stranger than we CAN imagine."

(With apologies to:)
- J.B.S. Haldane

[kml]

Fortunately, my narcissistic ex was of the (relatively) milder sort - which explains why it took me so long to connect the dots. He was very charming, as they so often are. (One of his guy friends once called him “a god among men” Lolol !). So long as I made him look good and we did the things HE liked, things seemed great. I mostly ignored his criticisms as they just seemed ridiculous (really? My thighs were too fat at 5’6” 118 lbs? Absurd). And I knew he was even more critical of himself ( he was a insecure narcissist). I did get a lot of good years out of the marriage (from my clueless perspective) , and it wasn’t until after the divorce that I began to realize that the two infidelities I had known about may have just been the tip of the iceberg.

I’m good though, I’m well over it and men I’ve dated since my divorce have shown me what was missing in my marriage. I got 3 great kids out of the marriage. I wish he was more help with them as adults but if he did then he wouldn’t be a narcissist, would he?

[Jimbo]

Can you say “Projection”???? Lol.

right? was thinking about this some more, and comparing my experiences to many i've read here. So many of these MLCrs want their spouses to do things that are diametrically opposed, ex. one cannot spend zero dollars on new outfits and wear shiny bright new designer togs. one cannot spend all one's time working on a high powered career and still have time left over to pick the kiddos up after school, help with homework, cook a fabulous meal from scratch, do all the cleaning, marketing, bill paying, gardening, etc and have excess energy in the bedroom as well. We're human beings who also live in a 24 hour a day world. Sleep is necessary for LBS's too! Like, basically people here's the menu, check off what you want but realize you ain't getting it all because we are human too and btw, none of the demands make an eff of a lot of sense anyway.

No wonder so many of us here are exhausted and trying to unkink from pretzeling for so long!

Not only do their demands not make an eff of a lot of sense, most of the time they forget that they made them in the first place!

[Jimbo]

Fortunately, my narcissistic ex was of the (relatively) milder sort - which explains why it took me so long to connect the dots. He was very charming, as they so often are. (One of his guy friends once called him “a god among men” Lolol !). So long as I made him look good and we did the things HE liked, things seemed great. I mostly ignored his criticisms as they just seemed ridiculous (really? My thighs were too fat at 5’6” 118 lbs? Absurd). And I knew he was even more critical of himself ( he was a insecure narcissist). I did get a lot of good years out of the marriage (from my clueless perspective) , and it wasn’t until after the divorce that I began to realize that the two infidelities I had known about may have just been the tip of the iceberg.

I’m good though, I’m well over it and men I’ve dated since my divorce have shown me what was missing in my marriage. I got 3 great kids out of the marriage. I wish he was more help with them as adults but if he did then he wouldn’t be a narcissist, would he?

Not exactly what they had in mind when they coined the phrase, "You never know what you've got until it's gone", eh?

Sometimes you find that you're left with a blessing....or 3!

[bttrfly]

Can you say “Projection”???? Lol.

right? was thinking about this some more, and comparing my experiences to many i've read here. So many of these MLCrs want their spouses to do things that are diametrically opposed, ex. one cannot spend zero dollars on new outfits and wear shiny bright new designer togs. one cannot spend all one's time working on a high powered career and still have time left over to pick the kiddos up after school, help with homework, cook a fabulous meal from scratch, do all the cleaning, marketing, bill paying, gardening, etc and have excess energy in the bedroom as well. We're human beings who also live in a 24 hour a day world. Sleep is necessary for LBS's too! Like, basically people here's the menu, check off what you want but realize you ain't getting it all because we are human too and btw, none of the demands make an eff of a lot of sense anyway.

No wonder so many of us here are exhausted and trying to unkink from pretzeling for so long!

Not only do their demands not make an eff of a lot of sense, most of the time they forget that they made them in the first place!

AMEN brother!

[AndrewP]

Did you always feel like the useful appliance/walking cash dispenser, or was this a later aspect of your R?

No - it was pretty much the case the whole time. But again, that's my perception. I try to be careful to not project my own attitudes on the realities of others.

Personally I'm not an advocate of the theory of MLC although there certainly are some examples out there even on this forum of people who have definitely transitioned into some sort of crisis based on past and/or recent trauma. My own xW certainly had both of those factors against her.

One thing that I've learned though is that my life without my xW is better than it was with her, even in the good years. I've also learned post-divorce that it would take a special sort of person to be someone who could actually add to my life rather than decrease my shine. Even though I struggle some times with dealing with everything on my own it's better than having my shine put under a basket.

[Mach1]

I had heard that part of the band was doing a gig here....