Please tell me more. I need someone to talk straight to me. I have not made any decisions at all. I can take whatever you dish out to me. I need it. Please respond.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
I found your story and read it. I nearly hated your H for doing that to you and especially while you were pregnant. I guess I am no better than he is, though.
I don't want support in leaving my H for the OM. That is why I said I need someone to talk straight to me. I was the last person on earth that thought I would ever look at OM or do the things I have. What you said about my addition made a lot of sense. I need to be talked to like that and would appreciate it if you would talk again.
I feel like I am on an emotional rollercoaster and don't trust myself to make like long decisions right now. Whatever I decide, someone will be hurt. What a mess I have allowed to come into my life.
How are things going for you now? Please let me hear from you.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
I wish I could just tell you to stop this and love your husband but it is just not that easy. I know because I have been there. I had a MLC and at one point another man was involved. By the time 3+ years of MLC had ransacked my family and I woke up to look at the destruction mostly caused by my own hand, it was too late. But I found this board and my faith again and I've stood for over 18 months now. Finally, sometimes, I see the mountain moving. What it has taken me a long time to understand is that these "other people" are just symptoms of the real issues. Issues that lie in ourselves and our marriages.
You are not bad. You were lonely, vulnerable and neglected. Your husband's burden in your story is massive. But it was your actions that blew the lid off. And it was you that found this board and let me tell you, you know that saying "to whom much is given, much will be required"? Well, you just got handed a huge tool when you found this board and the courage to post here. But now the real work will begin and it's going to begin when you turn that finger around that is pointing at your husband and instead, it points at you. You are the only person whose actions you are responsible for, the only person in your life that you CAN change. Boredom will be nowhere to be found, trust me. But there is a TREMENDOUS amount of pain involved in everything that falls under the heading of "Divorce Busting". In my experience, the first thing that has to be "busted" is the wall of BS we've been spoon-feeding ourselves for years. If you can get through that part, and I believe you can because I KNOW how hard it was for you to write that first post and await the responses. I REMEMBER. It is hard to come to a place like this and say (in a manner of speaking) "I'm like the ones that hurt all of you...". You have what it takes for this fight even though you don't even know if you WANT to fight...
There is a stumbling block in your immediate path and it is the thing that concerns me the most.
This online "friend".
Sweetheart, he exists primarily in your mind. There's not a man alive on this earth that could ever live up to the image you HAVE CREATED based on the information you have about him. I guarantee it. I GUARANTEE it. He is a myth. He's not your Knight in shining armor, he's not Prince charming and there IS NO riding off into the sunset and living happily ever after. How could there be, with your broken family standing there behind you? He made you feel the things your husband had ceased to because he allowed himself to become complacent about himself, you and the marriage. THAT'S where the answers are. They're not online. They're not with that man. He is not your man.
At this point, your logic is all that is screaming for help. It is not your heart. But your heart can be turned back to your husband.
If I am nothing else, I am proof of that.
Your journey forward is going to have to start with an honest look back, from your husband's point of view.
Glad I did not turn you away from the forum. The fact that you are looking for direction shows you know your moral compass is failing you. The other thing that comes to my mind is that you may not be as completely mlc as you think.
When we learn more about mlc we learn about the deep seated roots that begin in troubled childhoods. The roots grow slowly but strongly into suppressed low self esteem. The low self esteem finally blooms into a newly emerged super ego that must change everything that was, into something different.
When this happens to someone and lives are destroyed, it is easy to classify this "life stage transition" as a crisis ... mlc. Psychologists such as Karl Jung have published books the size of tree trunks on the subject of life stages and the transitions between them. No offense intended, but I do not believe you are in the middle of a life stage transition, unless it is a very retarded one. By that, please understand the meaning of my words were chosen carefully not to offend. By retarded, I totally mean "delayed". It is possible.
More likely, over time you have become so totally disconnected and detached in your M that you now feel it is dead and beyond changing to meet your emotional needs. This is different from what we often call mlc. It would more closely fit the WAW as described in Michelle's WAW article .
Still, you are faced with the same outcome as someone in mlc. You need something in your life that creates passion for you. The most common source is a connection to the opposite sex. It does not have to be that way. Further, the source of your passion does not have to come from outside the M. Your ability to understand your concerns and compartmentalize your issues into individual tasks allows you to work on them one at a time.
There are books you may want to consider just to pass some time and inject additional concepts into your busy, confuse mind. Knowledge is power and you need many new tools at your disposal in this battle. Take time to read all you can. It will provide you a great deal of release to understand more dynamics behind the emotions you face.
A very very popular release in recent years by Gail Sheehy is "Breaking Point". It was an instant best seller. When my mlc XW was reading this I pointed out there were no happy endings for the husbands in the book. She left the room. Actually, there was one ... and the book seemed to paint the woman that went back to her H as a failure for not casting everything aside to explore the wide world of unknown passions.
One that was never written as a self help book comes from the years ago. Erica Jong wrote "Fear of Flying" in hopes of ... oh hell, who knows. Was she trying to be bold, meaningful, or just unique. I don't know that she even knew what she was trying to do. As I understand it, the thinking was that is was a biography of her jet set lifestyle. Certain facts were not factual, like the ending where things appeared to be working out for her. That is not the ending her life realized. Still, I think you would take away some deeper understanding than most that may read this title. One of my XW's IC suggested it to her. I gave her mine after reading it, but I don't think she ever opened it.
What the book did in fact do, was encourage an incredible number of women to leave their M. I don't think they read the whole book. It was easy to loose interest before finishing.
On the self help aisle I suggest you try to gain some understanding from the other side. Think about reading one of the titles "we" are familiar with. The most significant of these for you would be one that is dated, out of print, but usually available on Amazon ... one copy at a time. "Understanding Midlife Crisis" by Peter O'Conner is factual and informative regarding the actual mlc. It teaches there are no bad guys, just bad situations that were born of years of preprogramming. There are many others, but I am more familiar with "Hope for the Separated" by Chapman; and "When the one you love wants to leave" by Harvey. Another popular title is Surviving Your Husbands MLC by the late Sally Conway. You could benefit from learning how your actions are interpreted by your H or others.
Some very wise folks I think a lot of have gained insight from "Not Just Friends: Protect Your Relationship from Infidelity and Heal the Trauma of Betrayal" by Shirley Glass. It is on my very long To Read list.
If you are still reading, I have one last book. I saved it on purpose. It is hard for the LBS to read. Another suggested book from one of the XW's IC. It explains the pressures facing the MLCer although they don't call it that. This author is a female who approaches life for people who are living In The Meantime. "In The Meantime:Finding yourself and the love you want" by VanZant tells the reader your life is like a multi story home and you are stuck in the cluttered basement. To live a full rewarding life, you have housecleaning to do. Of course part of that is giving yourself over to the external callings such as the affair. So if you are looking for an abstract explanation of what you may be confronted with, this may actually be useful as the concepts are solid if not scary to the LBS.
There are many many books for working on the M. First, you need to decide how you plan to proceed with your life. In or Out of the M.
AmyC, Thank you so very much for your honesty. God, but I need you to talk to me more. I need to hear everything. I don't know your story, but I gather you lost your H or walked away. Did you have an EA? or PA? I know my M doesn't stand a chance if I don't let go of OM. Right now I don't feel the strength to do that. How did you do it?
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
