I think Yail or TJT came up with it. Basically when the LBS is tired of being left behind they become the moving forward spouse (MFS).
EDIT: Looks like burned coined the term.
Last edited by Twofeet; 01/07/1910:48 PM.
H(37) W(35) D8, D5, S3 T20, M13 BD 8/31/18 EA Discovered 9/13/18 Mediation 10/3/18 W files for D 10/12/18 W moves out 11/10/18 EA confirmed 12/25/18 D Final 1/10/19
Hey everyone. Loved seeing this thread about MFS, I was wondering when that question would come and also sorry for the confusion especially since I labeled my entire thread with it, haha. Thanks for the reinforcement while I was GALing my heart away!
I'm back from my vacation now but double sad because in addition to having to come back to reality I caught a cold at the tail end of the visit. My friends I was with had just gotten over the same thing and it was getting passed along apparently, ugh.
Aside from that, I had a GREAT time. As expected, even though I was anxious beforehand, pushing myself to do it was the best thing. It did cost more money than I wanted it to but I think given everything going on in my life, it was priceless. It seemed I was somewhat... and I stress "somewhat"... at peace with my situation, moreso just living my life and not worrying about anything else. In a way I guess I was just distracted but I really do think the feeling will be carrying over. At least I hope. We did talk about my H a bit but it was in a productive way (not distracting from our vacation).
Met a few other people where we were at. One of them was a group of guys who were married but also simultaneously seeming to hit on us, while telling us their wives just ran off with some other guys (weird story after which we immediately got up and left). Then we did make a friend with one of the staff members at the hotel we were at who was super super nice and simply appreciated that we took the time to get to know him vs. just heckling for drinks and food all the time. It was my friend's birthday and at the end of our stay he got both of us a souvenir shirt as a gift. It just gave me warm fuzzies.
I did really miss being on a nice vacation with a partner, seeing all the other cute couples and imagining what they were talking about at dinner, or being able to take in a romantical view while leaning on someone's shoulder, or going back to your room to have some one on one time in paradise... haha. I definitely had one of the bigger moments of sadness just thinking about the whole intimacy part again and how much I miss the familiarity of my H and how that is going to be my biggest hurdle with someone new.
In other news, 100% completely not planned, my friend was posting things to her SM and as soon as she posted a picture that included me, she noted that my H started viewing every single story thereafter. He saw all the stories she posted with me in them. He doesn't normally view her stories so this was very interesting... and I know I shouldn't read into it but honestly, I feel like this is in my favor, in terms of what it says about what could be going on in H's mind. There are a few motivations I could see for him keeping tabs on me, but I have to say that I think the most realistic of them is that he still cares about what I'm doing. Maybe he misses me, or wanted to see if I was there with another guy, etc. I don't know for sure if he knows that we can see when he views her story...
My friend's friend actually proposed I take a picture with her H as if it was a guy I was with, but A) I don't want to be fake about things and portray something that's not true, like me moving on/having fun with another guy, and B) I don't want to do things just for a reaction out of my H (trying to make him jealous and want me back) because we know that probably wouldn't work anyway and would only be to satisfy that 15 minutes of vengeance. So I didn't do that, but the bottom line is he was checking, and I feel good that I have some kind of validation that he's not totally unconcerned with me and must still has SOME kind of feelings in there. And that in all the pics I was smiling and having fun with my friend... and maybe it added more mystery that he didn't know who was all there, or who was taking our pics the whole time.
I also know he acted like part of his goals after separation was to try to travel more and "be happier" and blah blah blah, like I was holding him back from those things somehow, so I do wonder how it sits with him that I was able to go on this nice trip with my friend and he wasn't there. Maybe he just wondered how I got the money for it (for the record, I used miles for the ticket and shared a room)... or maybe he was just like "Ugh.. I regret everything. I want to go home to my W." Of course I'm going to go with the latter...
In all seriousness, while I am super curious as to what this "means", I feel much more stable about not totally knowing in this case because it's enough to me that he's putting energy into seeing what I'm doing. It helps me think more realistically about the fact that the "fantasy" life I envision H living in my head may not be all true. If we was over me, why would he be checking? I don't see anything related to logistics of the D that would matter here, especially since he hasn't seemed to be concerned about actually getting the filing done to begin with.
So I also determined I need to go on vacation more often (this was legitimately the first actual vacation aside from visiting family that I've taken in a few years), which then reminds me of everything I'm stuck throwing money into right now by myself and frustrates me . But it also helped me look toward the future and give me some dreams of my own to work toward, in terms of what I will be able to do when all of this is sorted someday.
All in all, not a bad week... now I'm just hoping I don't come crashing to the ground as I get back into the swing of work and things, and can maintain the positive emotional progress... trying to be optimistic while also not getting TOO ambitious or setting too high of expectations for myself.
H:39 W:30 M:4 T:9
05/2018: H says "ILYBNILWY", BD 07/2018: Discovered A, confronted 09/2018: PA + other details emerge; H moved out 12/2018: I filed 03/2019: Divorce finalized
. But it also helped me look toward the future and give me some dreams of my own to work toward, in terms of what I will be able to do when all of this is sorted someday.