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Author Topic: MLC Monster A view from the other side - Various Fog stories

M
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MLC Monster Re: A view from the other side - my fog stoy
#30: May 21, 2011, 11:13:29 AM
   Yeah I especially like when the MLCer tells us any insights gleaned : from when they were in that stupid fog filled tunnel. :o Where there is apparently no conscience or consequences for bad behavior.
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r
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Re: A view from the other side - my fog stoy
#31: May 21, 2011, 11:43:42 AM
Luvyourself, and Mammabear,

I discussed that with my counsellor/therapist. The way she explained it is they often don't remember these things because they were 'not consciously there' to begin with. It shows that the emotional connection is very surface and not of a deep nature. Like if you were to look back at your life and try and remember all the most meaningful events-they would be the ones  where you were the most emotionally connected on a deep level to another. This just exemplifies that the relationship with the OW is 'fantasyland' and very surface. We often forget surface things very quickly because we were not emotionally invested. This person just distracts them from their real issues, keeps them from being alone which they are often frightened of, and provides the 'high' to keep the depression at bay.
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I
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Re: A view from the other side - my fog stoy
#32: May 21, 2011, 02:04:41 PM
I hate fog!   :) So hard to see when driving! ::)

LY, do start your own thread, would love to hear more. Let us know here and link it.

Remember, Thanks so much for sharing you insights from your Therapist. It helps so much when you or anyone here shares that
personal info. Thanks~
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« Last Edit: May 21, 2011, 02:10:47 PM by Ibelieve »
M 51 - H 50 /  M 21 yrs
No kids/ 1 dog
BD 11-13-10
Separated
Live w/OW for 2 years
As of 12-2012 no longer living with OW.
6-2013 told me he would like to come back.

z
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Re: A view from the other side - my fog stoy
#33: May 22, 2011, 12:29:42 PM
Remeberer--I loved the explanation your therapist gave to memories needing an emotional connection.  My H has always had a HORRIBLE memory--about everything really.  He is one of those conflict avoiders and i wonder how much of his general lack of memory about things was that he hasn't really ever been very emotionally present in his life.  It is an intereting theory--has anyone done any reading or research on this phenomenon?
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Re: A view from the other side - my fog stoy
#34: May 22, 2011, 01:44:32 PM
It is an intereting theory--has anyone done any reading or research on this phenomenon?
There are loads of books on this subject. Any book by António Damasio, for example, "The feeling of what happens" (a neurological basis) or Timothy Wilson "Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious" ( a psychological perspective).
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Work in progress (none of us are perfect)

h
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Re: A view from the other side - my fog stoy
#35: May 23, 2011, 03:53:35 AM
The fog thing is what I have trouble with.  I can't believe that someone can not remember what they have done to the lbs or what they are doing to the lbs.  I just sometime think do we just say they are in a fog because we are not getting what we want and that is our way of saying they have a problem and is isn't just that they do not want to be with us anymore and we are sugar coating it so we are able to deal with it better. 
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hampc0cv

B
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Re: A view from the other side - my fog stoy
#36: May 23, 2011, 06:09:05 AM
The fog thing is what I have trouble with.  I can't believe that someone can not remember what they have done to the lbs or what they are doing to the lbs.  I just sometime think do we just say they are in a fog because we are not getting what we want and that is our way of saying they have a problem and is isn't just that they do not want to be with us anymore and we are sugar coating it so we are able to deal with it better.

My goodness Hamp no...they are NUTZ...read through the threads...BIZARRO behavior that indicates fog...they are OUT OF THEIR MINDS...it has nothing to do with the LBS getting what they want.  I think for most LBSs if we didn't see evidence of the FOG and just observed their crappy antics most of us would be done with the R.  THe fog, for me, has helped me to see that something is very WRONG with H and his behaviors are symptoms of whatever that is.  There is no excuse for their behavior but we can't ignore the fact that people in MLC are VERY sick...it's an emotional sickness...I am more compassionate to the fog whenever I find myself moving through ANGER and DEPRESSION.   I have not experienced the fog of MLC but I can feel how "out of it" you can be in depression. SL has a great understanding of the fog as she suffered from postpartum depression.  It changes who you are .  THese are not BAD boys/woman they are SAD.  Don't get sucked into believing their script Hamp...it's BS...and they contradict themselves constantly.  THey are in MLC and they are whackadoodles...lost...in a fog.

HUGS
BUGS
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Pain is not a punishment, pleasure not a reward.  ~Pema Chodron

A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.  ~Oscare Wilde

M 33
H 33
Married 9 years
3 children (D8, D3 and S7months)
BD-Spring of 2009 EA
H Filed 09/2010

D
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Re: A view from the other side - my fog stoy
#37: May 23, 2011, 06:16:51 AM
Hamp

Here is part of one of the articles that discusses that.

Midlifers are not always aware of their actions. There is an awareness within each moment, but a global absence of awareness; this only becomes clear later. Driven by emotions, Midlifers are moment and self focused and often unable to link consequences and understand the relation of their behaviour to the external world. Their memory becomes fuzzy; though they may be aware of their actions during each present moment, in clarity they may not recall what takes place during fog and vice versa.

Large chunks of time are holistically blank. There may be a memory of certain events within those chunks, but the external relation to the world is lost. Events are not linked solidly to other things and thus may have no chronological placement. Time is a tangled string that rather than linear.
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L
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Re: A view from the other side - my fog stoy
#38: May 23, 2011, 07:22:25 AM

Maybe we should start a thread on fog stories, but since I am living one at the moment, I thought I would share.  My H maintains that he is totally unable to plan his semesters until August 15 and December 15 every academic year.  That alone is absurd because everyone knows that academic calendars and conferences are set years in advance.  So, surely he ought to be able to tell me at the very least which breaks he plans to see the kids...  But, the fog, I guess, makes that impossible.  So, in light of his planning handicaps, I sent him a note telling him that I wanted to buy theater tickets for the year, so I gave him four evenings that the boys would be on dates with me, and one weekend--not a holiday weekend, or any school off days which is our agreement (but being the b%^&* I am sometimes, it is his semester break, I checked, but since he won't tell me, I just did it in spite because sometimes in this journey you just got to get a little dig when you can).  And what did he do, he went all monster and told me that if he comes in, I will have to surrender my tickets and I have no right planning anything without communicating with him first... 

A year ago, I would have got all mad, but instead, I said, "of course dear, I have only waited three years to see In the Heights, but if you come into town, I will gladly turn over my $200 tickets to you, that seems most sensible, and something anyone would do in that circumstance."  I won't and it's not likely he'd do it, but seriously, the man is whacked...  I have heard MLC equated to a marcissistic temper tantrum, and in monster moments, they are not even the 17yo, they are 2!
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The best thing about banging your head against the wall for so long is that it feels so good when you finally stop...

BD 1/16/10
D Final 7/21/11
exH married OW the next week and moved across the country to be with her... 

LL CHOSE to live happily ever after...

B
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Re: A view from the other side - my fog stoy
#39: May 23, 2011, 08:14:13 AM
I'd value a thread on the fog too.

I have a friend that is a priest and a graduate psychologist. When I first talked to him about what was going on, he told me that I was likely 'situationally depressed'.

I remember years ago wondering how a person could ever feel so unhappy that they would be compelled to kill themselves, when a girl I vaguely knew at university took her own life. And in this I know. In the small dark hours of the mornings after bomb drop, I got an answer to my question I think. Time has helped with that, thankfully.

The past two years, especially at work, have been a slog. I feel like I've had to work twice as hard to accomplish ordinary things. I've felt that I can see myself working but that I can't understand why I'm finding it so hard. Only in recent weeks, since my wife moved out, have I been able to make better progress at work and at home. So much neglect of our home in the past couple of years. [ It was making a move to paint a neglected room that prompted my wife's final decision to leave ]. I've been busy just cleaning it.

I know that my emotional state in this is a continuum, and prone to change, but I have had more moments of clarity lately - where taking the next step can be easier.

That's my only understanding of a 'fog' of depression. In my case I wonder if mine was more of a light mist than a 'real pea souper' as they say in the UK.

If you look back on this thread, I posted a message from a woman that I had contact with that came out of a MLC. She'd walked away from her family and in one of her messages she said to me that my wife 'won't know where she is' when she comes out of this.

I second the idea of a thread on fog.
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