First of all, I am very sorry for the loss of your mother. What a hard few years you have had. And dealing with the aftermath of someone’s death as you doubtless still are is hard too, even without what your h has done. It’s very normal after a significant bereavement to feel as if life has been upended, to feel exhausted and not quite like oneself even when other things in life are ok….and of course that is not what is happening for you right now, is it? So, please be very kind and realistic with yourself about how you feel. It’s a hard time on the back of hard times….but this time too shall pass….but you may find you have to metaphorically triage how you use your energy for a while, and intentionally take extra care of the basics right now. Go small, slow and steady, baby steps, a day at a time for a little while. Avoid anything that makes you feel much worse unless there is an overpowering reason to do it. Ask for help from those who care about you where you can. And if anything makes you feel 1% better - doesn’t matter what it is as long as it is not harmful to you or others - do more of that. Your job right now is simply to outlast this hard season of your life until you get to a calmer, sunnier shore, that’s it.
Imho, folks come here asking about MLC primarily for two reasons. Or a blend of both. Either looking for hope that if it’s MLC there is a path they can plot towards a predictable happier outcome soon. Or to try to regain some sense of their own reality, that they are not crazy or to blame for something they find completely inexplicable. It sounds as if right now you are looking more for the latter?
Take a breath. You know who you are. Truly you do, most of us do. Warts and all lol. You know what is in your wheelhouse as a person, as a wife, a daughter, a friend. What you could imagine yourself doing in certain circumstances. And what you could not. It’s important to trust that regardless of what anyone else might say. And really important if they have an agenda that is served by your confusion or doubt about it. So, take another breath, and remind yourself of who you know you are.
Again jmo but, regardless of the reasons why, folks who do what your h has done and is doing have an internal black hole. A kind of neediness. And usually in a long term relationship, with hindsight, we see a million ways - big and small - in which we kept that hole filled and provided a kind of scaffolding. It is not at all uncommon here, as others have said, that the metaphorical lid blows off these people at a time when life circumstances mean that the LBS’s energies are needed elsewhere…a troubled child, a sick parent, a demanding job or even an LBS illness. Something that means it’s not all centred on them. Something that requires deep difficult adulting in a marriage. But something normal in the ebb and flow of a shared life. And poof, they implode. Or explode. And usually run off to try to find something else to hang their happy hat on while, perhaps unconsciously, rather resenting the LBS’s ‘failure’ to keep that show on the road. Just like you said he used to be close to your mother ‘until her needs became too much for him’? Think of it like that, just like that….the fault did not rest with your mother but the lacking capacity in your h, that ‘her (understandable) needs’ were ‘too much’……..
All of which is to say that you are no more responsible for this than you were responsible for your mother’s illness. You have done your best with both situations, but there are simply things in life that are beyond your pay grade and not in your control and not your fault. Your h had a bunch of choices he did not choose…..and that’s about him, not about you. He may find it easier to believe what he is saying right now, he may even believe it….but that does not make it true or accurate. Like a guy with a tinfoil hat who comes up to you in the park shouting about aliens….his truth does not need to be your truth, you simply have to accept that, for reasons beyond your comprehension, he is a shouting man in a tinfoil hat.
So, the most important thing right now is to focus on getting some stable solid sane ground under your own metaphorical feet. It sounds as if you have support from people who care about you and some professional support, that’s good. Have you consulted a lawyer about your rights and obligations where you live? You don’t have to jump into action but, not unlike you did when you were caring for your ill mother, information can be useful. And you are probably going to have to keep reminding yourself that your h is not in the pool of resources that can help you right now….thats a strange thing to process after a long shared life, I know, but at a simple level, the one who is hurting us can rarely be the one who helps us heal. And imho vice versa.
It is a time to dig deep in caring for yourself with the same grace, kindness and commitment that you have shown in caring for others. And for many of us, that takes a bit of getting used to, doesn’t it?
Sadly, based on anecdotes here, and your h does sound pretty textbook MLCish, things will possibly get worse and more incomprehensible before they get better. Big BDs tend to be followed by a series of smaller BDs, one WTF after another bc these folks have usually hidden some muck under their life rug before the lid blows off. And they have become accustomed to compartmentalising and lying and blaming and avoiding. In a sense, the LBS is playing catch up for a while….affairs, missing money, addictions, all kinds of weird stuff can come out in the wash. And that can be deeply shocking too. There’s a kind of surreal level of entitlement in folks like this post BD, a rage almost and an Instinct to gaslight people as a distraction from rather ugly realities which can be very disorientating to deal with. Which is another reason why legal advice is a good idea tbh.
I remember that the slow process of acceoting some of the reality of the spouse in front of your nose was a deeply painful process. Bc it makes no sense and bc, of course, one does not want to see it. One of the most useful phrases I remember tripping over was in a podcast by a psychiatrist who specialises in dealing with personality disorders….she said ‘well, who does that?’ It helped me hang on to my own sense of what was normal for normal people and it helped me gradually adjust to the reality that people who could do what my then h was doing were profoundly ‘off’ in some way that was beyond my comprehension. Who does that? A person who is deeply disordered for reasons I can’t get was usually my answer…..but it taught me to slowly change what I expected to see and that helped me get some solid ground under my feet. (Similar circumstances to yours with family illness and bereavements)
Which is also why that sense of solid ground under your own mental feet is so important. Even if it just starts with a square inch.
Do whatever you need to do to build and protect that bit of ground. Trust who you are. Teach yourself to see what belongs to you on your side of the street and what doesn’t. What you can control and what you can’t. Rinse and repeat.
What do you see as the priority for action for you right now, my friend?
How can we best support you?
Confused and wondering if I should have any hope...
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