[Hopeful5]

I just found this forum and I can already tell that it will be a wealth of value for me. Thanks in advance for all your help.

I'm hoping that my story is just relatively mild, and not the beginning of something much worse...  I'd love to get some more insight on all of this.  I'm not sure that my wife is going through a midlife crisis, or something entirely different.

Background:
Married 23 very happy years with 4 kids (oldest is 17, youngest 7). We've pretty much spent every waking hour together since we were married. We've built several successful businesses together. We bought some beautiful property out in the country and built our dream house on it and will be planting a vineyard. We've been tough, scrappy and immensely creative together. We like the same things, laugh at the same things - Best friends. We just GOT each other.  We've been through a lot of ups and downs of life, but always supportive and by each others side. Prior to 6 months ago I would have rated our marriage a solid 9 (there's always something to improve, right?)

Objectively speaking (LOL), I've been a good, loyal, loving and supportive husband. I'm confident in that.

At the beginning of 2022 she started to say and repeat some things that she's never said before, like "People just don't like to see other people change". Obviously referring to her and me. I thought it was a bit strange but okay.  Then she goes from absolutely 0 exercise (and 50 lbs overweight), to obsessively working out 2 hours per day (and never missing a day for any reason). I'm like WOW, but very supportive, and she's dropping weight like crazy and "feeling better". Her sleep schedule permanently changes and she's now going to bed several hours earlier than normal. We were night owls together forever. Of course this alone kills any chance at a sex life. With 4 kids evenings are the only option.

Then she begins going through some very deep emotional things related to the trauma she experienced growing up - abandonment wounds. Her parents divorced when she was 8 and her dad was nowhere to be found. Then her mom left her to live on her own when she was 16. She was not well loved and cared for and it shaped her into a very tough woman just to survive.

Of course it's really tough for her to go through all of this childhood trauma and feel the pain that she stuffed away for so long. So we're talking through it, but in the mix of it many, many issues with me and our marriage start popping up and begin to trigger all the insecurity and paranoia in me.  Which I've NEVER felt before.

Over the next couple of months it all starts pouring out in the middle of these conversations about her childhood issues. Here's just a sample:

I am just a continuation of all the negative patterns in her life (she essentially married her mom who she cant stand)
She married too young and needed to wait
Our marriage has been 'out of order' for its entirety as I've been a bad leader
She's brought much more to the table in this marriage than I have
She wants to be dominated more. But I'm not a dominating person
I've been a terrible lover (a whole conversation in itself)
I don't even know her
She gave up all of her friends and life to marry me
I brought her into toxic church community that she wasted 17 years of her life in before we left (mostly true unfortunately)
I never cared for her how she needed me to
She never felt truly loved
She felt treated like trash

I had honestly never felt a single insecure feeling or thought about our marriage, now because of all this, it's a constant feeling.

She was incredibly upset with how I've been handling all of this, since I've really been on her, wanting to talk things through constantly. But the conversations were getting really heated, and flooded with way too much emotion. she's pretty much done talking at this point. I understand that she's going through all these intense internal things with her childhood, and she just needs me to listen, but how am I supposed to support her when I'm constantly feeling under attack and overwhelmed and in shock by what I'm hearing about me and our relationship?

So the sex has stopped. She said for months "I'm not having sex with you", which was for me, a very hard thing to hear and deal with.

This one is very tough for me, not because I need to get off, but because I miss the closeness and intimacy with her. She doesn't seem to care or miss it at all.  She says that she hasn't had her emotional needs met.

Very little affection. We peck on the lips, a couple hugs a day. Very different than how things used to be.

I told her we should go get counseling, but she wont do it..  She's 'working through this on her own'.

Is this a midlife crisis, or just a marriage that is in some serious need of work, and a much more supportive husband?

[xyzcf]

Hello and welcome to Hero's Spouse

Is this a midlife crisis, or just a marriage that is in some serious need of work, and a much more supportive husband?

There isn't any "test" that can determine if someone is having a mid-life crisis but several things that you mentioned does fit the description of a crisis.

If you have not read RCR's articles already, please start by reading them, as they will help you understand what you are dealing with.

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

You will also get lots of support from the people on HS and a variety of opinions. Take what fits your specific family and situation...each situation is different, yet as you have probably already found, there are so many similarities.

In MLC, marriage counseling really doesn't work, but having your own therapist is helpful. Often though, MLC is not well understood so you have to find the right person to assist you to work through your own trauma that occurs when we are left suddenly and abruptly.

You mentioned a church you attended..if religion is still important in your life, Rejoice Ministries is a website for people standing for their marriages. Under the devotionals (which are daily) there is a section for men's devotionals, a different writer each Saturday from a man's perspective. You might find those helpful.

https://rejoiceministries.org/standing-firm-mens-devotional/

Your wife has given you a list of her complaints about you. Hard to hear and hard to understand why these things were not brought up before and dealt with. MLCer's say some crazy things. Here's a thread where other members have listed what their spouses told them at Bomb Drop.

https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=10840.0

https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=11601.0

Many family members and friends may tell you to leave her, that she doesn't deserve you, that people "change" so finding some supportive people is essential. reading the stories here will help you to feel that you are not the only person this has happened to.

As much as you want to help her, you cannot fix her. She is dealing with some very deep childhood wounding as many of the MLCers here are.....You can though take good care of yourself and your children, learn as much as you can about MLC (or as others have termed it...a crisis that is a major depression). If indeed this is MLC, the only thing you can do is to leave her to get through it..some do, some don't....but it's very early to say so come here, ask questions, vent if you need to..it's a safe place to do that.

[Hopeful5]

Thanks so much for the thoughtful reply.

Yes this is a sticky situation. Lots of deep inner wounds not caused by me, yet all of the wounds from her past now land on my plate.

All of her complaints about me have been unspoken until just 6 months ago. She says I'm hard to talk to as I get defensive. So of course I'm to blame for her massive lack of communication for 23 years.

We're still not even near the end of her list of complaints. We're just at the point where she doesn't want to talk to me anymore. She regrets opening up to me at all and blames me for 'scraping it all out of her'.  She says I caused another traumatic wound since I "overreacted" to everything she said and wasn't there for her.  In a sense she's right. I should have been able to be calm and just listen, but when so many things about ME and US came out when she'd talking about her traumatic childhood, it was quite unexpected. She totally discounts the severity and shock caused by all the things she said to me...

[Hopeful5]

So many strange things have happened this year.

During June 2022, after she starting talking about changing as a person, it really seemed to threaten me in a deep sense.  A feeling that she would 'outgrow' me. , I had a very strong feeling that came seemingly out of nowhere that eventually I'd hear her say "I don't love you anymore... I never really did", and that she would leave me. It was the first time I'd ever felt insecure about our relationship. EVER.  It hit me like an avalanche and I'd just start crying in the middle of everyday situations. I'd have to take regular breaks to the bathroom to gather myself back together. I felt like something in me changed permanently the day this hit me.  I've never been the same since.

I shared this with her and her response was to to tell me that she had a very vivid lucid dream 6 months back where she experienced me being dead, lying on a table, and she was staring at my dead body for a very long time.  She said it impacted her so deeply that she didn't know how to deal with it and never shared it with me until then.  Why tell me this after I pour my heart out with all these fears and insecurities?   The way she processed it really bothered me because it seems like she felt that it was so real that it must be some kind of omen that I was going to die. Unbelievable really...

You'd think that if you really felt that your spouse was going to die then you'd treat them better, but no.. Then the floods of negative comments about me began. 

[xyzcf]

It is unbelievable, the things they say and do once this "break" occurs for lack of a better word. And sometimes they say and act like everything's ok and then deny they ever said such a thing...and we are to blame for everything.

Most of the time, there was no warning for this. Sometimes you may have felt something was off but heck, in 23 years you have handled the hard stuff and worked through. "This" is a totally different creature. Counterintuitive to everything we know about our spouses and how to mend relationships.

You will read or hear this quite a few times.

THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU AND NOT ABOUT YOUR MARRIAGE.

Integrating this into our psyche is difficult for we search for things we did wrong or missed or could have done better.

The abandonment, rejection and betrayal really hits us hard and we spiral downwards.

It was the first time I'd ever felt insecure about our relationship. EVER.  It hit me like an avalanche and I'd just start crying in the middle of everyday situations. I'd have to take regular breaks to the bathroom to gather myself back together.

At first I thought I would deal with it, he was after all only a man and even though I love him deeply, I felt I would soon "recover" but it took me a great deal longer than I expected.

Our nervous system is made up of 2 systems. The parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system responds to "threats"...you may have heard of fight/flight. Generally, this is a response that is for our protection, but when this system is turned on for long periods of time, it can lead to health issues.

I would not have understood this until I experienced it.....our whole world is blown apart.

Trying to maintain homeostasis is important so regular exercise, especially walking outdoors, meditation practices, yoga, breathing exercises are all helpful.

Many LBSers (left behind spouses)lose quite a bit of weight quickly or cannot sleep. Our minds are racing, hard to focus.....all those songs about your heart breaking are now true....

The MLCer has no empathy for us or how this is affecting us and often how it affects the children. This total lack of caring or empathy for how we are feeling is also foreign to us.

When you reread some of the things that you write..if you step back a bit you will start to see that what she is saying doesn't make sense, and somehow you are taking the blame for everything that ever went wrong in her life.

This all takes time to process and a great deal more time that we think it should. Everything you are experiencing is a normal reaction to what I see as "trauma". Allow yourself to feel whatever you need to, to cry whenever you need to...listen to your body and what it needs and we'll try and help you with some suggestions about what worked for us. Again, each situation is different and you will find the things that bring down the fight/flight response so you can regain control over your life.

[Standing Strong]

Hey Hope 

Sorry you have need of this place, but at least you found it!!!

I was curious: what are your ages?

I'd say from what you described: that has MLC written ALL OVER IT!!!
The good news is: it could be worse...... glass half full.

The dead thing.... that is SOOOOO typical. Mine did that too. In a way that's a positive: it means she's scared of losing you (and then they go and push you away.... yeah, MLC thinking  ).

So she's still in the home? And ILUBINILUY was in June?

-SS

[Hopeful5]

HI SS,

Thanks for the reply. I'm 46 and she's 42.

She's still at home, and she's never told me that she's not in love with me. She says "Why can't I just go through something without it being an issue of me not being in love with you". Which is fine. I guess I can understand that.  I just don't understand my wife going from 110% horny to NOTHING within the matter of a couple weeks.  Now I can barely even touch her...  And after her losing 50lbs and becoming super hot again?  Ugh... It's been 6 months now and It feels like the worst thing ever.

I know I need to somehow get past the sex issues and connect with her in her soul, but there's a lot of hurts there towards me and it's incredibly painful to approach. She won't let me anymore anyways.

The thing is, she's an AMAZING mother. No one even comes close. BUT, I do think she heavily invests in the kids because she has abandonment issues and I think the kids are a safe place for her to invest her time, energy, love...  She's at times competitive with me with how much she gives to the kids, and she wins by a WIDE margin, but It's sometimes a bit strange.

It would be a FAR stretch for me to imagine her cheating on me, or leaving me simply because of the kids. Our youngest is our 7 year old only daughter and she is her entire world...  She would never become the 'bad guy' in her eyes..

But.. I could see her pushing me to a place where I self destruct and become the bad guy. I'm the much more emotional one and have a history of being more moody, etc. She's always been very level headed and grounded.

I mean sheesh... 2 steps to ruin a marriage:
1: Tell your husband he's never been good enough
2: Stop having sex with him completely
How long can that last for? Somewhere along the way something breaks. And when she has the leverage of sex... well....

I'm feeling incredibly upset by all this. She keeps a smiley face in the midst of it all, and I can barely make it through a day. 

Are there any cases of one spouse having a midlife crisis that then pushes the other spouse to have a midlife crisis, LOL.  Good Lord help me...

[HeavenlyFocus]

Hi Hopeful,
There are so many similarities with your story and how you feel right now and what I went through.  When I started on this forum, I read almost every thread since it’s inception focusing on the stories with MLC females.  I came here desperate to save my marriage and instead saved my own self-esteem and outlook for my life

You will get lots of advice from so many wise people on this forum so take each viewpoint to help you on your journey.

My biggest advice is over time to take your focus off your wife and instead focus on you.  It’s counterintuitive.  I always took care of my XW so I thought I could just love her through her crises.  Turns out I still don’t know why or have anymore understanding than I had at BD 2.5 years ago.   

Keep sharing your story and I hope the best for you and your family.
HF

[Standing Strong]

Hi Hope 

Ahhhh yes, she's right in the zone. I thought you'd say an age right in there. 
So no threats of leaving?

I'd say just based on what you've said here so far...... from an MLC standpoint, you are in a really decent place at the moment. Maybe she is on the light end of the scale...... maybe you'll be really lucky and this will be a MLT (probably not, but there's hope  ).
A lot of them are gone by this point, or at least threatening to leave.... so that's a plus.

The lack of affection is 100%.... no 10,000% normal. All that stuff is going to be turned off towards you for a long while (yeah that sucks, but you will adjust - every guy freaks out about this).

The weight loss and such is also totally normal. Mine did that too. Worked out like a banshee for two years (one year prior to BD, one year after, and then off & on)...... smoking hot...... no touch.
This part is a double edged sword. They need to work out stress, but improvement is dangerous with their state of mind.

So what are you doing for you? How are you coping with this new reality? Are you working out too?

I'm curious about her being the rational one..... you should see her become very emotional and irrational. Normally they hold it together for certain things (like work) and then can't handle the rest of life. Is that how she is? Or fairly steady still?

6 months.... that's a rough time. It'll get better, you'll get better. I think all of us men are changed and toughened by this experience. That's not a bad thing.

I have a suspicion of what's happening: It occurs to me that maybe you are in the place before BD...... (this is just a thought). Since you are obviously an empathic person, you're picking up on signals and strange actions..... which is making you ask questions for reassurance and getting bad answers in return. Over the last 6 months..... has she gotten "worse" (more restless, more activity, being more and more critical of you, less patience)?

Keep writing, let it all out. It's very good to puke out all those thoughts and feelings - it really helps sort things out, and maintain sanity. The people here are wonderful. Have you read all of Rollercoasters articles yet?

-SS

[Hopeful5]

SS,  No threats of leaving. Honestly if she did that I would probably be done with it all. I honestly have no patience for that.

What am I doing for me? Not much yet. I'm still in shock.  I work out a bit, but she's an effing workout monster so I always look like a wuss in comparison, LOL. That's another thing it feels like she looks down on me for. Many day's I'm too depressed to give enough energy to it.  I've been drinking more in the evenings just to take the edge off. I'm nowhere close to anywhere dangerous in that regard, but it's not something that I used to do.

I've just started a new business that's 100% mine, she's not involved in that at all. That's something that I've done for me. I feel that I need some success in that regard that isn't tied to her at all.  All of our business have been together. She didn't want me to do it, and doesn't fully support it. I told her I'm doing it anyways, which I've never done before. She probably feels threatened by it. Who knows...

She doesn't think she's in a MLC, she just thinks she has issues to work through in her soul. She says she trusts God that He'll bring her through, so that's good I guess. She's not really in crazy land with any erratic behavior, besides buying HUNDREDS of cookbooks off of ebay - kinda strange, LOL.. But could be worse.  She's does all of her daily house and mom duties with 'joy'. But underneath it she's broken. She admits to really struggling and feeling 'dead inside'.  But when I ask her if we can talk about it she says NO. She's not ready yet.

She does wake up very early (3-4 am) after only a few hours of sleep and spends time alone. She says she journals and spends time alone w/ God working on herself.  She tells me to be patient

She says sex is the last thing on her mind.  I tell her over and over that this is not what a marriage should be like. It all goes nowhere. I've expressed my feelings very clearly about all of this but it seems to go into her mental trash bin.

Honestly, I have not come to terms with this being a new reality.  I want it to just stop. I have a very hard time accepting this. I'm incredibly angry at her, God, everything.  I grew up Christian and we spend 20 years as elders and even assistant pastors for awhile, but I have a very difficult time trusting in God for the answer I want -- which is for all of this to stop.  We've both been in a period of questioning everything we believe after coming out of a very cult like church environment that she blames me for 100%.

She's always been very level headed and not overly emotional. She hasn't changed in that regard. She's just becoming more detached from me - soul and body.  She's a survivor, tough as hell. For her, being busy is her addiction. She's always busy doing something, hardly a moment to sit down. 

I feel bad because I do see her pain from childhood, and I do see how I carry so many negative traits of people who have abandoned her in her life. But, she's convinced that If I was a strong man, she wouldn't be 42 and broken inside. She's said this very thing to me.

I wouldn't say she's gotten worse in the last 6 months. We went through a period of real intensity of LOTS of talks that would escalate into overly emotional boil overs. This left both of us drained and of course I was blamed for it all because I wasn't supporting her in her childhood trauma. I am at fault for that, but the trauma of being told that i've essentially never been good enough for her was a LOT to digest.

Since then things have calmed down only because there's no communication unless I'm b!tc#ing about something. Usually having to do with her not wanting me physically anymore. I'm having a very tough time with the psychological effects of this.

We still go out once a week on a dinner date and wine tasting. She said it's really important for her to have times where there's no drama and she just feels good.  I guess this is a good thing, but I just want to talk though something so I often ruin her 'good time' with some crap I want to bring up. She hates it.

I'm really angry so my level of self self control with keeping my mouth shut is very low.

Am I really supposed to just let this all ride out and keep my mouth shut? That seems impossible for me, LOL. This is all so retarded.

Do I really just stop pursuing her sexually, or physically at all? If I do that I fear we'll just never have sex again. Do I just leave it be and wait for the time if/when she ever desires me again? This is so effing strange.

So yes, accepting all of this has not something that I've fully done yet. I don't want to accept it honestly, I just want it to go away..

And if she ever drops a bomb of "I'm not in love with you anymore", I don't think I'll be very keen to that.   I can't imagine that I'll be able to stick around in the same place as her if she ever tells me that. And that would be a tragedy for our kids.  She probably knows this, so I wonder if she'll just stuff that down too and let it ride out for another 10 years until our kids are all grown adults...  

This is the interesting thing. She WILL NOT allow herself to be the bad guy to our kids. No way.  If our relationship was to end, she’d have to construct it in a way where I was the bad guy to our kids.

I have not read any of Rollercoasters articles yet.