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 Growing up, and looking back.... how many MLC's did you see (and not know it)?

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Standing Strong:
I was talking with my mom the other day and something came out that I had no idea (back then).

When I was a teenager I had a few best friend thru Junior High and High School (nothing weird about that).... anyway..... I was wondering about one of them and asked if she still talked with his mom (angel of a woman).
Mom told me she did, just not that often.... that her life is quite difficult. I inquired "what do you mean?".
A little background..... good family, seemingly normal, but the dad was "odd" and sometimes a controlling jerk. The kids didn't especially like him, but he worked hard.... and they feared him. Fast forward to my mom revealing that the dad had an affair, they almost divorced, and now he's back at home with medical issues but "isn't himself" and that's been going on for several years (just this medical stage, everything else was several years by themselves before that). Oh boy....... ding ding ding... we have a winner!!! Poor lady, she was so kind. Obvious she held it all together. He would have been in his 40's when all this started, now in his early 60's and totally dependent on her. One of those awful cases where they blow themselves up then want the LBS to nurse them until croaking off.

So then I'm thinking about it some more..... and down the street from me was another best friend (at one time). We hung out every day. Well, I was there when they moved into the neighborhood and they were a nice family. Good kids, happy mom and dad. A few years later things changed at their house. She was irritable to an extreme, super moody but always wanted to hang out with us...... play Nintendo. I can see now that my friend was always at my house because home was ugly.
She was totally checked out, yelled at the kids, fought with the dad over dumb things (in front of us all) house was a mess (more like a disaster)....... I never understood how anyone could live in just dirty conditions, just filthy.... it wasn't like that before. Being young I figured she was just unhappy for whatever reason and we all avoided her. The dad was an incredibly good and kind man. She eventually ran off to drink, party and cheat.... breaking his heart and destroying the family (three kids). She would have been in her late 30's, maybe early 40's. The dad passed away several years later, he never dated again. The mom genuinely reconnected with her kids a little more than a decade after running away. In the last photo I had seen on Facebook from a few years ago, she looked old, distant, hallow and sad (you know, that ex-MLC stare). The kids still get very sad when asked anything about their father and they reflect on how he was treated by her. The daughter still lives in the house, in part because it's the only way to still be close to him (like I said, a really, really good man).

Interesting to see things in the rearview that you just couldn't connect the dots before.

MLC'ers sure have a knack for choosing the exceptionally good people in this world.

Have any light bulb moments as you travel down memory lane?

-SS

FaithWalker:
I haven't thought too much about it as there is a lot on my plate in the current world, but I am sure that quite a few ended up in D due to MLC.

I did babysit for a couple when I was a teenager and I was devastated when they divorced.  I know there was something not quite right with the D and definitely an affair involved.

Makes me wonder now.

in it:
I probably have quite a few stories. But one that comes to mind was a dear friend of mines mother and her father. Seem the guy traveled for work now this had to be somewhere in the 1950''s.

My friend had 2 sisters so three girls made up the rest of the family.

One day out of the blue the mom gets a phone call from the dad who's in some part of the state. Says he met a woman at a bar she's sick and he's not coming home .
My friend mother was a well mannered, somewhat quiet, well spoken women. My friend must have been old enough to be somewhat on her own by then. After she got the phone call from her mother she said she rushed right over to see how she was doing and her mothers reply was

" Well, there must be better men then him out there"

The woman her father left his family for did pass away and her father came back. But her mother refused to have anything to do with him.

She eventually remarried to a very nice man and they spent the rest of their days together.

Father5:
I didn't get to see one but my Grandparents on my Dads side of the family split for over a year. I have never heard this story unitl it happened to me.

tadsa29:
I definitely have one of these stories.  My own father.  He must have been 40 when it started.  Had a PA with another woman and was definitely a clinging boomerang - he came and went 13 times, even moved in with her for a time.  He then came home but my parent's relationship was done by this point although they did stay together until he died aged 60.  They never worked through their issues and my father never apologised until he was on his deathbed and said simply "I was an idiot wasn't I?"  The whole thing lasted 3 years

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