Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Midlife Crisis => Our Community => Topic started by: Seekingpatience on May 25, 2023, 09:47:39 PM
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Dear fellow Ramblers,
I last wrote around 2018/2019. The intervening years have been a mass of ordinary events and COVID and deaths and births. My Dad passed in August of 2022. He fought the good fight and is now with my Mom. We had a ringing wake for him with wine following and cheese platters and even a singalong at the very end. “I did it My Way!” Encapsulated the love laughter and tears of my amazing Dada's journey. I miss him and I will bide my time till we meet again.
This year, we also plan to go to the U.K. to scatter my MIL’s ashes. It will be a family gathering and the young cousins can reconnect. Our oldest nephew has had 2 children, the other younger is now 4 years old and he was born 2 days before my MIL passed. I was at her bedside when it happened and I think it healed our relationship as much as anything could. I bawled Alone in a strange church after she passed. The actual funeral was about 2 weeks later. H and DS came about a week after her passing due to DS’s National Service requirements.
BIL has since been travelling with PYT and continues to be touch and go with his kids.
H was trundling along fine and sunny till around my Dad’s passing and was mostly ok. Then in December last year, he decided that he would move back to the Home Country and be semi retired. That seemed to have kicked off the MLC process again in his behaviour but also in tandem my long sleeping goals. The final years looking after my Dad was crisis mode and upheavals due to his medical condition. Now I could clear my head and vision and be more aware of unresolved issues.
Long story short and (most probably more anon though 😀) H finally seems to be closing more doors but he had to open the doors and acknowledge what were inside the rooms before moving forward. He has since seen a IC 4x and seems to be more focused on getting the timeline completed. Before it was to
“get SP off my back” - didn’t work.
“Help SP in her healing” -didn’t work
“Help H figure out H” - so far so hopeful
H had promised me a timeline but it had never come to pass so I knew he had not faced what he needed to heal his past trauma.
I had not faced my own reactions (the body keeps score) to certain triggers and times of the year. I may have placed issues High up in a cupboard but my body didn’t forget. I am trying to also get help for my trauma and I recognise I have had trauma that H cannot help me with. I have to help me.
And so the journey. Our journey continues. I wanted to record this because it has helped me so much before and also because during my research into MLC I found very few anecdotal experiences on this late late part.
MODS : if there are still MODS, I would love help in linking my threads. Thank you.
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MODS : if there are still MODS, I would love help in linking my threads. Thank you.
We're still here (the Mods) and I'll see if I can find your last thread in the archive and link it here...
Found it - SP's last thread can be accessed here: https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=9882.msg694802 (https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=9882.msg694802)
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Thanks Ursa Major :) much appreciated.
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Hello SP. Thanks for coming back with an update. I love it when a former LBS'er comes by and shares a bit of their current journey.
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Hi Fellow Ramblers!
Well, in early Feb 2023, it was Chinese New Year but as my Dad had passed we could not celebrate and decided to go have a sibling+spouse holiday in OZ. It was fun and sad as we were still grieving to a degree.
My birthday came and went we did ordinary things but a sense of unease or unfinished business started rumbling. H, DS and I were a little more anxious, a little more irritable. But still planning family trips and now trips for H and I. H still does trips abroad for work (but is based in home country )and I now accompany him except for the latest on in March 2023. H calls and texts which is usual but this time he said he “didn’t like being there without me.” I hadn’t gone with him as it was a short trip and I had stuff to take care of.
In hindsight, I believe that this was the middle of the 5th stage of MLC [Withdrawal] and the start of the sixth. [Acceptance] — which has 3 stages. I could be completely off or misreading so please bear with me. H also changed Jobs in December 2022 to working less for less pay because he “wanted to spend more time at home”. I think it was a change that suited him and he helped me tremendously when it came to my Dad’s final months. But it also meant he became closer to my Dad and he is grieving this loss deeply.
I refer to HeartsBlessings Six Stages of MLC. It can be found here :
https://thestagesandlessonsofmidlife.org/the-six-stages-of-a-mid-life-crisis/
Sometime in the first week of April, I was talking to H about spending 2 weeks in Sept in an immersive language course overseas. H threw a major hissy fit, it was like a regression to when he came back during Replay. This shift triggered me quite badly and my body kept score, if you will.
We returned from the trip and looked at the dates. April 12th was when we went together to his apartment in the work country to throw the Oompa Loompa out. But this wasn’t an ordinary trigger DS felt it too. There really was a shift back.
For some reason, I focused on the missing timeline. It had been 8 years since DDay#2, I still didn’t have it. It got put on the back burner for various life events that came about and also we remembered that we had the moratorium agreement. I felt we couldn’t handle the stress of what life was throwing us and also work on the affair processing. We thought :
1. We have a broad understanding of what went on in the work country
2. We have dealt with most of it (HA! NOT…by a long shot)
3. We had a blessing of the rings and we wanted to stay together.
Well, Replay is only HALF way through an MLC. And MLC is a crisis of identity resulting from FOO issues broadly. With my Dad’s passing, we were now THE Adults. If the MLCer has been running from stuff, this kind of “responsibility” is pressure to move forward in the tunnel.
This time H said he would give me a timeline. There was more regression as he went through “research” - all the stuff left behind (emails, photos [in Oompa Loompa social media] and expense accounts) - he was opening the boxes he slammed shut as quickly as he could when exiting Replay.
Because it had been so long, the contents of said boxes were “rotten, stinking messes” . It has been over 2 months of H working on it and I saw the return of all his old thinking pathways and how our “old ways” of communication were resurfacing. H did move from “the timeline is to help SP heal” (or at least get her to shut up about it and have nothing more to complain about 🤣) to ( “it is for me too”) he kept on and I got more and more agitated. His therapist said I had complex PTSD and needed expert help and so I got myself a therapist.
More anon. Have to make dinner. 😘 thanks for following along .
Peace and strength
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Hello SP. Thanks for coming back with an update. I love it when a former LBS'er comes by and shares a bit of their current journey.
Hiya Faithwalker ! Good to see you :)
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Whew. Thank you for posting! This is what people need to read, that sometimes it's not all roses and happy "everything is wonderful!" But real work. Life in general is real work. But the work can garner results.
I am sorry to hear of the passing of your father, those are stressful times including the lead up to the passing.
Wishing you the best on your continued journey.