Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: superdog on October 19, 2012, 10:03:39 AM
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I suppose ths discussion will more be about the low energy types who hang around for a long time.
When all this first started and i eventually found this site and all the information on mlc i took it as a good sign that my h had not upped and left at the first BD. I even felt like such a failure when he would alk about leaving etc.
Hindsight is wonderful i know, but looking back now to 2009 when BD happened i truly wish that h had gone then. I bitterly regret keeping me and my kids in the the whole mlc situation for such a long time. I firmly believe that damage woudl have been done anyway but if h had gone it would have been much more limited.
I know there is a lot of talk on here about not asking h/w to leave but i firmly think that families should not be together with an mlcer.
I also believe that an lbs can only heal and detach properly when they are left alone to do so. We need the space to do the work on ourselves just as much. As any changes are for us and not our mlcer then them being gone should make no difference. The mlcer will come back if he is going to, if he likes what he finds then great if he doesn't then great for us we've made better people of ourselves regardless.
I just wanted to debate the whole concept as certainly in my sitch if i had my time again i would not have had him here.
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SD
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I have a live in who has been here the whole time so far, living separately from the family though. BD was in March of 2009. Yes, it is very very stressful to have him around and it does hinder my detachment and probably my healing too. I don't know if not leaving has slowed down his MLC progress or not.
I do know for me personally that I have always felt that the decision to leave, as much as the decision he has already made to destroy our family, has to come from him. I will not decide that for him. It has to be completely on his shoulders. It is something I feel strongly about. I am sure I will get lambasted for it as I have in the past, but it is what I have decided for me. It is a personal decision. Having a live in MLCer is pure hell.
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Mine was in house with MLC at least 2 years before leaving. My own crisis saved me from this completely destroying me, strange as it sounds, but I can't imagine being the person I am now with a live-in MLCer. The only way for my crisis to end and my life to get back on track was for him to not be here, painful as it was, and to be financially cut off. I tip my hat to all of you who are trying to manage day-in, day-out with this. If H were to wake up tomorrow, I think this forum has taught me that my best bet would still to be living separately for an extended period.
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When they leave....you are left to wonder if they will ever return.
When they stay....it sounds like they aren't really here anyway.
I can't believe that I am writing this....but, for me, I don't think I could have reached a decent level of detachment with my MLCer still at home.
Either way - none of this is easy.
JMHO.
L
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I am starting to believe it doesn't really matter.
Just set your calendar alarm for a date in the future and get on living.
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ust set your calendar alarm for a date in the future and get on living.
A long way in the future. MLC really does take more time than you ever thought possible. I hate to say it, but it is true.
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I find this one really difficult to answer. My ex went three weeks after BD at my insistence as he was meeting up with OW every night. However, I see him most weekdays as we work together in the same team. So, he spends his leisure time with OW and is near to me in his work time.
We get on well at work - like we did before we actually got together (I worry that I am enabling him to cake-eat). I do find it very hard to detach though as I am seeing him - even though OW seems to be the one he really wants to spend his time with.
I don't regret asking him to leave though. I think he would have done anyway at some point - it just might have taken him a bit longer.
In the end I suspect it doesn't make any difference to the MLCer - just makes it harder for the LBS to detach.
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My H lived with me from BD in March 2011 through May 2012. To paraphrase Axl Rose... "It's been fourteen months of silence, it's been fourteen months of pain, it's been fourteen months that are gone forever and I'll never have again..." I just did that?
Okay so anyway, all I can do is to give you my experience. I was a mess while my H lived at home. I hated going home, every day. I hated seeing his vehicle in the lot when I would get home. If I got home before him, I hated looking out the window to see his vehicle pulling into the lot. I was physically, emotionally and mentally drained. My health suffered, sleep suffered, and appetite suffered. It SUCKed with a capital SUCK. However, when he left, the first couple months I was even more of a wreck.
Now I'm doing so much better. I actually eat. I actually sleep. My doctors tell me I'm now in terrific shape, and are impressed.
Having said all that, I would never recommend telling them they need to leave. As much turmoil as I was in, it was better that his leaving be solely his decision. See, in MLC they already do that whole "poor me I have never ever ever gotten a chance to make decisions for myself"; also it was my way of letting him know I'm tougher than him and could take whatever he gave out.
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As much turmoil as I was in, it was better that his leaving be solely his decision. See, in MLC they already do that whole "poor me I have never ever ever gotten a chance to make decisions for myself"
Exactly. That is why I won't do it. Funny, I was just remembering a conversation I had with my H over the summer and he basically "blamed" me that things were still in limbo. In other words, I guess he expects me to get the ball rolling to completely destroy our family. Not going to happen. He seems to forget that he is the one who left the family. It was all him. MLCers are expert blamers.
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Thanks for debating this one.
I have a lot of personal guilt over my children and the damage that has been done to their lives. I have beaten myself up ( until i sought counselling) that i watched their father treat them the way he did. My kids were 5 when this started. I know i have done a good job bringing them up on my own the last few years even when h was here i was a single parent. BUT i could have perhaps taken them away sooner and i wrestled constantly with that thought.
My h said a couple of times that he wanted to leave, so i am afraid i used that back on him the times i told him to go. I know manipulation is not big and not clever, but desperation makes us do things we wouldn't normally do.
Maybe OP has a point about it not making a difference to them. My debate is about us and our families and what is best for our own emotional well being. MLCers are gone emotionally anyway, so their physical presence only brings unneccesary heartache, stress and anxiety.
I think that MLCers will see it all in the end anyway and for us to sacrifice ourelves just to teach them about choices is not a healthy way to live. Emotional damage forever versus being blames for something we know is not true anyway??
I have read a few things here recently and thought it right to try and let people see that strength comes and that the LBS does have more choices than we think we do at the time. Just takes time to believe that.
Just for the record live in mlcers, OMG biggest test of character you'll ever have.
SD
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I think my H was in MLC about 2 years before BD - I didn't know of MLC then so I didn't see the signs. Looking back, I remember him being moody, he started critizising me, worked extremely long hours and we didn't really have a life together anyway. It did bug me at the time, but as he had just started his own business I thought it was 'normal'.... ::)
So ignorance was bliss I guess.
He left September 2010 and I have to be honest and say I'm glad he did (did I just say that??) - I have no idea how I would have coped with him being here.
I do know for me personally that I have always felt that the decision to leave, as much as the decision he has already made to destroy our family, has to come from him. I will not decide that for him. It has to be completely on his shoulders. It is something I feel strongly about. I am sure I will get lambasted for it as I have in the past, but it is what I have decided for me. It is a personal decision. Having a live in MLCer is pure hell.
trusting, I completely get you. For me this relates to the decision of D and/or selling the house. I also feel strongly that HE has to do the work if that's what he wants. So I get you.
I'm really sorry it's tough for you with him being at home.
Peony x
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Here's the blog RCR wrote on this subject
http://loveanyway.theherosspouse.com/?p=265
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OP, it does not matter to the MLCer and to the crisis in itself. It may matter, and a lot, to be LBS. Would never want mine around in the state he is in. Would not know what to do with a low energy one. Mine’s crisis started way before he left I now manage to see but it took him a long time until he become impossible to be around. And OW1 did not exist in his early/pre-MLC times.
I’m already in the future, husband is still in Replay. We remain legally married but I found it more likely to meet someone I may want to spend the rest of my life with than to have a reconciled marriage. To me only an whole person would do. Husband if far, far from it.
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I am glad that H leaves when he monsters or cycles what ever you want to call it. This last time he has a picture in his head of a loving person and not the crazy woman from first BD. I am at more peace with him gone while I focus my energy on me. I get frustrated when he sends me loving things but even with that I know he is going to hop away because he scared himself, yet I don't have to see it.
I told him to stop playing with my emotions and focus on himself. Whether he does it I don't know. I see how hard it is to have them constantly around and I am very grateful for my peace and quiet, glad my children are grown and if I want to turn my phone off, or put my pjs on and relax without dealing I certainly can. I couldn't do those things if he was in the home.
When I hear how much someone misses their H I remember thinking the same thing - now I think be careful what you ask for......lol.
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Good point, FJJ- I say I miss my H but when I really think about his personality change from nice guy to a fidgety, angry, spaced out man, who constantly either sat quiet or ran around in circles blaming me for everything that ever had gone wrong in his life- I too am glad he is away.
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I think a lot of us make the same point.
A person NEEDS to have a place and feeling of emotional safety. When we have the mlc man or woman in our place of supposed safety we are putting ourselves and our families in harms way every time we walk through the door. I say let the mlcer deal with themselves. Look after yourself and your families and don't fall into the trap, of probably our lifetimes as women, of putting them before us. They are doing that for themselves anyway right now and not giving us a second thought. They'll see eventually.
Personally i feel much safer since he has gone and i don't have to be on edge the whole time protecting my kids from his angry moods and rejections.
On a side issue, just looking fr anyone similar......... my h is passive aggressive and has avoidant personality. Don't knw if this is something to d with that or mlc itself, but my h still does not see me as a separate person from him. He believes that i feel and think the same way he does and when angry will tell me how i feel. Which is actually hs feelings. Projection yes, but with a twist.
SD
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Given my H moved on to OW 2 before he even left OW 1 and also physically abused her on the way out, I am glad he's not living here.
I completely understand trusting's stance as that is also mine in terms of filing for D. I told my H he needed to go after the 5th time he said he didn't want to be married and after already having left and returned and asking me to help him work on it. But he did not work himself. I simply had enough after 18months of BS and did not want the kids and I to go through all the rubbish again.
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On a side issue, just looking fr anyone similar......... my h is passive aggressive and has avoidant personality. Don't knw if this is something to d with that or mlc itself, but my h still does not see me as a separate person from him. He believes that i feel and think the same way he does and when angry will tell me how i feel. Which is actually hs feelings. Projection yes, but with a twist.
SD, I saw this behaviour for the longest time too (during the crisis only). It does seem to be easing up in recent months.
Have you read the Depression signs in MLC? The very first on the list is that MLCers see themselves and their spouses as one person.
Depression sign #1: MLC'ERS WILL OFTEN VIEW THEIR LBS AND THEMSELVES AS ONE PERSON
The reason behind the MLC'ers lack of boundaries comes because they do not view their LBS separate from themselves. They are so engulfed in negativity that they do not think clearly. As MLC'ers look to their loved ones to define and deliver their happiness, MLC'er eventually feel betrayed due to happiness being an internal thing not external. This "feeling" of betrayal may cause some of the anger we see in our MLC'ers.
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I say they should go.
Nobody should put up with abuse, and an in-your-face affair is abusive, as is monster, as is all sorts of MLC manipulation.
And parenting your spouse is not a healthy relationship, either.
I was a wreck for the month that xH lived at home, and I know this time is damaging to the kids, as well.
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Thanks Kiki for the bit about the depression signs.
We have got past the "SD's to blame thing" he knows and tells me i am not. But he still continues to see me as having HIS feelings. I don't know what all this trauma does to our own memories but I can't honestly remember whether he did this before or not. I guess i was so in love that i didn't see a lot of things through my rose tinted glasses. :o
I'm afraid i hollered at my h one day about his emotionaly abusive behaviour towards us. He was so offended at being told that his wife was in an abusive relationship with him. That one hit big because his "friend" is allegedly abused physcally by her own h and there i was comparing the two of them only one made bruises that didn't show on the outside!!. Not a happy h at that one. He firmly believed that he was "better" than her h and was supposed to be showing her that all men weren't like that. Hmmmmm........ just shows ya these crazy women know nothing.
I totally believe that they all should go. I so understand and everyone is entitled to how they feel about it, but for me i felt like i lost all sense of self respect allowing and i mean allowing myself and my kids to be treated in this manner. No matter who he is he had no right and still doesn't and never will again as far as i am concerned.
SD
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Even families who live with someone in a "normal" depressive state are offerred respite. It's seriously hard work
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My H does not live at home, he left shortly after BD in November 2009. We are fast approaching the 3 year mark, where he left because he was bored and needed space. However apart from a handful of occasions he has visited every single day since. :-\ :-\ He arrives late afternoon when the girls get home, eats with us :o :o, does chores around the house, and generally makes himself 'at home'. AT 7.45 on the dot he ups and leaves to be with OW2.
He is the clingiest of clingers, and to be honest I am totally exhausted by the whole thing. I don't feel I have had time to get over this and it is taking it's toll.
I am at the point now where I cannot put up with this any longer, and the time has come to ask H to stay away. I have been here a couple of times before, but H wore me down and wormed his way back, and even bragged at the fact that I caved in. I know I have to be strong this time for my own sanity. I don't know how anyone copes with their MLCer living at home.
They should go.
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Oh Glimmer, ( hi, by the way)
You're h is so full of cake it's incredible !! The family man who leaves each day to go home to his girlfriend since 2009, no no no no no!!!!!!
For something to change, something's got to change. Change it.......... for YOUR sake. Be strong !!!!
SD
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Agree wholeheartedly with superdog.
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SD and Glimmer - phew! This is tough.
I too am coming up to the three year mark, and have a clinger, but not quite to the degree that you both have.
I did ask mine to leave 4.5mths post BD because it was seriously bad for my health and wellbeing. Actually, I said - you either need to get help or leave.
Of course he chose to leave and we didn't know where he was living for 3mths.
During this time, he came home every day, even if just for a few minutes.
At that point, I could no longer stand that, and took a couple of hours of arguing with him to get the information about where he was living out of him. He of course had run to the OW.
Knowing nothing about MLC at this point, I was so shocked, and asked him to hand back his house keys and told him he could no longer wander in and out at his leisure. He had to check with us first to see if it was convenient.
He used to spend all day Sunday with us, and pop in and out another couple of times a week (with permission), but has pretty much contacted me every day by phone, email or text apart from that.
Over time, I have gradually tightened things up and the time he spends here is lessening.
He has always spent the boys' birthdays, and Christmas with us.
He recently has half-heartedly approached a lawyer for a financial separation, and that provided the catalyst for telling him he was no longer welcome in the house while that was going on.
After a couple of weeks (and a big towards and then away from me), I increased that boundary to include, while he was also living life number two - he was not welcome to come inside.
He hates it. He is such a clinger. It is endlessly exhausting trying to keep him outside the building. It's often as ridiculous as a small puppy who is determined to get outside around your feet. He is the opposite - and is desperately trying to get inside around my physical body as a barrier. It is truly bizarre.
I have no great words of wisdom, just that you need to listen to your gut instinct and do what is right for you.
BTW, I do not regret allowing him in the house all of this time. He has been so 'out of it' at times, I did fear he might take his life if he didn't have access to me. I knew this being a process, me putting my foot down earlier wasn't going to hasten the journey he still had to take.
I didn't allow him to be here and monster at me either, so he has been reasonably easy to have around in terms of a MLCer (if that is possible).
In terms of them applying their feelings to you, I think that would have to do with their complete and utter self absorption. Depression is selfish. It's still all about them, so I would imagine that they think that everyone would share their thoughts and feelings, especially us.
A couple of weeks ago, I was having a long chat with my H, at his request, and in it he admitted that he and the OW had a tumultuous 'relationship'.
He said that she needed to get out of her previous relationship of 15 years (he admits he rescued her), because it was so bad. He said the guy used to be wonderful but developed PTSD because of what happened to him in his youth. (I have no idea whether this is true or not. This OW is definitely a BPD).
Then he said 'oh, he's a bit like me then'.
Do I think he thinks about what he has done to the boys and I? No I don't. It's all about him, and his need to rescue this wonderful person who needs his help.
The whole thing is very unbelievable.
It is tough making changes with a clinger. They will do some bizarre things to keep both worlds going - but I do believe if you can steel yourself to make those changes, they need to be made this far down the track.
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Oh, and if you do decide to make those changes, I'd recommend having a read of RCR's articles about changing your language.
I have said things like 'while you are choosing ......... you are no longer allowed in this house' but gave him an out, if he chose something differently.