Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: Writingmom on May 17, 2010, 01:23:48 PM
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I don't mean to be a posting hog!-) This is all so fascinating to me. It looks like health related issues and even issues with fathers are common in MLC. My H grew up in a very disfunctional home yet seemed to emerge as the oldest, resilient, level-headed one. He took over the family business and has grown it in to a very successful company. Now he's hardly ever there! He's too busy playing. And spending time with OW.
His father died at the age of 46 and his mother is terminal. I know that this is all part of his crisis, but he doesn't see it. I worry about his reaction when she dies. He has buried all of his pain and tried to stay busy and to distract himself. I think the MLC is the height of his attempt to run.
Anyway, just wondering what other issues have contributed to MLC?
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My wife's issues deal with her Mom. When my wife was growing up her Mom suffered from depression and wasn't the mother she should/could have been. My wife was the middle of 3 girls. My wife feels that her older sister got all the negative attention because she was the rebel and her younger sister got all the positive attention because she was the baby. In her mind, my wife just existed and has felt that she was emotionally abandoned.
In September of 2005, a close friend of ours died from a heart attack at the age of 40. He was her youth leader growing up and they were very close. August/September of 2006 is when she started changing her look. She was never a drinker but she started drinking with me around that same time also.
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I think my H has had several. His crisis more than likely began in 2001. His son graduated from highschool and joined the Marines. He quit his job of 20yrs with no warning. He had a a fling and moved out for about 6 weeks. The next few years were pretty good but he changed jobs several times in that time period. I had breast cancer in 2008 and sometime after that is when his PA began with current OW...he also turned 50.
His parents both died in their early 50's. His Dad wasn't around much when H was growing up...working and playing all the time.
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My H has so many FOO issues. People are always amazed at how successful he has been in spite of his "roots". He has always been an overachiever. He was an assistant restaurant manager when he was still in high school. Wrote a book while pursuing his undergraduate degree. Has run multiple marathons/triathlons. Had a PhD and was a college professor in his early 30's. He is now writing textbooks and has served in leadership roles on several national organizations. He has always known how to cope with whatever life threw his way.
Then, spring 2008 he becomes ill at a sporting event (with several severe lasting effects) and no longer knows how to deal with all that he is feeling. His coping skills were seemingly exhausted. He didn't know what to do and couldn't bring himself out of his depression. The only constant in all that time was me and our marriage. Therefore, deductive reasoning indicated that those items MUST be the source of his misery.
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MLC is kind of like the perfect storm. Everything falls into place, all the wrong things happen at once. Look at the parts that make up a MLC. Hormones out of wack, depression, death or trauma of someone close to the MLC'er. Transition time in life. Something went wrong in their childhood that they never resolved. Their inner child and outer child are at odds with each other.
Then who do they pick on? The person closest to them because there can't be anything wrong with them . Right? It must be your fault. You have to blame someone. They can't see the things that went wrong. They are blinded by their depression.
As hard as it is on the LBS it is much worse for the MLC'er they are in much pain.
So to sum it up they could deal with those things normally but now they are in so much pain that they must find things wrong and lash out at the person who they feel is responsible for their pain.
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I agree with OP. My H did not have one trigger, but I can pinpoint the one second he snapped. I was yelling at him - now, mind you, this was not common in our M. For the last few months prior to bomb drop, I had been close to being a WAW myself, I was so DONE with being ignored and him being out all night... which in retrospect was the beginning of his MLC, I'm sure... but I yelled "how long do you think we can continue like this before we D?" And that was it, I saw him blink and I saw a mask come on and that was the end of my H.
We were so close, I think the loss of our romance was a huge issue, his children almost being out of the house, as the twins are now 16 and his oldest is 20, and him being over 40 all had something to do with it. I think he began this process back in 2003 as he had an EA back then, but I busted it and we began to reconnect, then slipped and that was that. OW came into his life during his HS reunion, he always had unresolved issues around HS and being shy and not having girlfriends like his friends did, thinking he missed out on stuff, missing/alcoholic father, etc etc.
I didn't do as much as I should have to keep us connected, and in retrospect, had I known what would be facing me now, I would have done more to help him with his issues and stayed his friend/confidant more.
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I didn't do as much as I should have to keep us connected, and in retrospect, had I known what would be facing me now, I would have done more to help him with his issues and stayed his friend/confidant more.
I think we all have regrets for the past. I know I was too comfortable and took my life for granted. I truly had all that I had ever wanted....kids, home, vacations, job and a caring husband. In my mind, it was forever. Enter MLC.....
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I I know I was too comfortable and took my life for granted. I truly had all that I had ever wanted....kids, home, vacations, job and a caring husband. In my mind, it was forever. Enter MLC.....
That stings a little bit for all of us, I agree Still
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My H had what I believe to be clear triggers: would be interested in your opinions?
1) Father dies when he was 3 months old
2) Mother gave him to her sister and brother in law to raise while she kept the other three siblings. They lived next door while my H was brought up by his aunt and uncle.
3) Went to an Irish Catholic school in the 60's; was beaten and abused.
4) Had a son with a woman when he was 20 and she rejected him and took the son
5) was married for 22 years to Wife 1; 10 years of that were an open marriage where they both had a series of relationships. Wife 1 went and lived in another country for a year with a man and left H minding their eldest daughter (now 28)
6) History of depression when his company first collapsed in the early 90's
7) At Bomb drop H was losing his company, in debt, high blood pressure, his beloved sister was dying, h was minding D quite a bit while I was traveling for work. Also was having an illicit affair with secretary
Interested to know whether these triggers clearly indicate MLC or not. He is 55.
Blessings
Np
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NP It sounds to me like he has issues in addition to MLC. However, yes, they're clear triggers also.
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It sounds to me as though you are talking about two related things, Triggers and Roots.
It’s just semantics, but since I am writing a book, I try to be specific regarding my terms. It seems most of you are discussing Roots. I think that is a bigger issue than Triggers.
So I use Trigger to refer to an inciting incident, phase, series of incidents…that was 12-36 Pre-Bomb. Roots are the root issues within childhoods; those developmental phases missed or skipped and the traumas from youth.
Think of it this way, your DNA codes for many things throughout your development. You may have it in your blueprint to turn gray at 59. But if you are 45, that has not yet happened. There is a genetic trigger that will turn on the gene at the destined time, or that may turn on a gene only if certain conditions are met.
Common MLC Triggers
Death of a parent or close friend
- Illness—self, spouse, family…
- Traumatic Event: 9-11, Hurricane Katrina
- Job Changes
- Empty Nest or children growing up—no longer feeling needed
- Moving
And sometimes you may not know the trigger, some are fuzzy phases like not feeling needed as the kids grow up and leave home. I am still not certain as to Sweetheart’s trigger. 18 months before Bomb I received notice my employer was closing the company and everyone had 8 months. We knew it might be coming, but I was just finishing Grad school at the time—was I going to be able to finish?
I don’t think it was my becoming unemployed, that seems to be a norm in my industry as companies are bought and sold and as I have always had a long commute. But combine that with finishing Grad school…when I discussed it with him the day I was given notice he freaked. I did finish and paid it in full with my severance package. But that seems the closest thing to a trigger. As for childhood...? Is any family functional? His parents are married--to each other and have a good marriage. He has two brothers and a sister, all close. But his Mom was a controller, though she worded it so that everyone thought it was Dad. She followed old-fashioned gender stereotypes...ask your Father. The kids all attended parochial school and Sweetheart and the youngest went into the family business--his Uncle's carpet store. Sweetheart did not do well there. He was teased, called stupid and given the nickname Anchor by the workers--some were his cousins. Anchor can be a positive term meaning stability, but they meant he weighed them down. Some still call him that. A couple years ago he went into the store to get something and came out nearing tears because someone had called him Anch. They used it as regular name. Just the way people in Junior High used to call me Sour Grapes--I always wore purple. The kids who did not know me, but wanted to be nice and say hi didn't know be by any other name. But at the carept store, they all know his name. He eventually left and started his own carpet installation business and put himself through college--where we met. Even after college his main income was through carept laying for several more years and so he was always running into his old reputation. His confidence has always needed boosting. Some MLCers are ego-inflaters, Sweetehart has always been an ego-deflater. This has been so pronounced that he does not look well on high confidence. I have always been confident in my Self and he believes confidence can be inflationary. This caused us problems early on. I would show him a manuscript and he would criticize a single comma which he thought was wrong--it wasn't--and berate me for submitting the manuscript. But when I showed him a Caldecott book that inspired a manuscript, he said he liked my story better. I eventually asked why he criticized like that and he answered honestly; he thought it was his job to cut me down to size. He meant that; he thought it was what he was supposed to do and since he meant it, I was not insulted! He worked very little in his major--Physical Fitness. The competition is with personal trainers who take a quick class and work for low wages. So finding his niche has always been difficult. That may be a primer for MLC--feeling like making it to where you are supposed to be as a successful adult is always ahead of you. Who are you then? It may not be a distinct Diffuse state of identity as in adolescence, but it is like a permanent search for Self without finding enough, or being satisfied with what you are finding. There were a few traumatic incidents in his childhood and they were nothing that anyone did wrong. When Sweetheart was somewhere between 6 and 8 his father was in an explosion at work--went flying. He stopped laying carpet and I think became the foreman--he was always in charge. When Sweetheart was a teenager his younger sister almost died of Lupus. That disease often starts in adulthood, but for her it's onset was puberty. She will always be frail. Around that same time a younger cousin drowned at a family outing. During those times there was likley less focus on Sweetheart and he was afraid--naturally. But his roots do not seem as distinctly primed for MLC as so many others. For some, it is more predictable--in hindsight at least.
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I'll restate mine simply... trigger was convoluted and many things, but the one thing that stands out was the moment I yelled at him - when I had had enough and he thought I was going to D him. I saw a light go off in his face and the mask come on. I literally saw it and thought "uh oh, now what have I done."
However, by then, OW was in the picture on some level, and he had been withdrawing for some time, so you can see that there was something brewing under the surface.
But the trigger to the whole crisis was the one time I yelled at him.
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MarkedandHealed,
I think many things can be a trigger. For my H, it seemed to be a physical illness, but the bomb was unleashed, according to him, by my constant "badgering" to know what was wrong.
He told me that our relationship might be just fine today if I had just left him alone to work through his feelings. He said when I pushed him to talk, all of what he was feeling came spewing out and then it wasn't going back in. To me, this was just his way of starting the blaming and projection.
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MarkedandHealed,
I'll restate mine simply... trigger was convoluted and many things, but the one thing that stands out was the moment I yelled at him - when I had had enough and he thought I was going to D him. I saw a light go off in his face and the mask come on. I literally saw it and thought "uh oh, now what have I done."
However, by then, OW was in the picture on some level, and he had been withdrawing for some time, so you can see that there was something brewing under the surface.
Do you really think that was the MLC Trigger, or could it have been what triggered him to enter Replay and drop the Bomb?
If there was already an Ow int he picture, he was iin MLC. The Trigger is actually Pre-MLC and MLC may or may not start right after.
It sounds to me as though it was not so much a mask going up, but also a mask falling off and being replaced by the new mask--one persona for another.
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Hmmm, something to think about. I had a feeling he was looking for an OW prior to this OW. He made some complimentary comments to an old friend, recently D, on FB and hid his comments from me... it sent up red flags at the time. Then he met this OW at the HS reunion and kept their communications private from me. He was looking for an A, in my retrospective mind. Oddly enough, by examining his behavior, I think he was looking for an OW but it was not conscious, if that makes sense. He hid the seeking behaviors from me and somehow explained them away to himself so he didn't feel like a louse just stepping outside the M for an A. It was like he was driven to find an OW and this one just stepped in and filled the shoes.
There was no trigger, then, that I know of. Other than him turning 40 and being so very tied in his mind to youth and not wanting to admit that he was getting older, always saying "it's how old you feel" and stuff like that.
The lack of a trigger was one of the things that made me suspect this was not MLC for so long.
He never dropped the bomb, I snooped and found the bomb (OW) and then he came out and said he never loved me, I controlled him, everything was my fault, etc.
No one died, no one got ill, no accidents, no job loss. Nothing changed other than our finances pooping the bed, if you will. And his oldest going to college and then dropping out and staying home.
Mostly it was the loss of our love... due to neglect, that I think did it. H is a HUGE romantic and believes the Hollywood version of love, and will not see anything from the experts at all. He thinks he knows what he's talking about and they do not... that love just happens, it stays forever and if it doesn't, it wasn't meant to be. You can't work to get love back once it's gone... now, mind you, this is all MLC talk. He was open before to the 5LLs etc but now says it's all bunk and junk. He told me that he should not have to tell me how to make him happy, it should just happen and if it doesn't, it wasn't meant to be between us.
Anyway, we were one of those really in-love couples for a very long time and having the kids come live with us back in 2005, when just recovering from his EA at the time, threw us into one very big, long neglectful state of our M. I think the loss of our love was such a shock to him, he thought it would continue forever just without any effort. He never saw the effort I put into it, I guess, and just thought it just "happened" the way it does in Hollyweird.
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I think one of the triggers for my H was his surgery. He had by-pass surgery in 2001 and never really recovered emotionally. He never dealt with the depression. Still to this day he says that he feels "broken". After recovery he decided to change jobs and went to school to become a black-jack dealer. He went to work at local casino and that is where he met OW. Until a few years ago I didn't know how much he had become involved with her. She was married at the time but that didn't seem to matter to her. Since then her H passed away and now she is the merry widow. We had several traumatic events, one piled on top of another. We lost our home, no, our home was ripped out from underneath us, we had to file bankruptcy, ongoing problems with oldest D. H was unhappy at his job, he had left casino to work in an office type setting and had an extreme control freak for a boss. We had to move, unfortunately we ended up moving very close to OW and H struck of friendship with her from years prior (he had left casino 2-3 years before). I didn't see the problem with him going to her house to play darts and just relax. I trusted my H completely. Plus he was not a lot of fun to be around...always cranky and angry. I should have realized that while I could trust my H, I never should have trusted the OW. She is a very predatory woman, I have compared her to a pedophile, in that she groomed my H to her way of thinking. I personally think that we were just a powder keg waiting to go off. H as said many times that OW didn't cause our problems and I agree with him. She didn't cause the problems, she just amplified them. H quite office job and went back to work at casino. H has new friends, casino co-workers (OW works there too). I was not a part of his casino life. H began spending more and more time and money at casino, playing slot machines ( I am not a gambling enthusiast, OW is). In retrospect, I now see that the main attraction for him was that OW is the exact polar opposite of me. I became the enemy and she was putting him up on a pedestal, worshiping him.
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Funny, I often get the idea that OW is a predator type as well. She wasted no time in beginning PA and subsequently getting pregnant. H is her boss, the CEO of the company. That was no doubt an allure to her as she is (as I've been told) very materialistic and shallow. She likes to appear wealthy and her dentist husband never made enough.
Not that what H has done is right at all, but he used to reassure me that an affair would be out of the question, especially in the work place. OW has done the same thing in the past; zeroed in on someone, thrown her entire self in to the situation only to regret it later on. Interesting. Wonder if MLC affairs have this common thread--manipulative affair partners.
And I agree that there seem to be triggers and roots. I think my H has both. Dysfunctional childhood and learning that MIL was terminal a few years ago. But when my son was 12 1/2 and beginning to experience puberty, it seemed like something snapped. H was antagonistic, very demeaning and appalled at normal adolescent behavior. He kept saying that he knew NO ONE that acted that way (withdrawn, quiet, grumpy) and that he NEVER acted that was at that age. It was very bizarre. It's like he was writing his own child off completely! Odd.
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Luckily for H, OW cannot get pregnant (hysterectomy). As of now, H claims that there is been no PA, of course he also denied EA. I am still undecided on that. Don't quite know how he could have sex with her, she hideous. My D's say that she resembles Mimi from the old Drew Carey show and they are correct.
My H also had very dysfunctional childhood, alcoholic mother, father was a wonderful person but overshadowed by wife. Found it interesting that H tried to make it sound as though his childhood was wonderful when we took S's to IC and tried to blame me for all our problems. I have admitted that I had/have a lot of problems and am working on my issues. I am a work in progress. H seems to think that our family should be like the Brady Bunch. Told him during counseling that he may have wanted the perfect family but, he did nothing to help it get that way. H didn't like that comment very much.
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I'm currently reading "In Midlife" by Murray Stein and he says "As the midlife transition begins, whether it begins gradually or abruptly, persons generally feel gripped by a sense of loss and all of its emotional attendants: moody and nostalgic periods of grieving for some vaguely felt absence, a keen and growing sense of life's limits, attacks of panic about one's own death, and exercises in rationalization and denial. Sometimes the reason for this sense of loss is obvious: the death of children or parents, a divorce, an obliterated career. But quite often the immediate cause of this opening phase of the transition, with the attendant emotional phenomena, is not at all plain. And even when the cause does seem blatant, a person will often go on searching anxiously and vainly, looking for another deeper cause of this distress, because acknowledging the obvious one does not pluck the thorn of pain. This thorn may be extremely hard to find because of its deep unconsciousness, and a person cannot seem to get to it and resolve the anxiety it is creating."
This seems to me to suggest that what I was thinking in the beginning - that H couldn't be in MLC b/c there was no clear trigger - doesn't really mean anything.
Thoughts?
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Marked,
I guess I'm wondering what baggage your H brought with him from his previous M and what stress the kids coming to live with you may have brought. Maybe he had guilt or remorse buried from one of those two instances? I guess I would be surprised if MLC just occurred with no root or trigger at all. If your yelling at him caused him to "snap", I would wonder what you said that triggered the crisis. Not that you are responsible, just wonder what it was that he heard that caused him to retreat into himself. It would seem that maybe something you said hit a nerve, in other words; like he'd had thoughts stirring around and your yelling brought it all to the forefront of his mind.
The quote from the book sounds interesting. I have wondered lately why there is such a lack of information and knowledge out there! Look how destructive this is for us all, and still society at large thinks of MLC as a red convertible and a younger girlfriend, end of story. Our lives are turned upside down! This is a mental disorder! Still I find myself explaining it away as if it's some rare, third-world disease that only I have read about. I feel like I have to convince people that what I'm saying is true! Let us know if you find the book helpful.
Wish I were more helpful. I am learning as I go, but your situation does sound like there may be other strings attached from the past. Maybe if he thought his first marriage was a failure, EA was a failure (I think that's what I read) and kids coming to live with him triggered some thought of failure, either potential or real, and you seemed to have had enough...interesting.
Either way, I guess we're still in the same place. And I'm not sure that I'll ever get used to this. I am finding myself meeting more people, but doing things that H would have loved. Still such a loss. Feels like we'll never see remorse or awareness.
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Ladies,
Usually a major life event can "trigger" a MLC. In my case, and I'm digging way backwards here, my husband's mother died in 1996, he went into some kind of a personal crisis for six months; it had all the markings of a MLC, only my husband was 33 at the time...I was treated terribly for that time...we came out six months later, neither one of us having learned a dang thing...and in 1999, my husband was involved in an accident that resulted in a fatality, and it threw him into the tunnel. He was 36 by then, I was 32.
He said later that his company was trying to get him to go to counseling, and he refused to go, and he said that although he knew deep down they were trying to help him, it brought out a deep anger within him...and he said that was when he went into something he could not explain, but it wasn't good.
He said his view of me changed considerably, that I'd meant nothing to him, and he'd gotten to the point that he thought could do anything he wanted to to me, and he figured I'd just take it and go on...but that only increased his disrespect for me.
He said that when I changed my attitude toward him, it was a turning point for him...he figured it he didn't get his act together that he would lose me permanently..EVEN THOUGH, he'd thought of walking away from the marriage at three different points in this.
My husband's father died in July of 2001,(another trigger, but different) and it was one of the major things that led to his "awakening" and coming out of Replay; besides the bomb drop I got a couple of months later.
In late 2002, as my husband was coming out of the tunnel, I was going in, his MLC having triggered my transition; and I had physical symptoms as well as the emotional crisis...but then my husband had also had physical symptoms along with his emotional crisis.
One of the questions I've always asked people who said they were dealing with a spouse going through the tunnel was what major event had happened that could have been a "trigger" for the crisis?
These were the triggers I remember happening.
A major life event can put them in, yet a major life event can lead the way out...yet a major event while in the tunnel CAN put them in deeper..so it's still a crap shoot either way you look at it.
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Roots and triggers: I guess there were both.
Actual trigger in my opinion was suicide of a very close friend in Sept 2004. H just never dealt with it, by his own admission. To top it off that friend sent H an e-mail the morning before he died, just saying "thinking of you". Didn't say what he was going to do.
His father had died 2 years before that. Turns out H had had a brief affair that year, which I only found out about 6 months ago. He now says that that was when he began to walk away from our relationship.
Roots were deeper -- probably a sense of never having done what he wanted to when he was younger, i.e. travel. And as his family, despite being the most stable on earth, never talked through conflicts, he never learned to express negative feelings. He had a girlfriend throughout college, with whom he broke up with when he met me. As we lived far apart I never really knew that she existed -- I found out only after we were already an established couple. He once said that he went from one to the other because it was like crossing a river on stones -- he didn't want to fall into the water. So he never had that period of being on his own during or after college.
He was only 25 when we married; I'm a couple years older. We didn't have children for a long time, partly due to fertility issues. But when I finally did get pregnant I think it was a shock, as we had decided that if by a certain time it didn't work we would go travel. He was excited about the prospect of doing that, and I think felt completely hemmed in by the way it worked out. To add to that our situation with children is way more complicated than most, which took a huge toll on me.
That toll on me is a large part of it, I think. I struggled with depression because of it; he kept just wanting to wave a magic wand and make it better. And he felt that nothing he did was good enough. I remember saying to him that he wanted me to be happy because he didn't want to deal with me being unhappy. Actually, I was right. So I do see my own role in this.
But what triggered his leaving was this:
I did know he was struggling those last few years, and felt like I was trying to do everything to help ('fix' it....) -- it was actually at my suggestion that he started seeing an alternative therapist who promised the world. I am forever kicking myself about this -- I was seeing her before he was, and she turned out to be the original alienator, if that is the right word. He swore up and down that he had never had an affair and that he wasn't leaving to start a new relationship, that it was because my "essence was wrong", but it turns out that he did pursue her. I often think that if it weren't for that he'd have stayed and worked through it at home.
This therapist "brought up" all sorts of past resentments -- he said he had been brought back to the first time we "tried" for a baby, that he hadn't been ready and that I had pushed it (true), and that that was part of it. He didn't mention that after they were born he specifically told me that he was so glad we had them, that he thought we would have had serious psychological problems if they weren't there....
She is long gone; she turned out to be completely nuts. But his search goes on.
So I guess there were feelings of having been a failure; he couldn't save his father, his friend, or me. And he felt he hadn't lived. He felt trapped -- still does, I think -- by the need to provide for us.
He doesn't want to be seen as the bad guy -- he's said that a number of times in the past few years -- it is important to him not to be seen as the villain in this.
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HB!
I know you are a busy lady, but just wanted to add (trying to get your head big LOL) GLAD to see you back on. We miss you when you're on the road and can't post.
I know the day will come when you are done posting again, and we'll miss you sorely then... but like last time, when you went away, your words were left behind and used frequently. Thank you. :)
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Talking about roots and triggers. My husband did not have any triggers. Came back from one of his many mission trips and boom. Was leaving for OW.
This makes me think what kind of triggers did David have with Bathsheba. He was at home, when kings go forth to battle, yet he remained at Jerusalem. Someone mentioned that he must have just got up late in the afternoon, when he rose from his couch and was walking upon the roof of the king's house.
He was just lounging around and there he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful and from then on all the misery. Was he in MLC?
This just made me wander and hope to hear some more opinions on this.
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That's not true, David was a man used to making his way in the world using his brawn as well as his brains. He was a leader, a fighter, and as he aged and became more important to his kingdom, they made him stay home. He was at home while his men were out at battle. If I remember correctly, they told him that they would come close to winning the war and when winning was assured and safe, they would send for him so he could finalize the win without taking danger on. Think of how that made him feel. Then, he saw her. She was meant to be a one night stand to make him feel better, but she got pregnant and ruined everything for him.
He had a stable full of women, certainly she was not more beautiful than the others, and he knew nothing of her personally. She was available, she was an affair down, in a way. She was married also, so it was adultery for them as well. A man of God, a man after God's own heart and he sinned in this way.
MLC must be very strong to turn a man such as this.
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HB!
I know you are a busy lady, but just wanted to add (trying to get your head big LOL) GLAD to see you back on. We miss you when you're on the road and can't post.
Very hard to make my head swell, M&H. LOL!! I know better than to ever allow that to happen..the Lord would NOT be pleased with me at all, and He would withdraw what He has so graciously given me.
As He gives, He can take away, and I'm aware of this.... :)
It is sometimes a frightening thing to hear something, say it, and watch it come to pass, and that is an humbling experience for me.
Silver and gold have I none, but what I do have I will give of what He's imparted to me to share with others.
I never said I had all the answers, but I do the very best that I can to help.
FWIW, I have left the other board I was on before; I'm not lurking there, either...I don't have the necessary time to split between two boards, and after praying about it, I feel I need to be here.
You will know when the time comes for me to leave, I will at least say goodbye, and if I'm here for an extended period of time, that will be all right, too. :)
The atmosphere here is a better one, and I feel more comfortable dispensing advice/wisdom without the feeling that I'm being 'censored', if you know what I mean.
I am who I am, and can be no other. :)
I'm here when I can be here, but I also know and totally understand that each person has something to contribute, and the wisdom that shows through the ones who are currently going through this crisis is just as priceless as anything I, myself, can contribute.
Each person is at a differing stage of this, and can help the ones that come after..it is what it should be...paying it all downward and backward.
Never doubt your knowledge and wisdom gained..sometimes you'll see something you wouldn't see if you were right in the middle of it...and that's valuable to someone who can't see the forest for the trees.
If you think about it also, sometimes you will even answer your own questions by answering someone else's. :)
Each person contains the answers within, they just have to learn to access those, as at times, I or someone else will point out something they already know..it's just hard to see when it's you within the situation. :)
Have a good one. :)
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I I know I was too comfortable and took my life for granted. I truly had all that I had ever wanted....kids, home, vacations, job and a caring husband. In my mind, it was forever. Enter MLC.....
That stings a little bit for all of us, I agree Still
I too agree with you! I too was comfortable and took my life and H for granted! I thought it would be forever even though we weren't a demonstrative loving couple I always thought he loved me and always would! Then WHAM BAM an alien entered his body and an arrogant selfish person emerged. It happened in a flash! :'(
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Dito on the took my life and H for granted.
Also H lost lost a man in his life that he was very close to and took it real hard , then a co-worker died of cancer, he was in his fifties, and another long time friend drank himmself to death.
H also got into a terrible physical fight with my ex, it was a tramatic experience for our family this occured in 2004 just couple month after the death of the older man that he looked upto. I would say he was never quit the same after that we had a tough year, but then things started to get better and I thought we were bonding again then the co worker died.
My H has never told me I was bad said it was him and not me, last time I spoke to him I did ask him why he felt different "I don't know just things from the past, your ex, the kids just things over the years have bothered me, you are a good person and I trust you" I guess thats why he loves me but not in love.
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For my H, I believe the main root of his MLC was the sudden death of his mother when he was 17. He was the youngest of a large family, and I'm told he was very coddled. I think because his emotional attachment to her was abruptly ended rather than gradually, he never really learned to be emotionally self sufficient.
Triggers - Looking back to a year or so earlier, I believe that I went through a midlife transition that made him uncomfortable. I was struggling with working a demanding career and feeling like I was not spending enough time at home and with family. With the kids in middle school, I did not want to miss out of the rest of their time at home.
I found a creative outlet in writing that I enjoyed. I started blogging and writing online content for extra money. I felt so happy that I found something I really enjoyed doing and felt productive. I would often sit with my laptop in the evenings writing and reading what other bloggers had written. I remember him almost acting jealous that I was spending time on the computer. It annoyed me because he had always had his music, and I couldn't understand why he didn't like me writing. I just dismissed it and figured he would get over it.
After awhile, I realized that I could possibly earn a living with writing. I spent a great deal of time agonizing over the idea of giving up a steady salary for the ups and downs of freelance work. I spent months trying things out to see if it was feasible. I believed that it would be something I would find more fulfilling, plus I would be home and could work around the family's schedule. During this time, I withdrew from H. He didn't seem comfortable talking about it, and me being an introvert, wanted to keep to myself to mull things over.
When I finally made my decision to quit my job in January 2010, H acted like he was supportive, but it wasn't wholehearted. I remember him saying, "When do I get to do what I want to do?" Plus, this put more pressure on him to keep a steady income coming in.
Then, major events over the spring and summer happened that set the MLC going full force. He was laid off, two close friends of his died, he was approaching 40, and he went to his 20-year class reunion. I think it was the perfect storm where he had a lot to think about and a lot of time on his hands. He went into replay with heavy drinking and juvenile behavior. He started an affair with an old high school girlfriend. It was like he needed to go back in time to when his mom died.
I echo what the others said about taking my life before for granted. I never in a million years could have imagined I would be in this situation...
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For my H's MLC, the trigger seemed to come around the day he remarked to me that he had known me now the same number of years as his dad's been dead. Then he visited the grave a little while after that and saw where his own plot "waits" for him. It is his grandfather that raised him so he refers to him as his dad, and he died when my H was only 17. From then on, he has started to do the same things that he used to do at that age, and trying to do them with the same people that he knew around age 17. He has been morose with me, like I remind him of things that weigh him down, responsibilities, obligations, and even growing older and dying. He even started talking about wanting some sort of legacy (meaning a son, when we have never wanted children and he does not act "parental" in any way nowadays). So this person that is living with me now isn't the husband I know, and seems bound and determined to live opposite of what he was.
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My H's early triggers I think are due to his being adopted and never understanding that it wasn't a case of his biological mother not wanting him but rather, that she was only 16 and it was 1964 so her parents forced her to give him up. He's always seen this as a rejection though I never realized this was a problem for him until this past year.
His parents are very frugal and he had alot of friends in his youth whose parents were well off so monetary success was always an issue. He felt very deprived though he wasn't really.
His parents are wonderful and well meaning people but they are a bit hard nosed, stoic and don't believe in "spoiling" children which translates to not pumping their egos with praise and encouragement. I think he was sorely in need of this and they did not provide it...not out of malice, just out of the way they are, the way it was back then as well.
The perfect storm as OP puts it was seeing his father grow increasingly dismissed and over ridden towards the end of his career. Also, at the same time, my dad was losing it due to Alzheimers so before that was apparent, he was somewhat dismissed as well. My dad had a very successful and respected career. H saw his fading out as the inevitable for all men once they aged. At the same time, some younger men in his work place "dissed" him as he put it. I don't think that's what really happened...they probably just didn't realize he was trying to hang out with them. At any rate, because they are younger, he felt he was being dismissed due to the fact he was approaching 45 at the time.
I did not take for granted the fact I had a loving and supportive husband...and I made sure he knew that at all times. But I did take for granted the fact that he would never hurt/betray/become dissatisfied with me. Part of the reason I took that for granted was due to the fact that from the moment we got serious right through to the beginnings of his MLC, he assured me that would never happen.
Guess I won't take anything for granted ever again, will I.
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Under pinning everything: unresolved self-esteem issuses caused by the traumatic events of her parents divorce.
2006 loss of relative
2008 loss of very close relative
2008 daughter leaves home (empty nest)
2009 full on menopause
2009 she requires an operation (scares her)
2009 learns she will loss her job (really distressed by prospect of job loss)
2010 commits adultery whilst working abroad
2010 leaves home, country, family to live with OM who works for her company. she keeps job.
honour
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Like you M and H, I can recall the night the switch was turned off on my husband, I can remember the date, and what the weather was like, and the time, he was a completely different person, a stranger I had never met before,the night he walked behind me, and called me the foulest names I have ever heared, this was because we had been in a restaurant with his "New" friends (I thought they were my new friends too) I quickly realised I was the complete opposite of these people, I was embarrassed in the restaurant, because of their colourful language, but I showed no disrespect to them, it was only on the way home, alone with my H, that I passed comment on this, I did hear the door shut at he entered the tunnel on that walk home, He called me the names I had been so deeply embarrassed of, I did express my disbelief in what he was doing, and I "tapped him on the face with a very small and very light purse", he within a heart beat, had hit me so hard on my face I fell to the floor and do not remember it, until I was being helped up by him.
I do believe this was the start of reply, I don't think this was the start of MLC, I cannot remember any incidents before this that would have been related to his MLC, apart from his grandad dying, but he was a very old man of 91 years, his grandad was his mentor, and had always loved him, and shown him he had a great proudness for him, I think my H was successful in his life to gain love from him mother, and respect from him grandfather, but I do know, then and today, that that night he entered the tunnel, I told a friend of this occasion, and she said he was wanting to create a situation, if it hadn't been that incident , it would have been another moment. The next morning I remember him coming and holding me and saying "I will never leave you or our son, so you have nothing to worry about". Ten months later he was gone.
Hugs
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My H's grandfather died in Aug. 2010. He seemed alright with it at first. He did begin to get a bit quiet a few months later. He never seemed to mourn his grandfather, but H's father left when he was about 6, and his grandfather was his father figure.
My father's health was declining rapidly, and H saw this. He avoided going to see my father in the hospital and even when we were at my dad's house, he did not interact with him. H has said that he was thinking about leaving before my dad died in Feb 2011 (on our 23rd Ann). H has said that my dad's death had a huge impact on him.
S19's prom had a huge impact on my H (May 2011). H did not pay attention to the details of the picture taking events. When I got home late from the picture taking and told him where I had been, he got extremely quiet and told me that no one had told him about the pictures (these plans were made by the kids, and they made the plans in the den over a period of a month. H was present in the room while they were making the plans). H said that he was hurt about not being invited. He seriously withdrew and when asked about why he was quiet, he said he had a lot on his mind but was not ready to talk about it yet.
The next month (June 2011), I got the "I am looking for a new place to live" BD the day after S19 graduated from high school.
Are they triggers? I think they are, but he has been dealing with depression for a long time. I think he just bottled up his emotions about these events and could not deal with the flood of emotions he was feeling.
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triggers (and roots) Awesome topic...I know learning about these triggers (and roots) helped me understand MLC a little better..
my ex had an unloving, drunken abusive father and was sexually abused by a male family member (I've read that its common for a child w/ such a parent to get abused by a male fam member). In addition, she was the oldest of several children and was often the caretaker and 'hero'. She had some weight and self-esteem issues and she was also a stay at home mom - no identity outside the home. Furthermore, she had a history of depression and OCD and went off her meds. Shortly after that, she lost her job - then her journey began.
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fascinating topic.
Ok so here goes:
ROOTS of ExH MLC
1. death of his beloved Mum when he was 15
2. workoholic dad who had always immersed himself in his work but doubly so after her death
3. exH slept with his Dad until new wife arrived in the UK as he was so worried he'd blow his brains out
4. Dad remarries within a year of his Mum's death to a Czech lady who is shy and hardly speaks any English
5. exH has to clear his Mums clothes from her wardrobe and drawers the night before his Step Mum was due to arrive in the UK
6. Dad has two children within 20 months or so of remarriage
7. photo's removed etc of his Mum at his fathers home and they are not allowed to discuss her as 'it's too upsetting for everyone'
ExH has always been extremely jealous of his half brother and sister - he believes they will inherit the money he is entitled to - exH was never proactive with his side of the family in the 18 years we were together. He ahs a very dysfunctional relationship with his sister who was 12 when her Mum died - I would often say she still behaved like a 12 year old because she is so emotionally stunted - she was sent off on a French exchange visit just after her Mum died and wasn't told of her death and she was buried whilst she was away in France.
TRIGGERS
1. November 2006 is suspended and subsequently 'let go' from his dream job as a Dealer Principal of a prestigious car manufacturer
2. Money is tight as I had just started my business at that time - he works with me in 'our' business as a consultant for a logistics company which he hates and where he spends increasing time in Europe and London
3. August 2007 - he hits 40 and I take him to Jersey where he used to go on family holidays with his Mum, Dad and sister
4. October 2008 his beloved paternal Grandma passes away - he had made peace with her after years of non contact
5. November 2008 he receives an e-mail from his exGirlfriend from when he was 15..
the perfect storm as OP says.....
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OK here goes ...
Roots: Only child and only grandchild, allowed to do whatever he wanted , he wouldn't have friends to his house, didn't want to share his toys. Spent a lot of time with grandparents.
When he became a teenager, he wasn't asked to be accountable, was allowed freedom to do what he wanted.
Was let down by 3 women who he thought he loved in late teens early 20's. Had issues with trusting women.
His parents did very little together, didn't have a loving marriage, his father would disappear from time to time. His mother accepted that.
Triggers:
Father diagnosed with terminal cancer 2004 accepted extensive surgery and chemotherapy/radiotherapy to prolong his life.
My Father died 2005, his father died 2007, my mother died 2008. Our D's went to High School in 2009 and he saw them becoming more independent, thought they didn't need him.
He achieved his dream of building a house 2004-2008, the financial crisis hit him badly and he lost a lot of money.
He lost the purpose in his life he said.
He lost his motivation, and changed into a negative sad person who became selfish and uncaring towards me and our D's. He is working on himself now, reading, but won't have therapy, he says he needs to do it himself.
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Wow, what a pattern that seems to be emerging....I guess everyone should hold tight when their spouse's parent or grandparent dies...seems to be a fairly consistent trigger.
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Yep- all this statrted for exH 10 or 12 years ago when his father died also. Started making a "life plan" Kept asking in the last few years how long we had been married. I guess he thought 20 years was a nice even round number in which to get divorced. :o
and Bon Bon
Guess I won't take anything for granted ever again, will I.
I'm in this same boat too. I really truly did take him for granted and that wasn't the thing to do.