Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: ember on March 03, 2016, 02:16:23 AM
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I was just wondering how messed up our kids are going to be after having gone through the trauma of having their families torn apart and having one parent lose his or her marbles?
My son is 20 and has been dating the same girl for 5 years and they are now moving in together. I just wonder if he will repeat what his dad did and have a huge MLC.
Any thoughts?
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interesting "worry" ember. I have wondered about this a lot. All I know is that my son married his girlfriend of 7 years during my H's crisis and they are now divorced??? I don't know that the turmoil caused anything but I do think that I missed a few "red flags" while I was trying to keep the family strong. S's wife walked away, she has quite a few FOO issues of her own that son and I dismissed as "no issue" when really they were big!! I worry that I was too wrapped up in H's crisis......but I am working on those feelings!
I do know my adult children watched my H and I work hard after we reconciled. They watched my stand with curiosity and dismay at times. They watched their dad finally work through some things he needed to work through and get healthy.
I hope and pray that because they watched, they read and they learned they "get it" and understand more about it!? I pray that is true. My perspective is with adult children so I can't comment on young children other than that is to be seen I guess.
If we the LBS can get ourselves healthy and strong I believe the children will learn from that no matter the age.
31andcounting
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Ember,
I am not sure at your son's age that he will be greatly affected by the crisis. With the research I have done it seems that the really critical point where children pick up the issues is before the age of 10. The child's first ten years are apparently where they learn all that important family values. Not to say that older children wont be affected in some way but I don't believe it will be as severe. Just an opinion I suppose.
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I wonder this every single day, 31. I think the answer is yes to the extent that there is no way this can't hurt them. That's what makes this so tragic.
However, I do think we as parents can do some help to mitigate. My H's dad went through MLC and so did his great-grandfather. Both of the moms lost it afterwards: H's mom became very depressed and wothdrawn and married an abusivr gambler when she got pregnant by then. He mistreated the kids and damaged her financed. The great-grandmother responded by abandoning the kids herself, taking a lot of her anger out on them.
If these women had thrown themselves into their children and kept themselves together for them, I'm sure they would have mitigated a lot of the damage. I think their own choices helped exacerbate the problem, as unfairly that it was they were put in the situation in the first place.
I think the best thing we can do for our kids is to explain as clearly as possible what is going on. I have let my S7 know this is a mental health issue not a marriage issue and even explained his dad's childhood trauma, what depression is, and what a crisis is. I often tell him that his dad isn't going to be like this forever.
No matter what the outcome, I feel it's important we continue to talk openly throughout our children's lives about what happened and also how it might impact them too. I would definitely once my son is dating talk to him more about communication and respect and the dangers of repeating behavior patterns. I would also encourage premarital counseling for any couple with MLC parent. (I wish I had done this.)
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Good points made, thank you. My son was 14 when this all started and he and I were close and had many conversations about what was going on with his dad without going too far into the dirty details. I told my son that his dad was confused and needed to be alone to figure things out. They had a fairly tense relationship before bomb drop and now my son is fairly distant from his dad.
My exFIL was not a nice guy; he abandoned his sons while they were very young and then their mom abandoned them a few years later and their dad took over. He became and angry alcoholic that beat his kids fairly regularly and my exH pretty much hated him by the time I entered the picture at 19. Its interesting that my exh turned out to be a ba$tard to my son the way his dad was to him, just not as bad.
I do have a very tight family on my side where all the males are strong and healthy and sensible and hopefully they have rubbed off on my son as to what a real family man should be.
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I had the same concern and asked the psychologist at my children's doctors office. He knows the story about H even though it is our version only as he hasn't met H. I told him H's father left him as a young child and would my kids want to do the same when they grow up, especially S.
The psychologist said probably not, the difference being when it happened to H as a boy, he most likely didn't have the support that S does now, and we are also dealing with it in a far more reasonable way than H's mother did.
I don't suppose we will ever know, just keep positive and hope it never happens.
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I sure hope not. But I worry about that all the time. I do think that trying to mitigate the chaos by keeping communication open and giving the kids unconditional love will help. Thankfully mine were not baby babies when dad left (9 & 11) and H and I continue to present a united front as parents even as we are no longer United as a couple. I truly hope that it is enough to protect them.
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Ember,
I am not sure at your son's age that he will be greatly affected by the crisis. With the research I have done it seems that the really critical point where children pick up the issues is before the age of 10. The child's first ten years are apparently where they learn all that important family values. Not to say that older children wont be affected in some way but I don't believe it will be as severe. Just an opinion I suppose.
Older children certainly are affected by this. Many studies show that older kids have a much more difficult time with parents divorce because they come to wonder if their entire life was a lie.
While I understand the concerns of those with younger kids, the reality is everyone is devastated by MLC, and I think it's quite possible that some of our kids will struggle with this for many, many years--no matter their age when it hit.
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Medusa, I remember my S26 screaming and yelling and crying his heart out (during the time H hit rock bottom) and saying No, that would mean my entire life has been a lie and it hasn't been!!!! Gosh it is all script!!
31
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There are really two questions here. Can and will this affect our children's mental health and will this lead to our children later experiencing an MLC themselves?
These are just my opinions based on what I think I know about MLC.
First, yes this can and will affect our children no matter how old they are. My daughters were 31 and 34 and my granddaughter was 13 at BD and they've all been affected. I think the following three things are critical. First, they need to understand what's happening and to know and believe that it's not about them. Second, they need to receive and feel love and support. Third, they need to be able to talk through and work through their feelings about what's happening and how it's affecting them. If they're sad, they need to be able to cry. If they're mad, they need to be able to express anger. And they need to know that it's ok to experience those feelings.
Will they eventually experience an MLC? Children are extremely vulnerable during early childhood. Their brains are undergoing a tremendous amount of change during their first five years and during this time high, continuous levels of stress or traumatic events can affect the physical, structural development of the brain in ways that will greatly increase the odds of them later having an MLC. That certainly sounds like what they experience during an MLC, doesn't it? But it's still not guaranteed that it's going to cause them to have issues later in life. The real issue is whether they were able to develop a secure attachment during that period. If, during this time, the child is able to develop a secure attachment to just one person it acts like an inoculation against later problems with PTSD and other dissociative disorders that I believe are the basis for MLC. Are older children susceptible to later going through an MLC? If they get the kind of support I mentioned above, I don't think so. Even if they don't, I think it's possible but not likely unless the trauma they experience during the MLC is severe, ongoing, and ignored.
I'll use my situation for illustration. My father was a rageaholic, probably because of untreated wartime PTSD. His raging episodes were highly traumatic and set the stage. But what guaranteed my future issues with PTSD, anxiety, and depression was that my mother was raised in a household with an alcoholic father and as a result never learned how to be nurturing. She was emotionally closed off her whole life so I never developed a secure attachment with anyone when I was young. I had nobody to go to during my father's raging and nobody to talk to about it and to help me understand it or to soothe me. In fact, I think one of the reasons I'm having such a hard time with my wife's MLC is that she is the first and only person with whom I've ever developed a secure attachment. When I lost her I lost the foundation my life had been built upon. I'm still floundering without her.
I hope something in here has been helpful. I truly believe that one person can make a huge difference. You can be that person.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erikson%27s_stages_of_psychosocial_development
I think that the best we can do is be sure that our children make it through each stage of development without feeling abandoned and although they may be down one parent their are other ways to make up for that.
Father missing for young teenage boys,
how about enrolling them in boy scouts
or girl scouts for girls if mother is missing.
Having good adult role models helps.
Our children watch us and develop properly despite sometimes poor parenting.
They are going to rebel against us and they sometimes must learn how to grow up on their own.
MLC, FOO or not, survival of the fittest will prevail
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I agree Brain!! One person can make a difference :)
(hugs)
31
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A few points here that my own IC mentioned to me when I raised this common worry.
I was told:
First ten years of life it's critical to form an attachment with an adult who meets their needs, including the need to "matter"
I definitely see the seeds of my Hs MLC in early childhood events (adopted separately from his twin brother ages 2, some time after his birth mother left)
My girls have me, and my explanations of what's happened, my efforts to place their emotional wellbeing on the priority list, and my consistent, stable and (mostly) calm presence in their lives. As well as my example of learning to find gratitude and peace and joy regardless of your circumstances.
I hope that's enough to reduce the chances of long term emotional /relationship issues for them.
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If we the LBS can get ourselves healthy and strong I believe the children will learn from that no matter the age.
what 31 said...
i have a friend who came from a ridiculously horrible family life--her father was abusive, crazy, probably drunk or on drugs, the parents divorced and the mother remarried while my friend was still in early high school. she told me "as long as your d's have one stable parent--that's you--they'll be fine"
this friend certainly has her issues (don't we all???) but is a straight up gal and a good parent and from what i can tell of her marriage (who really knows), a good wife.
my d's were 9, 8, and 4 at BD and are now 14, 12, and 8. i have wondered the same thing as you, ember, and really have to believe what 31 posted. i'm getting feedback, and observing behavior from the d's, that it's really true. of course, i would be LYING if sometimes i didn't want the d's to DENOUNCE their father for his deplorable behavior--but i don't expect that.
the d's DO, however, and in a pretty offhand way, say things about how angry their father is. things like
You know how he yells all the time
and
you know how he's always angry when ____
in talking to the d's about the situation b/w their father and me, i used vague terminology such as "your father seems confused about a lot of things right now" or "i" statements like "i have too much self-respect to let your father talk to me that way"
who knows if the d's will have insurmountable FOO issues because of their father's MLC. hell, they could have insurmountable FOO issues because of me, and that would just be the way the cookie crumbled; the difference being, though, that i do MY VERY BEST to be a parent, not a friend, not someone who puts myself first, and not someone who's so weak that i'll shy away from any potential unpleasantness, real or perceived.
it's all mind-boggling. and at the end of the day, i guess we all just do the best we can. the sad part is that either the MLCer IS doing the best he can (and it's just pathetic and weak) or he's CHOSEN to put himself and his skankho wife and her family before his own children.
end result is the same.
onlyjo
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I only hope that the parenting I have done since their dad left 6 years ago is enough to keep both my kids sane. I had my tight family to help out as well. I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed.