[Treasur]

Actually my last thought is....who cares? It's not my crisis.
And just as MLC behaviour undoubtedly trumps divorce, it seems as if it trumps ow#1 or ow#101 too 

[barbiedoll]

The affair is necessary.

My xH went searching for the perfect ow and after possibly ?three false starts, he finally found her. She is the same age as he is and very like his mother - controlling & as cold as ice.

This article from HB really says it all.  The MLCer uses the ow/om to fill the gaps in their upbringing.  That's why it's called REPLAY.  Love this article.  Almost makes me like the ow

.

I agree with this 100% . From my experience , all my research and talking with many therapists ..it had to happen. There was a purpose for it . As much as I hate all of it ( and I feel the hurt just typing this ) it HAD to happen for some men ...maybe not all, but I doubt it.

The very 1st therapist I spoke with used the term " the black dog of midlife". I knew him prior to BD and he was very apologetic and concerned that this would happen to "me". He told me that I was " out of my husbands picture"..that he was on a desperate unstoppable search for resolution to all that ails him from his childhood. Allburied for far too long. He insisted that the " universe or the forces that be" are taking him back to his "woundings" and it is time to deal with them. REPLAY of those times that desperately need resolution and permanent healing. An "opportunity" for him to become "whole". She  ( OW) plays an absolute part ...like temporary train tracks this out of control freight train of a man will ride on .... for awhile. He is drawn to her because she is the re-incarnation of his wounds . Of course all of this is buried deep inside the subconscious but it is running the "escape". He told me to stay off the tracks...they are not meant for you. Leave him alone 100% and you may meet him again in a year or two and you will either hate him forever or love him again. He told me that the larger percentage of men that he sees DO return to their family ...very broken and full of shame. But , the deeper level healing of previous wounds has occurred or is in that process. SHE is the only one that can do this ...NOT a wife. The wife has been put in a spot of protection...from him . Now, I wept thru this entire conversation and dismissed most of what he said ...because what sh%t is this ?   I was very very early in this crisis and just trying to stand up.

The OW will be a representative of his wounds. She will be either the mother wound or the father wound and is the vessel of his subconsciously returning to the "scene of the wound" to re-write it or "something" to heal it and integrate it into acceptance and healing. My husbands childhood wounds are extreme... the worst some therapist have seen and some find him astonishing that he made it this far successfully. He should be in prison... and had he lost control of his "mask" , that's where he would be. He has a deep profound rage and wounds from both his parents.

SHE was the mother wound ... I can follow that logic. His mother left ( severely injured in an ambulance on what my husband describes as a snowy black night) . He was 3 and watched his father beat his mother and stab her from his screaming spot behind a pole lamp. He had blood on his jammies...and he would not stop screaming until someone took him from the room. It was his uncle that finally grabbed him and took him out of the room. His uncle was only 13 ( my husband was 3) and he is a constant visitor in our home and remembers it all very very well. My husband never saw his mother again and grew up believing she was dead. She was 18 at the time and left a 3 year old, a two year old and a new born. So... in my understanding this is the mother of all wounds to a child ... she is gone. His mother. And they do find a way to blame themselves , even at 3. Many of his uncles have spoken to him over the years and told him it was NOT his fault. SOOO , my interpretation. What is a mother supposed to be in the perfect world?

The OW in my husbands case ... was that mother wound. She accepted him NO MATTER WHAT . That he was a liar and was deceiving 5 adult daughters ( that she had a relationship with) meant nothing to her. He had a "right" to be happy. She accepted he was a liar. He was a cheater . She accepted this . He was unemployed and broken. He was absent a lot... even from her . She accepted him as flawless , perfect, her savior ... that no matter what he did, who he was, how he behaved, what his character was, who he would destroy ...he was everything to her, would risk anything to be with him. She validated him. He was perfect just as he was , all his flaws, all his imperfections... she loved him as a mother would love a child, would never leave him . She wears a permanent smile on her face... no matter what. That is who she is and must be in her line of work. Always "happy" to customers etc. A permanent grin plastered on her face ...even when inappropriate. She is rather "simple". ...but happy. He could never make me "happy"... so he said repeatedly. My husband is a very tactile person. And here sits my wound.... She was physically all over him, she initiated sexual contact, she hugged , rubbed his back, cut his hair, would sexually do anything to keep her savior. It would have been his "spot" or his most vulnerable place is thru touch. Somehow mixed in there is a mothers touch ... caressing, comfort, acceptance. Jung has some explanation of this ... ( it creates endless movies, hurt and anguish for me ... so enough about it) . That is my limited understanding of a far deeper , complex "happening" when re-playing childhood wounds. HIS therapist  has absolutely shared this this theory with him .. she was the vessal on healing a mother abandonment wound. I only understand it in shallow ways...but I know it is truth.

SHE was without question his father as well... more so actually. This OW served a dual "healing" if you accept such things. She is an alcoholic , even drinking at work. His father ? A raging alcoholic and undoubtedly a narcissist . She has BPD and struggled with anorexia as a teen. I have know her since she was 16  or 17 and was "friends" with her mother . Her 1st marriage involved marriage to a man in his 60's and she was barely 20. Her 2nd marriage ended with her in jail charged and convicted of assault. Her 2nd husband required 2 facial re-constructive surgeries as she struck him in a drunken rage with a glass vase. In the face...repeatedly. She has twice been divorced , several CL relationships and my husband was her 3rd "married " man. She has 2 sons. One is permanently disabled from drug induced physhosis and the other has sexual-orientation issues. My husband was her "white knight" that she intended to keep at all costs.  My husbands father was the most physically abusive man I ever met... he was in and out of jail but primarily beat women and children. Is this all just a fluke that he would be drawn to the exact clone of his father ?? The female version I do not think so at all. Something else subconsciously was taking place... it had to happen. My husbands affair lasted ( if I have the actual truth) from march until mid November. So a total of 9 months. Very very short from all else I have seen. I do not know why. I discovered his affair 1 week before he threw her in the garbage in the cruel callous way... and attempted to return home.  Did it "hinder " or "help?". I guess it served him and his issues. His therapist sees it as a "gift" of transition and was not a "true affair" at all. Not the common type of affair ...but some part of an awakening and resolution of trauma from his childhood.

[KeepItTogether]

Wow Barbi--thank you for sharing that.  I know it must have been very painful re-living  it, but it helps those of us still in the throws of the MLCer's affair to better understand, and thus, to deal with it.

[RedStar]

My husband was her "white knight" that she intended to keep at all costs. 
...
he threw her in the garbage in the cruel callous way...

Barbie, thanks so much for your amazing post. I am so, soooo sorry that you've had to go through so much and also that your H had to experience what he did, especially when he was little. 

I also believe that if it's MLC, the alienator, whether it is the most common type (affair) or not, does seem to be some kind of reenactment tool for working through a dysfunctional parental relationship--and that this alienator basically replaces the spouse for the purpose. I don't have much of a window on my xH's life, but I did see how the broken addict I was suddenly replaced with echoes the major dysfunctions of both his parents. His self-worth issues are glaring--he jumped right into the knighting and people-pleasing and (most likely unconsciously) buying a whole new set of "friends" who are only too happy to stick out their hands for more favors. Good luck to him...

The two short items I quoted from your post are really striking to me.

I'm sure it's different for different MLCers/OW, but...I wonder what makes an MLCer stop wanting to be a knight for these broken people (and the various hangers-on) and find them no longer so desirable? After all, they started out thinking it was all the best. idea. ever. 

[MyBrainIsBroken]

Complicated question. As Barbie stated so well, the AP is used by the MLCer to attempt to work through unresolved issues related to childhood neglect, trauma, and abandonment. Is the AP necessary? Not really. Proper therapy would be much more helpful but MLCers aren't the type to talk to a therapist and most therapists don't know how to properly treat MLCers anyway. For the MLCer the AP is like a home remedy.

Does the AP help or hinder the MLCer's journey? Without a doubt, the AP hinders the MLCer's journey. I'll use my wife as an example to explain why. My wife's om is very much like her abusive father. When she was a child she couldn't make her father love her because her father was a abusive narcissist. Her experience with the om will be the same as it was with her father because she isn't the problem, her father and the om are both incapable of loving her. So the resolution that she's looking for, making her "father" love her, won't happen.

It is possible that my wife will eventually realize that it isn't her fault that her father abused her and then she will be able to begin to recover. I know it's possible because it happened for her sister after the man her sister was with put a gun to her head and threatened to kill her. The problem is that the APs are usually very good at manipulating and abusing people like the MLCers and I think that's why these affairs last for so long. The AP prolongs the MLC.

Here are links to two articles that do a good job of explaining what Barbie was talking about. It's called reenactment compulsion. The first article, by van der Kolk, is a classic by one of the foremost experts in the field of childhood trauma.

The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma
http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/vanderkolk/

A Helpful Way to Conceptualize and Understand Reenactments
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3330499/

[Treasur]

Thank you Barbie for your generosity and courage in sharing that especially now.
And thank you Hawkeye/Brain as always for adding a way to deepen our understanding

[Anjae]

MLCers have far more than an affair, they live, or even marry OW/OM. An affair is something kept in secret behind a spouse's back.

Totally hinder the crisis and it tend to be one of the major things, if not the major thing, that prevents reconnection and reconciliation.

Are affairs/living with OW/OM inevitable? I don't know, but most MLCers seem to go there.

Not all high energy MLCers have affairs. I didn't, Ready2 didn't. Our crisis come after our husbands left.

The higher the energy in replay the faster and hotter the fires of replay burn.

Not really. As seen by Mr J and many other MLCers. They just keep on the high energy for years on end. It is misleading to think the higher the energy the fast it will burn. HS is full of examples that show otherwise.

Most will never reconcile and the major reason is that the MLCer got involved with someone else, or several someone elses. Therefore, as far as the original couple is concerned, affairs aren't of much use. They also don't seem to be of any, if much, use for a MLCer.

I am still to know a real life MLCer that has tried to work any issues with OW/OM.

[Trustandlove]

Thank you for that, Barbie -- definitely something to think about.

My H didn't have anywhere near that kind childhood issues, but one thing that did resonate with me is that the OW considers him perfect even though she knows he is anything but -- again, I don't know much about my H's situation, but from what has reached me I gather that the OW definitely is one who gives him that kind of adoration you describe.  I get the impression that she just wanted a man, and now that she has one she will do anything to keep him.    And she definitely knows which physical buttons to push as well. 

It is possible that she doesn't know much of what he has done, but on many levels I find that very hard to believe, so I can only conclude that it makes no difference to her. 

And as such, I would think that in this case it hinders progress, because he doesn't have to do any work -- even though he is in a way trapped, he doesn't have to face anything, because he gets the adoration no matter what. 

But as a recipe for happiness?  No way. 

[stillbaffled]

My H didn't have anywhere near that kind childhood issues, but one thing that did resonate with me is that the OW considers him perfect even though she knows he is anything but -- again, I don't know much about my H's situation, but from what has reached me I gather that the OW definitely is one who gives him that kind of adoration you describe.  I get the impression that she just wanted a man, and now that she has one she will do anything to keep him.    And she definitely knows which physical buttons to push as well. 

It is possible that she doesn't know much of what he has done, but on many levels I find that very hard to believe, so I can only conclude that it makes no difference to her. 

And as such, I would think that in this case it hinders progress, because he doesn't have to do any work -- even though he is in a way trapped, he doesn't have to face anything, because he gets the adoration no matter what. 

Lots of interesting and informative stuff shared here so far. 

The above parts from T&L's post that I have put in bold accurately describe how I feel things are for my MLCer and his new OWife.   After all, he is her 5th marriage license in my county so I anticipate she will pretzel herself into just about anything to hang on to him.  After all, she turns 50 this year and it's going to become harder to find husband number six! 

Barbie - thank you for sharing.  I read several books on depression and midlife crisis when my MLCer ran away.  I think it was the Jim Conway book that mentioned the "black dog of midlife". 

[hopeandfaith]

Very interesting conversation.  Hmmm where to start.

My H is onto his 2nd ow after having returned home for 3 years first.  ow 1 seemed to have been like his first long term gf (age 13-20) and his 2nd ow seems to be a bit more like his 2nd space filler gf.  I think the 2nd gf was only there to help him deal with the loss of his first gf (who he cheated on) because he had planned to marry her.  He often admitted to the 2nd gf that she was like the Eagles song that has lyrics about wanting and needing someone but never loving them.   

I have always felt like H is grieving the loss of his first gf but more specifically, the loss of the man he thought he was until he cheated on her.  1st gf sounded very strong and sure (similar to ow 1) and 2nd gf sounded a lot more needy, which is like ow 2.  This round of MLC is lasting longer and I think it is because ow 2 won't let go but ow 1 did.

Gf 1 sounded a bit like me - strong.  Ow 1 was selfish, which looked strong.  MIL is strong.  FIL is a bit like H but H wasn't really that close to him.  No foo issues to speak of which is why I probably thought/think that H's replay is about his early relationships which took up his formative teenage years.  He was heavily influenced then his gf so its like he is having a do over of that time.

The very interesting thing is, H has recently found out he has another sister from his fathers previous relationship (before MIL).  The thing is, FIL knew about it and kept the secret fort 52 years. That's got to affect the fabric of a family.  H is now not the only secret keeper and not the only one to have had an affair because this new sisters mother was in a relationship with another man when she got pregnant to FIL.  It will be very interesting to see how that sinks in to H and how it changes the fabric of his soul. 

Regarding the adoration from the ow. I believe that changes too and is often what brings about the end of that relationship.  H's ow was all accepting at the beginning.  She called H "her sexy drunk man".  I mean really!!.  Now, she doesn't want to date a married man (in other words get a divorce).  H told me this and said that he'd suggested to her that it was a bit late for that.  This is a standard that I hold and it is accepted and admired by my H.  This is a standard that she is now trying to hold and it is being scowled at.    The ow can't suddenly start making the MLCer feel bad about their choices or standards. That is not the position she was hired for.  She either has to put up with the mediocre crumbs she was happy getting at the beginning or get out.  The crumbs at the beginning probably felt better because he wasn't looking over his shoulder at me.  I am betting she is feeling the difference now which is why she is trying to sure things up with him a bit.  DOH!