[xyzcf]

Affair did not serve a PURPOSE, which implies that it was oriented toward FUTRE resolution of MLCer’s issues.  Rather, it was the RESULT of the PAST, in that he lost his mind, soul, integrity, self control and his moral code (becoming base and despicable), thus leading him to make the biggest mistake in his life that inflicted indescribable pain on the people that loved him and destroyed trust, marriage and family.  It was a totally selfish act in true MLCer form.

I agree Acorn. Like all the other maladaptive behaviors, the "affair" is just one more thing they use to try and fill the void inside of them.

As far as I can see, she did not make him a better version of himself or help him to heal those wounds that darken his life.

[Still Half full]

From Nerissa

From a ‘depth psychology’ perspective, the opposite may be the truth - that your H doesn’t consciously recognise:  it is perfectly possible that he is projecting; that he views you as belonging on  kind of pedestal (idealising you) and when you fell ill, you showed that you are not superhuman and may be as weak as the next person.  This unconscious disappointment leads to devaluation.  Now if it is in purpose.”

Hmmmmm, that’s got me thinking 😊thanks for posting your thoughts on my situation Nerissa, I don’t know much about psychology so I’m not sure if this is relevant but when we met 30 years ago I was pretty fragile, a very close friend had recently committed suicide and it obviously affected me, H was incredibly understanding and caring, and I have suffered with poor health throughout the marriage,  so I don’t think we were ever in a place where he thought I was superhuman.  I think since BD he has now placed me on a pedestal, and I think he thinks he’s no longer worthy, but to be honest, I really don’t know as we don’t have much contact other than work

From Nerissa

In addition, a lot of people have charmed lives and their early years were less than optimal in child development terms.  You have no way of truly knowing what his earliest months were like.  As parents it is inevitable that we all unwittingly let our children down in ways we don’t recognise .

You’re right, I’ve no idea about his childhood, there could be stuff, but it’s always “appeared” that his family are stable and I haven’t ever seen any red flags.  I think the root of his MLC depression was finding out that he couldn’t have children in our mid 30’s.  We did talk about it a lot but I think this was a cloud that he carried and didn’t truly deal with at the time. ow is mid 30’s and it surprises me that he is with a woman who is at the age when she could have children. I think this is a complex issue for him that he hasn’t dealt with and could be his MLC depression issue along with ageing ?

I admit I don’t know if anything I’ve written has anything to do with his MLC, just like I don’t understand why my friend was so depressed he killed himself at 30

I don’t think I’ll ever know what happened to my H, there are only the posts I’ve read here from LBS who have had more insight from their MLCer, and the endless hours I’ve spent trying to understand and make sense of what’s happened

And I realise I’ve gone completely off the subject off if the affair helps or hinders, sorry 😊 I think in my case the affair, ow, drinking is all about escape and avoidance of facing himself ?

“

From Bewildered:   

I’m not convinced he working anything out in that relationship and think it’s purely based on addiction and a need to avoid himself and his demons.

This is MLC in a nutshell.  Addiction is often, if not always an aspect of MLC.   The addiction helps them keep unconsciously distance from their unresolved issues.  Who knows exactly what he is working out in that relationship with ow?    Most of the growth in ‘beneath the soil’ and unseen to us, especially since we are not usually in the front row seats anymore.   We just don’t know what is going on in their heads.   Reconciled lbs spouses also went through many doubts over the years because they simply could not see or assess what was happening in the mind of their MLCer.   Many MLCer's come through eventually and to some LBS's it seems to happen suddenly because the bulk of the growth is not visible from our view.  “

This struck a chord too

[Treasur]

Such an interesting and thought provoking discussion thread, Anon.

I was musing on why there is such a pull to finding some 'common' rationale about MLC. Notwithstanding that there do seem to be common often shared behaviours in MLCers at least initially. But there are differences too between individual 'case stories' it seems to me.

If I use my own experience and replace MLC with PTSD say....and put myself in an imaginary room with 100 other folks with PTSD...

There are symptoms and behaviours which would would allow me or a therapist to say yup, sounds like PTSD. If I chatted to the rest of the 100, most of us would share some say panic attacks and memory loss and nausea - to the extent that we would recognise something in common in a way that non-PTSD folks would not find familiar - but some would experience some less common symptoms say hallucinations or tinnitus. I don't have to tick ALL the symptoms to have PTSD. And the differences are about how our individual brains react and how we develop different coping reactions bc of who we are.

If we chatted together about the causes - taking a broad definition of PTSD as event/s that overwhelmed our internal and external resources - the causes would not be the same either, the trigger events. They would be big awful things about pain and loss and shock and helplessness probably but not an identical checklist. And the context that limited our internal and external resources e.g. previous mental health issues or family support or our own history would not be identical either. Or the coping strategies we tried before that did not work and maybe became part of the problem.

So, if the same therapist was treating those 100 people using a common process like EMDR, the details of the treatment would be unique for each one even if the EMDR technique was the same. Different triggering events, different self talk, different goals, different blockages...and so different paths to healing and measuring PTSD recovery. But still all fitting in the broad label of trauma and PTSD, and rewiring brains that on an MRI scan would show similar patterns of more and less active functioning. And similar enough that if I described a bit of a 'recovery' experience and how it felt, others could 'get' it and nod. And that there is an observable and feel-able difference between having PTSD and no longer having PTSD....but most of us are no longer the exact same pre-PTSD person bc of the scale of the experience yet post-PTSD recovery comes with a sense of finding yourself again.

Is PTSD 'purposeful'? Well, initially PTSD serves the purpose of your brain protecting you from trauma you cannot process. Then it becomes a behavioural and mental pattern of avoidance rooted in fear, so again some kind of self protection. Is it purposeful in the sense of a deeper meaning or some kind of personal growth? Hmm, perhaps that depends on the individual...the purpose probably evolves from survival to self protection to wanting to shed PTSD to....lots of escape/avoid stuff to what....some kind of rebuilding or refining stuff.....redefining your sense of self? Or finding a new life goal? Or reevaluating your priorities, beliefs or lifestyle? And that is assuming I guess that you realise you have PTSD, decide you can no longer live with it as it is and are fortunate enough to find the right treatment approach with a good therapist. And the PTSD behaviours will have created consequential damage - lost jobs, unpaid bills, relationships you have withdrawn from say - that you still will need to tidy up after you no longer have PTSD. How you do that will probably depend on what your post-PTSD self values and wants to do with your life.

Is PTSD conscious or unconscious? In my experience, it was both but sometimes more one than the other. Sometimes I just knew I was paralysed by fear big enough to make me vomit when a phone rang but did not know why. Sometimes I knew that I was being triggered, that it was a PTSD response but my consciousness of that did not change my compulsion to avoid or hide. Sometimes it did and I would have a momentary conscious success in managing my behaviour...often followed by an epic failure...so a cycle. Recovery involved learning more about what my unconscious was driving me towards and learning from trying different conscious ways to behave differently while EMDR was simultaneously working on my brain processing the trauma almost mechanically. While EMDR started to change my unconscious impulses, learning and experimenting began to change my conscious ones. And what does that mean for my insight into my own behaviour and responsibility for it? There were times when - even though I knew what I was doing was ridiculous, selfdestructive or irrational - the compulsion was overwhelming. You could have put a gun to my head, rolled out a panel of experts or put my sobbing concerned friends right in front of me....and it would have made no difference at all. I lived in my PTSD head which was more real. I could wear a mask sometimes for a little while. I was full of shame and despair. I lied a lot to avoid doing some things - to myself and to others - and I felt guilty and weak for doing that too but did it anyway bc the PTSD need to avoid was simply bigger. As I began in small steps to deal with my PTSD, I got a little more honest with myself first and then others. But it was often difficult to describe what it was like in my head in words....and I was often afraid that I would never be normal or like myself again, and perhaps that people wouldn't accept or like the post-PTSD me if there ever was one or be able to forgive my PTSD behaviours. Now, to be fair, I didn't do things that were actively damaging to others...but I did lie and withdraw and become very self-centred and forget things and not keep promises and was very unreliable about big and small things.

If I swap PTSD out and put the MLC word back in....I can see some things which might look a bit similar.
Some events and beliefs which overwhelmed my capacity to cope.
A compulsion to avoid that was bigger than my capacity or rational control.
A very noisy inner life and a disconnection between that and reality around me.
Lying and hiding and pretending as a coping strategy which added extra damage
A lot of guilt and fear and despair and confusion and helplessness and self-blame while life and time moved on around me, a real feeling of being lost in the world and lost to myself
It was not a positive future-focused choice, more about events and my unconscious reaction turning into a maladaptive response I got stuck in until it hurt too much to stay there and I found my way out with time, treatment and small steps which BECAME the positive future-focused choice bc focusing on that WAS the only way out. Pretty much all of the struggle and all of the change that healed me was internal and not always clear in my mind tbh, although I got some good timely help along the way.

So if I translate that into MLC, it seems to me that MLC is not a positive choice but as Nerissa says a maladaptive kind of defence mechanism. That what pulls people into it is probably some combination of life events and unresolved baggage or beliefs that no longer seem to hold water...but these are different for different people....that depression creeps up and then tips into MLC as a large,y unconscious way of dealing with how they feel. MLC as a defence mechanism has a playbook so hence the Script bits we see but bc the nub of what people are trying to escape from, emotionally speaking, is different, we see different escape versions based on that. So the affair or the job or geography or money or LBS or house or kids all play a part in the avoidance and emotions shown, but MLCers use them differently bc they are not all running from the same things if that makes sense? I suspect though that they only become a positive 'help' if or when the individual shifts to a point when they no longer want to run/avoid and then start learning from MLC experiences in order to get/feel better. Not all of my life choices while I had PTSD turned out to be bad ones; most were but not all and as I started to recover, I started to be able to pick out the good from the bad and be more conscious of why I was doing what I was doing. In my case, running away to the sea turned out to be a very good choice but it was an act of desperation and not very wise financially tbh. As I recovered, where I live has become a solid foundation to build a post-PTSD life on.....and I am the same core person now but with some different attitudes and insight bc of my experiences...I imagine that tbh an affair relationship that started as an escape could turn into the same sort of thing depending on the reality of it and your expectations. Or it could suddenly be obviously a huge mistake...so if I had not run here but happened to have run back to London or to Italy or to Australia, all options I toyed with 

MLC is probably about the past vs the present; recovery is probably about the present vs the future. My experience of PTSD tbh would reinforce the assumption that nothing external makes any difference at all until, for sometimes not very big or clear reasons, you simply no longer can bear to live as you are with PTSD...or MLC I guess. And at that point, much as you feel broken and afraid, you will try almost anything to not be living as the person you have become and in the way you are living. It simply becomes un-doable for one more minute. But recovery also takes longer than you might think until suddenly you seem to cross a line and get some real momentum and then it moves very quickly.

Sorry if that's a bit long winded but I wanted to share the bit of insight that I have gleaned from my own maladaptive defence mechanism lol.

[Acorn]

MLC is probably about the past vs the present; recovery is probably about the present vs the future. My experience of PTSD tbh would reinforce the assumption that nothing external makes any difference at all until, for sometimes not very big or clear reasons, you simply no longer can bear to live as you are with PTSD...or MLC I guess. And at that point, much as you feel broken and afraid, you will try almost anything to not be living as the person you have become and in the way you are living. It simply becomes un-doable for one more minute. But recovery also takes longer than you might think until suddenly you seem to cross a line and get some real momentum and then it moves very quickly.   

Well said, Treasur. 

One needs to get to a point where he can not bear the person he has become.  It’s the the start of climbing out of abyss.  This is what I have seen with my MLCer and my LBS-self.  It’s all internal.  No one could help me or H.  Sure, one could hear or read about it but nothing makes any difference until he/she grabs the beast by its horns and proactively do something about it. 

I had regressed to an emotionally immature and helpless little girl after BD.  I was disgusted with that little girl’s whimpering ways.  So, what to do but grow up real quick.  It was a choice, just as it was for H to climb out of the MLC abyss.

Oops, got off the topic!  Well, it’s allowed because it’s Sunday, right?!

[Treasur]

Definitely allowed, Acorn...and hopefully we are not too far off the help/hinder topic bc we are musing I suppose on if MLC behaviour is purposeful....or if the purpose comes after it and as a consequence of it. And if the affair or indeed any of the other horrid stuff is part of the poison or part of what drives the desire for a cure.

I didn't much like my LBS self either....and the PTSD version was even more pathetic. But if I am kind to her, it is easier to see her as a necessary evil that helped me survive long enough to get to here and where I am heading next. And the post-LBS version is much easier to like. Even with her new penchant for small bursts of flavoured gin

[Anjae]

We need to distinguish between things that happen for a purpose vs. those that happen as a consequence.

Indeed. Regardless each MLCer's reason for MLC, the affair is a consequence, not something with a purpose.

Most MLCers are probably kicked to the curb and divorced with no way back to the LBS. So the number that actually reconcile is probably even a smaller percentage than those who reconcile among forum members.

They most surely are. So far, I know no real life reconnection with a MLCer who had an affair and/or left. My cousin was a wallower who never left or had OW.


Briefly, I think we could, so far, have three reasons for MLC:

1) Age/Fear of Getting Old.
2) FOO Issues/Unresolved Past Issues
3) An improper, or maladaptive behavior, towards Trauma in adulthood: divorce, spouse MLC, death of a parent, loss of job, etc.

There may be more reasons. These are the ones I manage to come up with going with HS and real life. More than one reason may be a factor for some MLCers.


My experience with panic attacks was that I did not knew it were panic attacks. I thought I was having a very bad asthma attack. So bad that Mr, who had already left, but had been in the flat that day being a total MLCer D*** had to take me to hospital. There, the doctor was like "it is not an asthma attack, it is a panic one". Me, what? 

One needs to get to a point where he can not bear the person he has become.

This. In my case, there were people who helped me. If nothing else by making sure I was safe in my crazy, manic going out and about phase.

I had regressed to an emotionally immature and helpless little girl after BD.

I had become someone I never had been. And I was emotional rather than logical. Yikes. No idea who that person was.


If the affair served a purpose, why would out of Replay or crisis MLCers say OW/OM meant nothing? If they mean nothing they had no relevance and certainly did not help or were essencial for any issues to be solved.

The only thing Mr J's OW1 and OW2 did was to enable his MLC ways and to tell him how amazing he was. Like LP says, enabling MLCers, addicts, alcoholics, etc. does not help them, it hinders them.

[Anon]

There is much more to consider than I imagined when I opened the discussion.   My head hurts trying to figure the question out with all these comments.  Thank you all for taking the time to offer your thoughts and opinions.   

Where am I now.   I don't know exactly.   If I accept that my h is just a selfish sob who cares nothing for anyone but himself then my new problem is reconciling that with who I believed he was before BD.   For most of us that person was nothing like the MLC person.   How is it possible for him to be both the pre-bd and post-bd person?  Seems a bit schizophrenic to me that he could really be both people, just not at the same time.   

On the other hand, if I believe instead,,, that he was a basically good person then I have to answer the question,,
'what happened to make him not a good person'?   His mask dropped?   No... because he still wears it, especially with the AP.

I still think the affair has a purpose of some kind even if they feel nothing for the AP.   The AP has a job to do,,, validate the MLCer, make him feel like he's special, adored, valuable, respected.   That's what an AP does for a MLCer.   The affair is all about how the AP makes them feel.    They feel something with the AP that they cannot feel without the AP.   The focus is still on them and feeling something.   Nothing to do with genuine love, but only on their own emotional state and how the AP influences it.    It's no wonder after a MLC they say the AP meant nothing.

Recently my h told friends he will never be happy - this after almost 2 years with his gf.  She is failing to fill the void,,, the reason she became the gf in the first place.   

I wish I had more energy to say more but it's been a ridiculously long day today and I'm no where near done what I needed to get done today.  I have a mini-trip for a few days next week and there is always those crazy thoughts that scream at me 'the house has to be perfect before I leave'!  And the yard too!!  What is that all about anyway?  Or am I the only one who does this?

Have a good night (or good morning for some of you)!     

[Trustandlove]

I'll try to say more at another time, I just wanted to add that I do know several real-life cases where the couple have reconciled following an MLC affair....  trying to put it in one sentence, the affair may have served the "purpose" of showing the MLCer that someone else doesn't magically solve everything.   And it was definitely MLC, rather than a "standard" affair in these particular cases. 

[Treasur]

Strangely enough, I am not sure that the affair would have necessarily prevented me being open to reconciling. At least for a while. His remarriage did of course. But even without that, I think the cruelty was the red line for me and that was about so many other things than the affair. There are evidently people here who are reconciling when there has been an MLC affair so there are obviously other factors to be considered.

[sachat3]

The thing is, and maybe this will make reconnection/reconciliation easier for me should it happen. But during my relationship with Clington. There was no Ow. He started with Ow weeks after BD. So there was no “affair” behind my back so to speak. I somehow managed to kick him out before he started with Ow. So in some respects I feel I’m lucky because I wasn’t two timed. So to speak. Don’t get me wrong. It still hurt because it felt very soon. But I would imagine it Ow came into play BEFORE BD it would hurt a lot more.

However, when I found out about Ow. I reached out to a girl I had on my social media. She wasn’t someone I knew or had met in person but we were just Facebook friends. Bur I knew her ex and father of her kids had left (exit affair) and got with someone else. They were on and off etc etc BUT I reached out to her for advice. As it is happens this woman has become the bestest of friend I could ever have had. And so whilst I wouldn’t say I’m glad he’s with Ow, I must admit it’s a very thick silver lining that had Clington not started with Ow. I’m not sure I’d have met her. So it’s a consequence I very gladly accept.