[Treasur]

As I am a bit passionate about Reality right now  ....it reminded me of a time when coming to HS was a kind of sanity check. That something really not normal was going on and it wasn't something I was imagining....I don't need that now but oh my word, HS definitely saved my sanity for a good while.

Thought it might be helpful to have a quick reality/sanity check thread lol.

Looking back, other than the ILYB/sudden BD announcement/ow or om stuff....painful but could be 'just' an affair 

What was one of the biggest things you saw your spouse do that told you clearly that they were in some kind of significant crisis that looked like an MLC?

Mine was early on when he did not recognise himself in a photograph. I thought he was being metaphorical..talking about how he felt...but he not only didn't know it was him, he actually thought it was a photo of me with some other man. Beyond weird.

That kind of thing plus the fact that he became less rational, more self centred and harder to communicate with as time went by rather than calming down and becoming more 'normal'. It was quite useful (to me) actually when I could trust my own instinct that trying to talk to him like a normal adult was pretty much futile bc I could feel that he wasn't. Not normal for him but tbh not normal for normal folks. It did take me about 6 months or so before I got that though, probably bc he was under psychiatric care and I thought that would start to have an effect. Hmm, nope.

[UrsaMajor]

For me, the biggest clue was the radical change in clothing style, particularly for the office... STBX was, for the entire time I knew her up until Bat-Snot-Crazy hit, ALWAYS dressed very elegantly, probably what many would consider conservatively, professionally, and tastefully. She held a VERY high-visibility position and was involved in Europe-wide discussions and crisis-management meetings (like when the volcano in Iceland blew up and there were emergency meetings to decide whether or not to shut down Air traffic over Europe due to the corrosive/abrasive nature of the ash/dust)

Once the Crisis hit, her clothing style went to barely appropriate, just covering her butt cheeks short skirts and dresses, thigh-high boots, and such....

It is NOT that she could not carry it off as she did have the figure for it but, up until she dived into the tunnel, her mantra was that she wanted to be known for her knowledge, not her figure.... Afterwards, it became "If you've got it, flaunt it."

Likewise, since then, her position at work has been downgraded.....

[Helpingme!]

Mine was the sweetest woman in the world going to the most hateful, selfish,  woman like overnight.
The working out and changing her clothing didn't click with me then. I just saw it as 40 and she didnt want to feel old.
Now looking back the clothing change and the full blown obsession with working out does to me.

[Helpingme!]

UM
My nickname for those boots is HOOKER BOOTS!
Her favorite movie is Pretty Woman. I said many times, she must really want to dress like her on the movie.

[tinnat]

My biggest signs were how he stopped acting rationally, despite being up to then supremely proud of being an excellent rational thinker.  And his shame at what he was doing but inability to stop it. And his questioning of everything he ever held to be true (including his faith).  And his super-hypochondriasis. And spending hours in the bathroom making himself look good (even before OW came on the scene).  Is that enough?

[1trouble]

Biggest signs
1) Working ALL the time and very long hours on a packet of ham and a few crackers
2) Staring at his 'puny' body (his words) in the mirror and being amazed at how he looked because of the weight loss
3) Telling me life was 'unfair' and I was stopping him having 'fun'
4) manic behaviour when at home, starting jobs and then dropping them and going to do something else and not finishing that
5) Telling me he didn't want to come home and he didn't know why
6) Saying his head felt foggy and he couldn't think straight and he knew he loved me but he couldn't feel it
7) saying eating was pointless infact everything was pointless, the TV, music he just did feel anything about anything

I could go on ..

[Nas]

My first sign was when he told me he felt "detached from life and didn't know why."

The signs I missed/blindly ignored before that were:
1. Taking tons and tons of expensive supplements and spending 2-3 hours in the gym every day, including going straight to the gym after his grandfather's funeral.
2. Getting deeply involved with his shady "business partner" on what was essentially a pyramid scheme that normally he would have smelled a mile away (several years earlier, he had seen a friend of mine from high school getting involved an MLM business and he called her an idiot and said MLMs were scams.  Then somehow before I even knew it, he'd lost all of our money on one).
3. Going from someone who only drank every so often on weekends or when we were on vacation to stopping at a different bar every night on his way home from work and sneaking six-packs down to the basement in his laundry basket.
4. Immediately after BD, I could see his mood change dramatically 3 times within an hour or so. 
5. Saying he felt absolutely nothing and there was nothing or anyone he cared about.
6. A month after BD, I was putting on the ankle brace I'd had to wear every single day for 3 years and that he had had to help me put on many, many times, and he looked at me as I was putting it on and asked what it was and "Do you wear that every day?" Literally as if he'd never seen it before.  So weird.

[Keep believing]

Following script to a tee.  Even the things he said that rcr and Hb said they say    The black eyes knowing it was not him. Very scary

[Treasur]

Gosh yes, I'd forgotten the shark eyes....
My h went from dead empty eyes, pretty standard for severe depression, to those dark shark eyes just before he announced that 'divorce was the only option'. I have seen the dead eyes in myself and others who are depressed but had never seen the shark eyes until I saw them in my then h. Oh, and the small smirk that goes with them that tells you a bit of them gets a kick from hurting you.

[Not Applicable]

It wasn't my H directly that made me think it. It was a quote in an article in one of the respectable British newspapers (not one of those tabloid papers with silly relationship articles that you can't take seriously). Someone said "Most men who do xyz are just having an MLC." Hmm, so I googled it. Found the most famous articles by HB, Conway etc. and could clearly see my H had gone through the denial and anger phases over the previous 1.5 years since a family funeral and that he was clearly heading into the replay stage next.