[Seahorse]

Thanks Disillusioned - Maybe it would be a good topic for a "survey" just for curiosity - nothing scientific!
Probably will be split evenly...

Sea

[Caroline]

Reading all of these, I do realize each person is an individual, but my is a wallower though he is more severe as Saviore Fare's XH is.... I' applied for a townhouse after mediation was agreed just lacking a signature... he has since backed out of the mediation so as to not give me money..still wants a divorce... The townhouse I applied for will be ready end of the month and while to date I can't move anything from our home.... I am planning on doing shelf paper and setting up little things until I can... but divorce won't be until around April now...


Based on the discussion do you all think I will decrease the chance for a return if I leave the home? (Until property agreement I will be living in both places since I can't move anything out...)

Just curious about opinions know that no one knows the future

[3Boys4Me]

Caroline, what a hard situation. Personally I don’t think that you moving out will make it more or less likely to reconcile.  Your spouse has to do his own work, have an awakening and want to repair his relationship with you. In some ways the distance may make it easier to detach and less opportunity for you to say and do things you might regret? Just something to consider. When the fog lifts and clarity returns, a spouse who has remorse will understand you had to take care of yourself based on their behavior - if he doesn’t see that, then he is not recovered... just my opinion...

[MyBrainIsBroken]

Caroline,

Nobody really knows what effect your actions will have on the MLCer so the best thing that you can do is to do whatever is best for you. Nothing you do will bring him back before he's ready and it could and probably will be a long time before he's ready. The only thing we know for certain is that there will be no chance of reconciliation once you decide that you're done. Do whatever is necessary to make yourself comfortable enough for a long term stand if that's what you want.

Based on the discussion do you all think I will decrease the chance for a return if I leave the home? (Until property agreement I will be living in both places since I can't move anything out...)

No, IMO you leaving the home won't decrease the chance for a return.

[Velika]

MLC is an umbrella term for an array of behaviors and changes that could describe anything from genuine unhappiness with marriage and a poor ability to communicate all the way to pathological disorders and serious mental illness.

I really believe this forum and site would be most helpful first of all to help people understand the variety of issues that may be going on before assuming we are all dealing with the same thing.

I know a few cases of people who reconciled after a crisis. In two cases, there was an affair and there was a level of "changing residences" without financial commitment. (I.e. crashing with a friend, going off to travel.) In all of the cases where they reconciled, the person in crisis was seeking some type of help, such as therapy.

Usually they were unkind to or critical of/cold to their spouse but didn't make financial moves and didn't show a lack of empathy akin to threatening to take away or taking away things important to them, like their homes, money, or children. None of them made big purchases or changed their looks radically. They seemed like the same person who was just: a) having an affair; b) expressing unhappiness; c) talking about divorce.

Radical personality change with no self awareness is a serious sign of a change in mental health status. It is not simply a "crisis." When we bundle all of these, we don't equip people who come to this site in a serious state of trauma and loss with the tools they might need to actually help and intervene to protect themselves, their children, and possibly even get necessary medical help for their spouse.

I have seen over and over, many times here, people tell newcomers not to try to get their spouse to seek medical attention. This is deeply irresponsible, when some people's safety and children are at stake. Please, if normal attempts to communicate aren't working, or your spouse seems consistently irrational or different, or like an entirely person altogether — and especially if there is a family history of this — advice like focusing on yourself or "paving the way" is as crazy as saying you can pave the way home for a person having a manic episode of bipolar, is having a serious drug reaction, or who has just had a small stroke.

In this case, "paving the way" may mean doing all you can to secure a diagnosis, or at least help enlist the help and intervention of others. The right language can make a difference.

[Thunder]

Velika I'm sorry but I very much, respectfully, disagree with you.

"Radical personality change with no self awareness is a serious sign of a change in mental health status. It is not simply a "crisis."

It's not a "simple" crisis, not at all.  A midlife crisis is very serious.
That is exactly what a midlife crisis is... a real "crisis."
How else do you then describe a midlife crisis, if you believe in it?

"I have seen over and over, many times here, people tell newcomers not to try to get their spouse to seek medical attention. This is deeply irresponsible"

Irresponsible???  We have no control over them.
Somehow you still don't understand...we can not make our MLCer's seek help.
They do not think here is anything wrong with them.  So how do you propose we can convince them they need help?
Did you? Would he have listened?

My H would have thought I was just not believing him that he was unhappy and wanted a divorce, it would have looked manipulative.

I would have looked like I was in denial and not believing what he felt was real.  To him it was!
"Oh no your are wrong feeling this way, we better take you to a doctor, there is something wrong with the way you feel"
That would go over like a lead balloon and he would just have resented me more.
I would never have done this.

They already think we are the enemy.
What you are proposing is making us more of an enemy.

We need to understand they are in a life crisis, and let them go to figure it out on their own and go on living our life "as if" they are not coming back, because few of them do.

[Nas]

I did get my H medical attention. I wrote a letter to his doctor. I was his healthcare proxy at the time and I spoke to his doctor and nurse on the phone and in person. My H went to the doctor. The doctor had the information I gave him and simply referred my H a counselor. H went but it only made him madder at me. And changed nothing.

You can’t force anyone to seek medical attention. You can’t demand doctors treat an unwilling person. Unless they’re so mentally unstable that you are able to have them sectioned against their will. In which case it’s probably not MLC.

My good friend’s father was diagnosed with bvFTD. He just died this past spring. It started with him having a personality change and doing strange things like buying a car and an expensive piece of jewelry for a very young woman behind his wife’s back. Sounds MLCish right? Only on paper. In real life it looked nothing like MLC.

He progressed over a series of about 15 years but it was very evident early on that he had a diagnosable disorder and he was unable to work or live a normal life after a few years. You can read about it and think it sounds so much like MLC but to see it actually play out in real life, the difference is very evident.

[Seahorse]

Nas - THANK you -- that was what I needed to hear, otherwise how would anyone know the difference?
You can't diagnose it, supposedly, until autopsy so on paper it does look the same...
Glad to know that it looks different through it's manifestations than MLC

Sea

[barbiedoll]

What boggles me is that a lot of MLCers decide not to implode their lives and work through these turbulent times. What’s the difference between a work it out or a person that implodes their marriage?

.

A little late to this discussion and find it very interesting indeed. Went back to the original question and thought I would throw in yet another perspective. Of course it is all guess-work, speculation and based mainly on each persons experience and interpretation etc etc. So here is what I believe.

My husband was an extremely high energy "leaver". He reacts strongly when he has to be accountable for abandoning his family . He has hurt himself deeply as a man for leaving my daughter and I. He hates that about himself .  He told me many times over a period of 5-6 months that he was leaving, that he was looking for an apartment ( when he had "time") and in fact he has been "trying to leave me for years " ( this statement has had lasting trauma and impact on me ...almost worse than finding an OW) . I, like some LBS, could not tolerate any of it ( I did not know what "it" was) ...but I knew I was dying. I told him to get out . I have been told by therapist that it was a remarkable thing to be able to do...after 30 years of marriage. When I say I was dying ..I had lost 40 lbs, had such extreme anxiety I thought of death , could not sleep , could not bare being in the house with him and was afraid of him.

He tells me he NEVER wanted to leave. That the day I kicked him out, he was "changing" and was at his "most vulnerable". But he couldn't stay, he needed to leave with a desperation he fought for months. I could not "know" any of his inner workings or thoughts ...I just wanted him gone. I came to realize in therapy that his actions hit my own deepest childhood wounds of abandonment laying dormant inside of me. I could never describe the anguish I endured and the rage that was inhuman.

So, there are MLC'ers that leave suddenly and apparently easily  . There are those that stay in their home and torment and destroy their family in a different way. And then there are those that are kicked out ...who swear they had no intention of truly leaving. Who come to say in some twisted logic that it was the LBS who abandoned the MLCer, by throwing them out . Imagine that in therapy .

I told my husband to leave before I knew about his affair. He was involved with an OW for about 6 months while still living at home. If I had have known about OW, he would have been out in about 5 seconds ...I could NEVER EVER have had him in our home coming and going to an OW.

I take issue with the word "decide" . I am not sure he had any access to the decision -making part of his brain, or forethought or consequences...it was about emotion, fear , explosions internally . He was not in control of himself ...or atleast the "self" that I knew . Ultimately , he did choose to leave. He could have refused but he did not. He ran like a gazelle on fire.

I think the "less" traumatised , damaged or abused "might" travel thru this time still having some ability to forecast the future outcomes of their actions. None of us can know any of the answers .  A "work it out person" may have a higher emotional IQ, a religious commitment , support from men friends ...or a wife that does not kick their ass out. Or maybe it was a "transition" rather than a full blown explosion of their life.

[OffRoad]

The only thing we know for certain is that there will be no chance of reconciliation once you decide that you're done.

I respectfully disagree with this statement. Done or not done, there is always a chance of reconciliation unless one of you is dead. My stand is done. I am done waiting for anything to happen regarding xh and me. If xh should pop up in x amount of time, have done whatever work he needs to do and we like each other at that time, reconciliation is a possibility. But maybe I'm an anomoly. I figure if the person I loved who was my H could become whatever he is now, then he might also change to something I could love agsin. I am done with whomever he is right now. If he says there,  I'm done for good. If he doesn't stay there, anything is possible. I'm not hoping for it, I don't care if it happens or not (I have plenty to do), but I'm not throwing out all the good times because he became a  jerk. Nor would I consider him to always be a jerk if he proved differently. There is done with the relationship that was, and done with ever communicating with your MLCer.  The first has a chance of reconciliation.  The second probably doesn't,  but isn't a certainty by any means. JMO.