[marvin4242]

Jackolar,

After many years, I was still feeling deep depression and sadness. I had therapy after BD but several years later, I realized I was stuck. It was determined that I was experiencing PTSD as many LBSers do and I found a therapist who deals with mind body work. I saw her for 2 years and recently went by for a "tune up". It has helped me very much.

Others have used EMDR quite successfully.

Jack: I just want to echo this. I am sure you already know this, but what you are experiencing is PTSD from having suffered through a spouses MLC. I know I have PTSD from it, and it even triggered much older wounds that were there. PTSD won’t respond well to just talk therapy, nor is it really treatable by medication. But there are other modalities like xyzcf suggests that will actually start helping you release that trauma and start healing. I don’t know if its an option but it definitely is something that you may find very worthwhile.

[Acorn]

Acorn even if they had no control over their choices, their choices hurt us. In the end this is what they should be accounting for. If after all this my husband told me he was sorry that his fog made him do it, that would show he had little awareness of the effects
of his actions and was still focused on himself

Yes, NYM, my H’s choices hurt me so deeply that I no longer wanted to live...

If he had kept on blaming his crisis, this mysterious ‘fog’, MLC compulsion, whatever, then there would be little guilt for him to feel (if he didn’t do it, he can’t point finger at himself) and, as a natural consequence, no redemptive actions could follow.  That would also indicate that he is lingering in the deep recesses of MLC tunnel. 

That’s why I said that he is aware that he did not choose to have MLC but no one, nothing made him do what he did.  I doubt that reconciliation could even be considered with a person that deflect his personal responsibilities to something like ‘the fog’ that cannot even defend itself.  When I was dying to reconcile with him, no matter what, I freely gave the blame over to anything other than H.  It was not healthy for me to think that way.  I was protecting my fragile self and I was in my own LBS tunnel.

[MyBrainIsBroken]

We've been told that men can't understand what it's like to experience peri-menopause or menopause. That only a woman who has been through it could really understand it. Everyone seems to have accepted that as truth.

Which leaves me wondering why so many on here who never experienced MLC or the fog think they know what they're like. How can you be so sure what it's like if you haven't ever experienced it? I just don't understand.

But what I really don't understand is why I care so much about helping people understand what it's like. I've experienced the fog. I know what it's like and whether anyone on here understands what it's like doesn't change my experience. So why do I spend so much time trying to explain it?. When I first came to this site five years ago we used to describe it as being like the MLCer was being sucked into a vortex, which I think is an apt description. Resistance if futile, the vortex is too powerful.

I need to remove myself from this. God has only given me a certain amount of time and I spend way too much of it on here making myself unpopular by advocating for an unpopular point of view. I'm sorry if I've offended anyone, especially my old friend T. Light 'em if you've got 'em if that's really what you want to do but I do hate to see a Mustang with a dirty ashtray.

I think I'm going to check in with my buddy Don Quixote and see if he needs a hand fighting windmills.

I really miss my wife. I can't believe this is my life now.

[terrified_in_TN]

...

I really miss my wife.

I am really sorry.  Your a great guy and didn't deserve what happened to you.  None of us did.  I am sorry to see that this site has to even exist at all and that anyone should find themselves here.  BUT...

...

I can't believe this is my life now.

It doesn't have to be.  You too have a choice, my friend.  You can choose to look backward at what was or choose to look forward at what could be.

I wish you the best.

-T

[OffRoad]

So, moving back to whatever pause. When I started down THAT path, I started having anxiety attacks. Yes, the chemical changes caused a physical reaction in my system. I would shake, fear everything, mind would race, etc. People made me cranky because I had no control over how I felt at that time. So yes, there was a physical and maybe mental aspect that I could not control. What I could control was how I dealt with it. I could have screamed at everyone to leave me alone. I could have melted into a quivering puddle. I could have gone out and found an om who would make me feel safe. I did NONE of those things. I tried exercise, relaxation techniques,  vitamin suppliments until I found what worked (for me it was B-complex, for my sister a therapist. We all find what works for us). I did NOT  say "I'm anxious and that makes me unhappy so it must be everyone else's fault".  It's why my personal anecdote says MLC is NOT just whatever pause. I've watched my friend, 9 years younger, navigating this same path, though she's got a rocky MLT or mild MLC going. She also describes not knowing why she is doing something she normally would not. My questioning of her tells me all her teenage behavior is based on not getting to be a teenager . She worked in the family business from the time she was little. And while she has no SO to cheat on, she has had ample opportunity to latch onto a married man. Yet that line holds strong-NO. Other lines appear to change and be blurry. She is not the same person I met 25+years ago, she is far less mature now.

What is it that could destroy enough of your brain cells to think cheating on your spouse, abandoning your kids, stealing all the money, leaving your spouse without a place to live are in any way ok?  If dissociation is actually the key, then it can't be just whateverpause, it has to be individual situational. And yet, it does seem to happen more frequently at a set of ages, but not always.

It still sounds like a combo of things, including core personality.

[Not Applicable]

Offroad, I read what you wrote about your friend before and I just wanted to mention that it was very interesting and enlightening and wanted to thank you for sharing.

About controlling how someone deals with menopause, you are right. I've seen this even in disabled people. There are some disabled people who make the most of their lives in spite of their limitations and they can be inspiring. And then there are those who just let it bring them down and become bitter, complain and make excuses for their lack of attempting anything in their life. I had the good fortune of working for someone like the former when I was in college and I never forgot it. It has always made me realize that we still have choices within the physical confines we are dealt in our lives. We still have a range of limits we can push, or complain about.

[Treasur]

Choice to have MLC.  Choices made during MLC.  Two different issues.  We might be mixing up the two?

I acknowledge that H did not choose to have MLC.  (Who does?!  )
I acknowledge that MLC explains H’s bad choices. 
I acknowledge and have deep empathy for his pain he suffered during crisis.

Extenuating circumstances, yes.
Understandable, yes.

But...

He was responsible for all his choices during his crisis.  He says so and I fully agree.  No plea of ‘diminished responsibilities’ here. 

My recognition of his full personal responsibility does not mean that I hold any animosity, bitterness or vindictiveness toward him.   Blame game is not on my mind.  Because I have forgiven him.  Because I’m out of LBS fog and can face naked truth - he did it, not the fog, not OW, not alcohol, not confusion.

I know it’s not just my MLCer who deflected his responsibility for his actions but I, the LBS, did that on his behalf as well.  And I did a really good job of it.

If one is intent on taking away personal responsibility from MLCer, which is not LBS’s prerogative in the first place, the question is not about the verdict on MLCer but the motive of the LBS who exonerates MLCer’s actions.  In my view anyway.

This makes sense to me and is probably where I have come to rest as an LBS.
I think my xh had broken pieces held together and then unravelled into some kind of WIW crisis. I don't think he chose that crisis, and that his broken bits were formed by other humans mostly and i have compassion for him experiencing that. Which is perhaps influenced by my own experience of PTSD 'fog'. And I also did neither of us much service by my own uninvited LBS mindreading excuses on his behalf.  Acorn talked about having a metaphorical pink tutu and I recognise that in myself. I simply did not want to swallow that my then h was capable of choosing to do what he did. But he was and I was wrong.

But I agree that I made choices even when I felt in the grip of PTSD, some good, some not, some lines I wouldn't cross bc of my own character. Choices in the run up towards PTSD too. The same is true for my xh as i see it. And I didn't start to recover until I took responsibility entirely for my own choices and recovery. Likely it is the same for my xh and I saw no evidence that he reached that point when I still had contact with him. To be fair, he may be doing so now, or may in the future, no way of knowing. I hope so bc I loved him for long enough to hope that he recovers from WIW happened to him and does not hurt himself or others any more. But it also isn't my business if he does or not.

Whatever the conditions or context, life is formed by an unfolding chain of our choices isn't it? Every time I chose not to pick up a ringing phone bc I was triggered, I still made a choice which had impact. Every time my xh chose to ignore me or lie about something important, the same. Embracing agency can feel painful but it is the road out I think.

And perhaps most useful of all is to consider that the same principle applies to recovering from what happened to us as LBS. Exactly the same.

We did not choose our circumstances and we deserve compassion for them. We have made choices along the way, some poor and some not. But if we keep focusing a lot on why it happened or other people's choices, I think without meaning to do so, it distracts us from our own responsibility to heal regardless. What happened wasn't our fault; how we recover is our responsibility. Which is also the message that ShockSis says repeatedly for the LBS. in the end, i think there is a time when we decide to fight for ourselves...and like giving up smoking, it may be extremely difficult but it can be done if we want it enough...and owning our choices unvarnished is a necessary step...same for any recovering MLCer I'd suggest.

[Shockandawe]

NYM

What exactly do you mean by “even in disabled people “? I find that statement quite offensive as if we who have a disability aren’t already viewed differently from the rest of society it is exactly that kind of wording that makes us feel less than we are and I would suggest you take out that example as I for one feel very angry and very offended by it.

Shock and awe

[Nas]

I often see things in goner nym’s posts that I find offensive. But I’m failing to see it in her example of disabled people who can choose to persevere or let their disabilities define them and keep them from living life to the fullest. And I say that as someone with a very disabled sister and as someone who now has multiple disabilities.
Perhaps I didn’t read close enough Shock, but it seems you are carrying your frustration with goner’s criticism of your sister over into this post and they are two different situations.

[Shockandawe]

 No Nas

I am offended because that particular phrase could have said even in men or even in women for every disabled person is one or the other. I simply don’t like how disablement was used as an example and whatever NYM and my sister are up to is their business and has no baring whatsoever on my anger at that statement.
I am sorry if you don’t agree but that is up to you. I do not think disabled people should be used as an example of choices.
I repeat my request to change or remove it.