[Acorn]

Now, would you look at the collective wisdom here!  It’s in every reply. 

Some replies highlighted a few of the possible outcomes of keeping the MLC glasses perched on one’s nose.

Didn't help if it led to mindreading 'he says x but might mean y' or predicting the process or outcomes.

It’s been 2.5 years since Bd for me and I think I have been “waiting” more than healing.

There's a thin line between no expectations, and turning a blind eye to bad behavior.

<snip>

I also think following MLC advice for years on end is like pretzeling oneself into an unnatural position. At some point you just need to be yourself and if it doesn't suit the MLCer so be it. Otherwise, you are just coddling them and waiting for them to grow up. You need to be the adult you are and act like they are an adult even if they aren't.

There are many more.

[Granite]

A good question.

I too would have to say, “no, it has not kept me stuck”, although maybe the term stuck needs further definition.

The concept of MLC actually helped me detach and start healing.  Because so many of my Wife’s actions were in conflict to the person I knew I was completely lost as to the “why” of it all.  Reading here answered much of the “why” and this provided me with a path toward understanding and empathy.

I am still on that path. I do think about her a lot, but I do not contact, nor ask mutual friends about her.  I do not expect nor await her return, but can not imagine finding an equal to her.

So I sometimes ask myself what would I do differently had she passed away?  As weird as it is to say I think I would be in the same place as described in the above paragraph.

Is that stuck?
Or grieving?
Or something else…

Whatever the answer I am slowly moving forward.

[Acorn]

It’s weird to shift from the MLC lens to another that shows this is simply a human crisis.

May the shift become un-weird very, very soon, Terra.
That shift was instrumental in my own healing and marching forward. 

[Acorn]

I too would have to say, “no, it has not kept me stuck”, although maybe the term stuck needs further definition.

To me, ‘being stuck’, in the context of LBSs, is a ‘failure to thrive.’
‘Being stuck’ through the middle by a gigantic MLC pin, unable to move forward and carpe diem.

 

[OffRoad]

Fwiw, the question is a bit vague for me. Seeing my situation through the MLC lense was important in the beginning, the same as for others. My situation is no longer through the MLC lense, though. I have grown and changed and set out on my own path, so I'm not thinking (at all times, anyway) "I'm doing this because of the MLC situation".

If I had lamented over what my MLCer had done, and how my life was devastated and how I can never trust again, etc and not moved forward from that thinking, then I would have totally been stuck.

(Adding this because the battery on my tablet died.) If I had also kept thinking of my actions based on the actions of my MLCer I would also have been totally stuck.

I supposed for me, my lense is always looking to the horizon, sometimes forward, sometimes back, sometimes to the sides. I keep a weather eye on the MLC lense from time to time to make sure I don't get sucked into that with anyone else.

[Acorn]

Thank you, Offroad, for further defining ‘stuck.’
Would you say the summary of your post is that you do not define yourself by MLCer or MLC, and that you steer your ship which is not attached to MLCer’s, thanks to personal growth?
If I’’m wrong, please correct me. 

Perhaps the thread title should have been ‘Persisting to see your situation through the MLC lens.  Does it keep you stuck?’

As many have shared, it was good to find information on MLC that explained my H’s inexplicable and sudden transformation into a ‘monster.’  After a while, I realized I was deeply mired in interpreting all that he said and did through the MLC lens which kept me focussed on him, not me.  That’s one of the several ‘aha!’ moments (or victories, if you like) that spurred me forward.  It sounds like many had the same experience, I’m glad to note. 

[Nerissa]

I agree I kept myself distracted from what I needed to be doing by focusing on mlc.  Although in truth I wasn’t capable of doing what I needed to do for quite some time.  I think Terra has written wise advice: focus in their behaviours and if they aren’t kind and decent then turn away.  They are of no use while they are emotionally dysfunctional or just emotionally unavailable.

If they ever change, they will come and let us know and if we have changed in positive ways, we are in a strong position to ask for what we need in a relationship too.

[Granite]

Offroad brings up a good point about thinking of our actions with the MLC’r in mind.

Taking stock of recent past actions strikes me as a good gauge for our own level of detachment or stuckedness.

[Couragedearheart]

Both.

If I focus on the aspects of what it is, how should I respond, what caused it then it keeps me stuck.

From the aspect that I’m not alone, that I’m not in some alternate reality, to be encouraged and grow from seeing others growths and journey and self love I find that aspect very helpful.

It’s the primary reason I don’t really focus on H and his behavior but my own in my posts.....because I stop growing or learning or being healthy mentally when I’m busy watching whatever it is that he’s doing.


I feel like there should be some giant disclaimer at the beginning that says:
MLC IS CAUSED BY A VARIETY OF FACTORS EACH IS DIFFERENT AND PERSON SPECIFIC, YOU CANNOT AFFECT OR CHANGE ANY OF THEM, IF YOU ARE FOCUSING ON YOUR SPOUSE/EX YOU CAN NEITHER BE GROWING OR HEALING.

[OffRoad]

Thank you, Offroad, for further defining ‘stuck.’
Would you say the summary of your post is that you do not define yourself by MLCer or MLC, and that you steer your ship which is not attached to MLCer’s, thanks to personal growth?
If I’’m wrong, please correct me. 

Perhaps the thread title should have been ‘Persisting to see your situation through the MLC lens.  Does it keep you stuck?’

As many have shared, it was good to find information on MLC that explained my H’s inexplicable and sudden transformation into a ‘monster.’  After a while, I realized I was deeply mired in interpreting all that he said and did through the MLC lens which kept me focussed on him, not me.  That’s one of the several ‘aha!’ moments (or victories, if you like) that spurred me forward.  It sounds like many had the same experience, I’m glad to note.

Yes, that is a pretty good summary of my post. Adding the word "Persisting" is clarifying, IMO, but "Persisting Seeing your situation ONLY through the MLC lens" if that is what you mean might be better. That is how I took it, but I wasn't sure from the answers that others took it that way so wondered if I misinterpreted. Maybe I still have.

For me, and it is only for me, when I moved from thinking about what will happen when he sorts himself out to what I want to do NOW, the focus was no longer on what my MLCer did or didn't do. It was on how I wanted to live my life, whether or not he ever returns, reconnects, speaks to me again, whatever. What he does is his own business. I will take care of me ( and at the time, the kids).

I stood until. My until was the divorce, but that doesn't mean that XH and I might not find each other somewhere down the road. I don't wait for it, hope for it, etc, but I am not closed off to it depending on the circumstances (at least at the moment I'm not). When I watched what he did, tried to figure out "what x means", paid attention to every nuance, that was being stuck. When I owned that I had no control over over what he was doing, only what I was doing, no more stuck. It doesn't mean I don't get upset or angry when he pulls some bozo move, or I find one more thing he lied about as I clean the house, but I don't dwell on it or think I cannot change my own stars ( or maybe how I look at them) because of it. I still occasionally see some part of my life through the MLC lens for minute or a day, but I don't think that is a bad thing. I think that is a learning thing as long as I don't stay there.

Example being the other day as I sat in the garage realizing that all the stuff XH insisted was my fault wasn't even mine. It was his. I chewed on that for a day, realized that I hadn't had time to sort the garage while the kids were growing up, but he hadn't sorted it either, so he had no idea whose stuff it was. He just projected it all onto me. It made me wonder how I had missed that he never sorted the garage EITHER. Why was it on me? Why did I take that on as my responsibility? I found my answer in my reflection and moved along. It's the moving along that is the important part.

For anyone who wants to know the answer to the above questions was guilt that I never seemed to have EVERYTHING taken care of. XH earned the money. That was it. I did everything else because I somehow thought that was a fair exchange for staying home to raise the kids. I seemed to have forgotten that my father took out the garbage and cleaned the garage and called for the plumber and did a multitude of other things around the house even though he was the only breadwinner in my family. He didn't just go to work and come home and do nothing. XH didn't start out that way, BTW. But in the years leading up to BD, he became that and I filled in the blanks increasing my workload. And yet there is only so much one person can do. I had been able to do it all before and now I could not, so it must be me. Of course, it was not me. A lesson in perspective.