[OffRoad]

So what I'm reading leads me to think it is less about professionals calling the bizarre breakup an MLC, but more that they don't seem to acknowledge 1)That it wasn't just cruel, it wasn't a normal "the marriage isn't working, let's go our,separate ways". 2) That our perception is that their entire personality changed(and possibly the perceptions of every person that used to know them) 3) That there was something unusual going on, it has happened to multitudes of people over the years, and has never been researched to the point there could be a diagnosis for it.

In fact, in keeping with a lot of things, there could be several conditions or co-morbid conditions that end up presenting themselves in this "MLC" type manner. 

Does a professional NEED to call it MLC  if they are willing to identify that it was just not normal?  Is validating the behavior as being something a person with a good moral compass and sound mental judgment just does not do good enough?

[PJ Ames]

This is a good discussion. I do think the cartoon version of an MLC (50 y/o man with toupee and red sports car chasing skirts half his age), gets in the way of talking about MLC with professionals. Existential crisis might be a better term to use with counselors who don't "believe" in MLC.

I also think Ready is on to something in that the counselor who deals with an MLCer doesn't know that they didn't use to be this way. Their experience is limited to the alien replicant version of our spouses; we - otoh - know what they were like pre-BD.

I've seen three counselors. Two weren't really interested in diagnosing my XW but were interested in how I was dealing with my experience (in retrospect, this was fine). When I explained my XWs behaviors (spending, cheating, partying, drinking, hostility to rules, etc...) to the third one, he told me that "if your wife was male people would say she was having a midlife crisis."

I think sometimes it's more a matter of semantics than anything.

[Healing]

I've been reading this forum for several months now and haven't shared my story.  My experience with my therapist is jaw-dropping so I want to share.

I started seeing my therapist in May of 2019 which was 3 months after I discovered my husband's affair.  Of course, all I wanted to do was talk about my husband and how he had lost his mind...he bought a Porsche and was now leaving me for his younger secretary.  I wanted her to recognize that my husband was going through a MLC.  This is the stuff you see on movies.  How could this be my life?  I thought my husband loved me.  We had 19 years together with almost no fighting.  We had the kind of marriage that most people dreamed of.  Our friends, family, and community are still in complete shock that my husband would do this. 

Anyway, my therapist is a very dynamic individual and I knew at our first session that we were a perfect fit as we shared a lot of the same life experiences/struggles.  However, I could not get her on board that my husband was having a MLC.  She believed he was always a narcissist and that I am such a people-pleaser that I didn't see it.  Which a MLC will make you question your whole marriage...was it real, did he ever love me, etc..  I know you have all experienced this too but I know my marriage was good for many, many years and that this was without a doubt a MLC.  As most therapist, she kept the focus off my husband and tried to make our sessions more about me and how I could heal from what has happened. 

Okay before I share the next part of my story. I want to bring up the crazy eyes that some people talk about during MLC. My husband had those crazy eyes off and on for 3 years prior to me discovering his affair.  I asked him several times during those 3 years not to look at me that way.  It made me nervous to say the least. 

Fast forward to August 2019, I was waiting to see my therapist while she was with another client.  My therapist’s husband walks in the office and starts talking to me.  He told me his wife (my therapist) had a “honey to do list” for him of things that needed fixed at the office.  We talked for about 10 minutes and I noticed that same crazy look in his eyes that I had seen in my husband’s eyes over the past few years.  He told me several times how it was a pleasure to meet me and that he was so glad that we had a chance to meet.  It started to creep me out.  I kept thinking that this man must be having a MLC.  Sure enough….two weeks later I see my therapist and she is not well.  She shared with me that her 45 year old husband was having an affair with the 25 year old neighbor lady.  I wasn’t even shocked, I could tell by his eyes that he was in crisis!  My therapist is now a believer in MLC to say the least.  We have walked through this journey together and I thank God everyday for putting her in my path.  Until you experience it for yourself, it's hard to wrap your mind around MLC.  We all know it's real because we lived through it but my friends/family they think I have lost my mind if I talk about MLC.

I want to thank all you for sharing your story because it does help all the LBS. Not everyone is comfortable sharing their experience but I am so thankful for everyone that does.  I needed to hear that I was not alone and that others are going through the same thing.  Like many of you, my story has so much to it and I do want to share more in good time.  Love and light to all!!

[terra]

I’ve simplified my presenting issues to something along the lines of “struggling to survive sudden relationship loss, and intimacy abuse”.

One reason therapists or professionals may shy away from saying MLC or anything else, is that they are tasked with treating *you*, the LBS. They are there to support *you*, coach *you*, and help *you* stay on even keel.

I talk about h a lot, in therapy or other health environments? But the therapist or clinician doesn’t care about him. They have no idea who that person is. And he really doesn’t matter.

What matters, who matters, is *you*.

I’ve also noticed that when/if we say MLC or midlife crisis to a health professional, they take us a bit less seriously. Maybe because the focus is wrong, or stigmatized, or judgmental.

And many therapists will refrain from “diagnosing” even if MLC is not a diagnosis. These labels we use are kind of an invitation to comment, judge, join in some type of pain. Professionals may not have the experience or language for whatever this midlife business is. Difficult to comprehend MLC in a nutshell; better to describe behaviors. Trauma, betrayal trauma, shock, anxiety, grief.

Except the focus still should be squarely on *you*. On *your* symptoms, struggles, well-being. If it isn’t, that’s part of the problem. Then maybe we hear terms like “codependent”, “enmeshed”, or even “blame-shifting”. Our focus in any given professional medical or mental health assessment has got to be on the body or brain in the room — our own. The healthcare professional doesn’t have anything else to work with, just you. It’s one of the reasons, I think, that marital counseling is advised against while either spouse is having an affair: you can’t treat or diagnose or foster communication with the person who isn’t there.

I wasted a lot of money talking to professionals about h. In retrospect, it wasn’t a good use of the time.

If we knock it down to its simplest language, instead of MLC, we have a spouse who is now breaking promises. We are betrayed. It kind of doesn’t matter what the spouse is doing or saying or who with: we are married to someone who hurts us, and it doesn’t matter *why* they are. We just need it to stop, and need support while we figure out what to do.

Let the focus be on *you*. I think that’s one of the ways we get through all this intact.

Once it’s over, I won’t ever want to hear about midlife or MLC ever again. I expect it will be years before I see the other side of Now, and sadly, or maybe just fine, I don’t think there will ever be a diagnostic or professional term for the chaos and fragmentation of this time of life.

[Lady Grey]

I found this thread really helpful reading along at the time, and have dug it out a few times since then and thought about posting...

Unfortunately I am another LBS who has had a string of damaging IC experiences and am finally posting here now because I booked an appointment with a new IC a while back, which is now only a couple of days away and I am dreading it. I feel defeated and powerless, on the edge of physically sick and am contemplating cancelling, even though I know I need the support and at this point would probably have to pay for the appointment anyway.

Looking at how I've been feeling these last few days as the appointment gets closer, I think I'm realising that my past IC experiences have actually added to my trauma, as others have noted here on this thread.

It seems that many people here on HS have found that those in RL that 'get' mlc are either trauma therapists or have some personal experience. The new IC does specialise in trauma - I chose her for that reason, hoping this time might be different...

I'm not even sure how to approach this appointment. I have never used the term mlc with an IC  - I say breakdown, "brain explosion" crisis, or just "whatever it was that happened to h"

I do think it does come down to this

Does a professional NEED to call it MLC  if they are willing to identify that it was just not normal?  Is validating the behavior as being something a person with a good moral compass and sound mental judgment just does not do good enough?

I think for me right now, that would be enough. It doesn't matter to me if they call it mlc

It does matter though, when they see it as a marriage problem. In my experience with IC, it seems that if a single person does all the things we see our spouses do - blow up their life, change personality overnight and behave in a generally WTF way, that can be seen as something big happening to or in that person. They "had a breakdown", an existential crisis, an identity crisis etc. But if that same person was married at the time of this breakdown, then it's a whole different story. Being married seems to change everything in how the situation is seen and understood by others.

And that an IC, who has spent 1 hour talking to me about my situation should be so sure that they understand what's going on so much better than I ever could? It's like if someone tells you something that in your experience seems too crazy to be true, you have a few options. You can think that there are probably crazy things that are outside of your experience, and that the fact that you've never experienced this doesn't mean it can't happen. Or you can decide that the problem is with the person telling you about the crazy thing. That they misunderstood, got it wrong, made it up, are exaggerating, or even that they must be the crazy one.

This second approach has been my experience with IC.

That I am in denial and rather than facing the "very normal breakdown of my marriage" I am desperately grasping at crazy non existent things to explain what happened. Or they think that the marriage breakdown happened first, and that h is "not handling it very well".  Or that my marriage was always bad and that I'm just not able to face that reality yet. That sometime down the track I will be strong enough to face this and will see that the IC was right all along. Or that my h was always like this but because of my own issues I just couldn't see it.

I'll come back with a bit more about my previous IC experiences, or maybe specific questions about how to approach this new appointment.
Ugh...The whole thing is just so exhausting...I just wish it wasn't so hard to find support that helps rather than adding to the hurt...

[Lady Grey]

Sorry...just realised that as a discussion thread, this probably isn't the place for my questions.
I've been reading along hardly posting for a couple of years now...maybe time to finally start my own thread 

[MarianTheLibrarian]

Great discussion.

I, too, have found that people just don't believe in MLC as a phenomenon.  Yes, it may be a whole bunch of other issues that happen to express themselves all at once as a package deal, but the similarities are uncanny.

Take, for example, the British actor Rowan Atkinson, known for playing Mr. Bean.  In midlife he began a relationship with a woman young enough to be his daughter, and got her pregnant.  His wife divorced him for "erratic behavior" or some such.  His grown daughter changed her last name, apparently because she was ashamed of her father's strange behavior and new life.  He's still off with his "girlfriend" raising his new family.  In TV and movie land, we consider this normal behavior for celebrities, so my guess is that it hasn't gotten much attention.   But I read about it and thought, huh, Mr. Bean had a MLC!

What people don't grasp about this situation is that it is its own special kind of pain to lose a partner to a mental health issue.  It is almost like a death.  You kind of know deep down how this person would behave if they were in their right mind, and they aren't acting that way, and all/most of society seems to be validating their search for happiness (whatever that is these days).  Meanwhile we're stuck watching them burn down all the things they've worked for, but there is nothing and no one there to stop it, because that person's real self or former self is out to lunch for the duration.  People accept the simplest explanation that that is what this person wants, but we're stuck being the only ones who know that that just doesn't add up.  The question of, "What if you were back to normal, would you still do this?" ends up nagging us.  And the explanation that sometimes things just don't work out doesn't cut it for such a sudden change of personality and priorities.

As I've mentioned before, I look at this selfish behavior, lack of altruism, hedonism, and short-sightedness, and I think that if we call that happiness, we are the sick ones.

[Nas]

I think it’s important, when we see an IC, that we find someone who listens to us, whether they actually believe in MLC or not.

I didn’t even know what MLC was when I first went back to therapy after BD. It was my old therapist who totally threw me for a loop when she made the comment to me that my H “needs serious psychological help.” But also, importantly, “he’s not my patient, you are.”

It made a difference to me that she saw and pointed out that there was in fact something very off in the situation. Would it have made any difference if she was a full on knowledgeable believer of MLC? I don’t think so because I was there to deal with my feelings, my emotions and my plan to move forward.

I think it would be nice if therapists had a better idea of what all this is, and they definitely should not be outright dismissing their patients. I do think it’s important to find one who listens and acknowledges and helps us deal with the gaslighting and crazy making and madness. If you have a therapist who is telling you “just move on“ and ignoring your obvious trauma, that’s a problem.
But beyond that, I don’t know that it’s imperative to find therapist who are versed in MLC, given that even we can’t really clearly define what it is. I think finding a therapist who acknowledges that it is not “normal” can also be enormously helpful.
But ultimately, after sorting through the initial wtf and what/why/how, the therapy sessions with a good therapist  are going to be centered around us and our journey forward, not whatever is happening with our spouses.

ETA: Just cautioning that wanting to find a therapist with knowledge of MLC could potentially be presupposing that they will be able to help us navigate a sort of roadmap of stages and milestones. And again, this is definitely not a linear, time limited process with a predetermined outcome.

[Songanddance]

My T accepted that I believed in MLC and made sure that she just focussed on me and my personal healing. 

She tried a little of CBT in the second session in that I had to hold a conversation with H and that she was me and I was H; it didn't help but that was because I couldn't cope with it- everything was too raw and all I wanted was my marriage back.

She believed in me and that was all I needed then and now.  I have just caught up with her again after a good long break and now she is coaching me as I develop my mentoring, coaching skills and business.   Her belief in me still exists.

I therefore hold that any good therapist would not care what name we gave this situation; their job is to help the person in front of them, help them heal, help them grow and help them make the decisions that are best for them. 

[Curiosity]

Great points here... whether or not they believe in MLC, they should accept that you do and they should work with you to find your path to healing. If you are standing, they should accept that you want to do that and help you to make sure you’re doing it for healthy reasons and then move on from the subject and just help you.

Several people here have had success with therapists familiar with trauma. I was thinking about that and about how MLC often leads to some level of psychological fracture in the MLCer, so that whether or not they had actual trauma before, MLC is a form of psychological trauma for them... but for us, it is equally traumatic. Sometimes we respond by having our own crises, sometimes we make our way through it to heal in a healthier way. I think this morning was the first time it really resonated with me how much my mind has been traumatized by my MLCer - and that’s someone who has been a clinger and who hasn’t really monstered. I had acknowledged the betrayal and abandonment, but I hadn’t really owned the trauma and it’s important to the healing process to really understand the depth of what this process does to us.