I posted about you separately bc I want to encourage you strongly to separate where you are individually from the MLC bit. When I was where you were, trying to deal with both as a whole picture was so overwhelming to me that I developed PTSD which ate years of my life. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did. PTSD was harder and took longer to heal from than bereavement or BD/MLC; I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, so I want to encourage you to be realistic about just how much is on your plate and your natural limits.
Ok, now the MLC bit.
I have become more convinced as I get older (and hopefully wiser
) that if something looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a sane working hypothesis that it is a duck, no matter how inconceivable that seems at the time, until or unless it starts to look like something else.
The M in MLC imho can be misleading imho. And there are plenty of stories here of spouses having an MLC like LC anywhere from their 30s to their 60s. Perhaps all that is different is the point at which enough steam builds up under their lids, or the effect of external events, that they reach an unravelling point.
There are some commonalities imho. These folks seem to lack a ‘core’ in some way. And perhaps this makes them a bit chameleon like….they become who they think they need to seem rather than knowing who they are. Many of them have reasons going back to early childhood for why they do this, long before they ever met you. They tend to be conflict avoidant and more given to dependence on their spouse either emotionally or practically. Or both. In a real sense, they are somehow not quite grown up. And most seem to experience some level of depression both pre-BD and at BD. Again jmo, but I see MLC as depression with go faster stripes that creates an identity crisis where the standard MLC behaviours are their attempt to fix how they feel.
When the lid blows off, you are changed in their mind from the ultimate solution to their needs into the ultimate cause of their unhappiness, the barrier if you like to feeling better. This is no more true than you being the solution to their ills or their saviour; most LBS struggle with that for a while. You will come to realise that overall YOU have not changed….your MLC spouse is simply now looking at you through a completely different shaped window. It takes a little bit of distance too to take off our own ‘rose tinted glasses’ and see the wider picture of who they were even while we were very happy with them and them seemingly with us. There are some commonalities too in how these folks tend to react once their own internal lid blows off. And these are the MLC type behaviours you read about here. They tend to run away, either physically or emotionally. They tend to try to find external things to distract them or make them feel better - a new job, a new place, new friends, new lifestyle and/or an ow/om ( and I’m sorry but the chances are high that there will turn out to be an Ow of some sort in the mix, perhaps one in the country they visited before BD in your case). And bc they are not very ‘grown up’, like teenagers they run in emotions cranked up to 11/10….rage, self pity or entitlement - as well as changing their minds from one week to the next. They are extraordinarily self-centred, like a teenager, and they lie a lot to either get what they want or avoid what they don’t want. They may say they have a plan but tbh usually it becomes obvious that they really don’t. It’s more like throwing spaghetti against a wall to see what sticks
And none of this is caused by you, about you or can be fixed by you.
I have some young teenage acquaintances that I really like, but I wouldn’t want to put them in charge of my life or wellbeing.
And imho, as an LBS, that’s exactly what the rollercoaster is like. It is very early days for you, my friend, but imho the way forward for all LBS is to reach a point when you choose to take your life keys back from a metaphorical teenager. Particularly about big important stuff and things that affect your own mental and physical wellbeing.
What do I mean by that? I think there is a time when all of us LBS are trying to work out what’s happening and what they are going to do next in order to try to come up with some sort of plan about what we should do. Practically speaking, that’s understandable and normal when you share your life with another human, isn’t it? Sometimes our plan is about trying to save our marriage, sometimes it is even about trying to save them. It is almost always a bit like running around trying to put the fires out while our spouse plays with matches ignoring our pleas, particularly early on. What changes - and it takes us all longer than we might wish with hindsight - is that we change our lens from a We to a Me. We accept that, for reasons that make no sense to us, they are going to keep setting new fires and so we need to find (or make) a safe place for ourselves where they can’t burn down anything else that matters to us. And that includes accepting that we have no control over what they do with their matches and that it is an impossible job (and not our responsibility) to save them from the consequences of their own fires. Every single one of us here knows deep in our bones how very hard and confusing it is to do that. And every single one of us has had to learn our own best way to do it, usually through trial and error.
But the first step is to take the keys back from the teenager.
The only other alternative, if you don’t, is to hand your life and future over to a teenager who does not currently care much what happens to you. That rarely works out well for we LBS. And bizarrely it doesn’t even seem to do much good for the MLC spouse either.
So, I am more sorry than I can say that this is happening in your life. Even more so bc you are so vulnerable after the loss of your father which wasn’t your choice either.
But it IS happening. And it is not going to magically or quickly go away.
So I would encourage you to keep trying to find a way to accept the reality of the quacking duck in front of your nose right now and act accordingly. By all means, hope for a future better….but plan and act assuming the worst case scenarios.
Go slow and steady.
Look at how much of the fabric of your current life is based on a We and how much is not. Start thinking how you can turn the We bits into Me bits. Work out what makes you feel safer and calmer and stronger….do more of that, whatever it is, and less of anything that makes you feel confused, distressed or afraid. Take legal or financial advice even if you are not ready to act on it yet bc information can help you think about the We/Me bits. Aim for the 80/20 rule - which probably feels impossible right now, right? - where 80% of your mental energy and time is focused on the Me stuff. And don’t be afraid that if you focus on Me you are shutting down all hope of a future possible We….that is an unknown yet, but, as you will see from stories here, focusing on the Me stuff is a win-win. If there is no reconciliation, you will need a good safe Me. If there is reconciliation, it is not an easy path and needs a good safe Me anyway.
I hope that your day today has done pockets of calm and kindness in it. Those pockets can feel tiny, I know, but they are like small bricks that we can use to build a future foundation so they are not nothing. X
Husband left right after my dads funeral..
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