[Synicca]

LL
 did you notice any changes in your H after the heart attack???

[LisaLives]

I have been strict NC.  I saw him for the first time in a year two weeks ago.  The thing that really struck me is that he looked so old, but that is difficult--he was with her, who looks 12, so I am not sure if he looked old, or if she made him look old.  Hard to know, but when he left me he was balding with no gray and now he is totally gray, shockingly so, in fact.  The kids say he is calmer, and he seems somewhat mellower to me, but it's hard to know, I REALLY forced myself to detach and be NC.  I knew it was the only way I could live.  I could never do what you are doing synnica, I would be a basket case--I know I am not that strong... 

[LoveMeMyself]

So, could the trauma of being fired from your job at the same time you just purchased a house push you out of the tunnel too soon?  My ex just got fired this week and closed on purchasing a house two days later.  I don't see how he can be "happy" with his screwed up life.  It makes me shake my head in such disbelief at all the damage and destruction he has done to himself.  It's just so hard for me to sit and watch him doing this to himself.  It's like watching him slowly drown inside a glass bubble and I can't get to him to pull him to safety.

[Synicca]

LL

believe me...it's not easy....I'm reaching my breaking point...not sure how much more I can handle.

but I just keep telling myself....its not him....it's the DIS_EASE.


I hope we can get some answers....LMM, seems like that would throw your H over the top...so IDK.

Hmmm do you have regular contact with him?? maybe watch his behaviour now that he has lost his job.

[LoveMeMyself]

synicca,

    I don't really have regular/constant contact with him.  He had started contacting me more via phone calls and actually seeing me more.............just very briefly.  He worked with a friend of mine and through her I "heard" things........now, things will most definitely be different.  My ex called me to tell me he got fired. He was very curt with me and matter of fact. The problem is that we jointly own vacation property.........which now the burden of payments falls on me.  I can manage but it will be very tight financially.  I have lots of experience living on bare minimum while raising two children........so this shouldn't be too hard..........thank goodness I'm not responsible for small kids.  I'll try to keep everybody update as things progress........I'm real curious to see how all of this will play out.  I can't imagine buying a house knowing that I just lost my job. 

[Dontgiveup]

Sorry.....I was out tonight at a fireworks show, but looks like you found the information you were looking for.

My only additional input would be that I don't think we can really know how a trauma within the tunnel affects them.  MLC itself is about emotional development, which includes coping skills that were not developed properly at an earlier age.  That may be why we see MLC timeline ranges anywhere from 3-10 years.

So, if someone "came out" of their MLC, then went back in, how do we know they really came out of it?  Maybe the MLCer was cycling?

[trusting]

My H lost his dad while deep in the tunnel and quite honestly, I can't see that it made much of a difference, at least outwardly.  I was hoping it would propel him forward but it definitely didn't seem to be time yet.  Of course I have no way of knowing what went on/is going on inside my H - he hasn't expressed anything like that yet. 

I have heard it can push them forward or cause them to go backwards, but I didn't see any obvious signs of either.  Like always, I am sure it is specific to the individual.

[Trustandlove]

The trauma topic is interesting.  I've always put our friend's suicide as the triggering event that started this mess. 

I thought for along time that another event like that might bring him out.

We have had quite a lot of trauma in the past 4 years.....

Here is our experience:  -- about 18 months into this his cousin died.  This cousin was a minister who officiated at our wedding; but he died basically of not taking care of himself -- he was diabetic, on dialysis and an alcoholic who wouldn't stop drinking even for that, or for his only daughter.  He had lost his wife a couple of years before.    I was particularly sad, because this cousin had recognised that H wasn't right (we didn't talk MLC specifically), and really wanted to help, and H was even beginning to listen to him -- he wrote him an e-mail at about 6 months in saying that "perhaps there is hope for T&L and me...". 

Then a few weeks later another old friend of his family died; around that time his mother's alzheimer's got worse and 6 months later she had to go into a home; that home later closed and she had to be moved; then earlier this year our son's godmother suddenly died, just a few weeks ago a close colleague of his died in an accident.....  have I missed anything???   

After our son's godmother's death he even said that he had been thinking at the funeral that if he were to "go" now, what would be the legacy -- and concluded that it would be nil.   

So all that goes to show that it doesn't seem to mean anything in terms of getting them through; in my case it "appears" that it didn't make one iota of difference; perhaps even pushed him deeper into running away.  But I guess we don't know what they're thinking.

I remember back to my own "early-life" crisis; a couple of things like that happened, but they didn't really do anything one way or another, other than one funeral (a friend's mother, in her 40s) did make me go back and at least "be" in the company of people I had left behind.  So perhaps these traumas also do that for my H. 

So long answer to short question, basically saying the same thing that trusting is saying.