Difference is simple. Regular cheaters have serious issues, in majority cases they are personality disordered people which come along with a lot other psychological issues. Those people learn little or nothing from own mistakes, because they cannot learn it. So, those kind of spouses are spotted early in marriage and those marriages fall apart in 3 to max 7 years.
Personal crisis, specially MLC is sudden change in personality to the opposite what Your spouse was. Total meltdown. And yes, after 20 and more years of marriage.
I don't post here often, because I always feel like the voice of dissent, and here I go again, but Albatross, this is dangerous and judgmental thinking. "Regular cheaters" have as many reasons for cheating as there are cheaters and not all of them have any more serious issues than MLCers. I would argue a "regular cheater" who is struggling to bring home the bacon, be a loving nurturing father and has a woman who is no longer a wife, but a mother, uninterested in sex, who has a fling on the side, but is trying his best to hold his family together is a LOT less PDed than some of the spouses around here. I think MLC is a lifetime of managed PD finally in bloom...
I have known lots of "regular cheaters," men and women. And I find most of them to have been situational and all I could forgive more easily than my H. I was intrigued when I saw this thread because I have been wondering about something similar for a while... exH had a fling very early in our M. He was sorry, a bit shaken up, I was pissed, but I forgave him. And I would never be one to say he NEVER did it again over the next 20 years, but I don't think he did. He could have, I don't know, he traveled and had opportunity, and I never would have suspected or looked--I didn't know about OW, either. But, I agree, an affair is an affair, is an affair. It is not the action, it is the reason for the action that makes it an MLC affair. But it would still be hard to know the difference, "regular cheaters" can also have MLCs and have different affairs.
We seek relationships of ALL kinds to meet needs, for love, friendship, companionship, drama, personal support, status, whatever, there are lots of reasons we have people in our lives. And even on these boards, we might define affairs differently, is an EA as bad or worse than a PA? Is a work spouse that your H tells your most intimate marriage details more dangerous to your M than a woman he has sex with and never talks to? And is any of those worse than the group of young partiers your H has started hanging with that he insists he is going to ________ with every weekend?
An affair is something that threatens your M, whether it's a car, a running habit, a woman, a job, or I would even argue, a child--many women have children for selfish reasons they would often deny. The reason for seeking it differs for every person. MLCers are in a life transition, trying to differentiate and establish a true sense of self they still have not achieved. Most of them will grasp at any twig that looks like it might hold them, or that they think will prove them strong. "Regular cheaters" are looking for something for themselves, MLCers are looking for themselves. And that's the difference, regular cheaters find what they need in affairs, and often that affair allows them to KEEP their M--by finding something their spouse is unable or unwilling to give they can keep their other life. MLCers seek to replace--their affair becomes them--because they can't find themselves in their other life.
And so, this leads me to the question I have been ruminating over, but I think I might ask it on another thread, so as not to hijack this one...
The best thing about banging your head against the wall for so long is that it feels so good when you finally stop...
BD 1/16/10
D Final 7/21/11
exH married OW the next week and moved across the country to be with her...
LL CHOSE to live happily ever after...
MLC Affair versus Normal Affair/Other Affair Types
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