[nah]

he said when ow moved up here and he had been seeng her for 2 years and she "gave up everything to be here???" that he had made a COMMITMENT now ,

I bet those aren't even his words, sounds like it it coming from an expert emotional blackmailer.

Bingo...another aspect of the different kind of affairs.  Why do most MLCers go for the same "type", the typical affair down?  If they were "in love" then they wouldn't have to manipulate each other.  That's why the same story happens again and again, we read about it all the time.  Emotionally normal people do not get themselves into a mess like this.   

[MeNow]

sorry another thing that is hard to believe is that with the mlc affair he said when ow moved up here and he had been seeng her for 2 years and she "gave up everything to be here???" that he had made a COMMITMENT now , wasnt our marraige a commitment and a vow to love each other till death us to part not to commit adultery and would protect each other

I still now want to say to him you were already in a comimitment how can you just walk away and leave your family your son your home and leave us with nothing spending thousands on ow ??
grr sorry I am angry now .

Because his thinking is only and I mean only about him.

[Searching4Answers]

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 think that "those kind of spouses are spotted early in marriage" - maybe they should have been spotted but I know for me that I tolerated/ignored a lot of red flags because they were 'normal' behavior to me. My parents and H shared a lot of the same behavior - I went from one not-so-healthy dynamic to another one without knowing it.

I think MLC is a lifetime of managed PD finally in bloom...

LL, this sums it up perfectly for me!

[barbiedoll]

Woe!  lots to be said about this topic. For me , it was the absolute haunting of needing to know WHY? WHY WHY WHY. ? Never would it leave me alone and I could not see any motion forward without this answer . And it needed to be something I could understand and validate . To me, he appeared to be seeking some kind of compassion from me for this terrible mental breakdown he had. I do not need to tell you... compassion was not even on the list and I was enraged. It almost felt ( at times) that we were competing to see who had more pain. I just needed to know in my heart and soul WHY this happened. So, I have googled, read every book, researched , listened  etc etc... And I am convinced and will not be unconvinced ( going back and forth is hell ) When you read about all the different types of affairs ( serial cheaters, exit affairs, sex addicts , thrill seekers and on and on ) .. he never fit into any of those catagories in the 35 years I have been with him . What he did do is .... told me he never loved me and wanted out, he was in a deep rage and depression, he slept when he was not blaming, he struggled to explain the unexplainable, he never had anything on his face but a deep furrowed gimace, he was restless to the extreme, he was impatient . He could not sleep. His mood swings were so extreme i still afraid of him. He would be kind and then be stabbingly cruel. He could care less if I sobbed up a lung. He was incredibly arrogant. He was so forgetfull he could not do his job and lashed out at co workers and endlessly hated them. He felt " no one used his actual skills " in the workplace. He was secretive and dismissive. He quit an extremely EXTREMELY high paying job ( unspeakable ) , he looked for apartments to find out where he "belonged", he reminicsed endlessly. He lied. His grandchildren got on his nerves so bad .. he physically grabbed them. He would not listen to anything or anyone. He simply walked away from conversations. He asked odd questions : " do you think there is something wrong with me ?"  and `do you think I am selfish`. He felt controlled and smotherred. He was unbotherred and did not see or respond AT ALL to anyones pain. He refused advise. He was trying to crawl out of his own skin. He got close.. emotional.. and pulled away just as quickly. He was avoidant. He was mean to his children and stated to tell them of his plan to leave . He thought it was all normal `people grow apart... no need for dramatics. He was sufferring , there is no question. He was having an affair with the time of women he has spent decades trying `not to raise`. I could go on... but you all know how it goes. All of this , plus hours and thousands on therapists ... I do believe he just disintigrated and was powerless. I just needed to know WHY. I remember asking the therapist .. `I said , Ì have to know why É`. She looked at me and said `I think we know why`.  He was a man coming apart , undone, unravelled from so many issues that he managed to ignore , avoid etc from a very young age. It had nothing to do with you`. I now know why.. and can feel acceptance that I could never feel before. I am OKAY with the `Why`now. That has taken 15 months. It diminishes my pain of his affair .. maybe .. just maybe 1 % . I am convinced a midlife crisis affair happens for reasons very different than other `types`of affairs. A `thrill seeker or sex addict etc`does not fold up his entire life . I am convinced finally. My husband and I have talked this subject to death...

[Dji76]

Agree it's a lifetime of pd finally bloomed. Emotional distance has allowed me to evaluate my xw for what she really is. Love was blind in my case. Unlike many of u I can't say she was always a great spouse or mother. mlc affair is just a last ditch effort of self medicatin... I think that's what separates it... A new drug for the addict.

[bipolared]

Woe!  lots to be said about this topic. For me , it was the absolute haunting of needing to know WHY? WHY WHY WHY. ? Never would it leave me alone and I could not see any motion forward without this answer . And it needed to be something I could understand and validate . To me, he appeared to be seeking some kind of compassion from me for this terrible mental breakdown he had. I do not need to tell you... compassion was not even on the list and I was enraged. It almost felt ( at times) that we were competing to see who had more pain. I just needed to know in my heart and soul WHY this happened. So, I have googled, read every book, researched , listened  etc etc... And I am convinced and will not be unconvinced ( going back and forth is hell ) When you read about all the different types of affairs ( serial cheaters, exit affairs, sex addicts , thrill seekers and on and on ) .. he never fit into any of those catagories in the 35 years I have been with him . What he did do is .... told me he never loved me and wanted out, he was in a deep rage and depression, he slept when he was not blaming, he struggled to explain the unexplainable, he never had anything on his face but a deep furrowed gimace, he was restless to the extreme, he was impatient . He could not sleep. His mood swings were so extreme i still afraid of him. He would be kind and then be stabbingly cruel. He could care less if I sobbed up a lung. He was incredibly arrogant. He was so forgetfull he could not do his job and lashed out at co workers and endlessly hated them. He felt " no one used his actual skills " in the workplace. He was secretive and dismissive. He quit an extremely EXTREMELY high paying job ( unspeakable ) , he looked for apartments to find out where he "belonged", he reminicsed endlessly. He lied. His grandchildren got on his nerves so bad .. he physically grabbed them. He would not listen to anything or anyone. He simply walked away from conversations. He asked odd questions : " do you think there is something wrong with me ?"  and `do you think I am selfish`. He felt controlled and smotherred. He was unbotherred and did not see or respond AT ALL to anyones pain. He refused advise. He was trying to crawl out of his own skin. He got close.. emotional.. and pulled away just as quickly. He was avoidant. He was mean to his children and stated to tell them of his plan to leave . He thought it was all normal `people grow apart... no need for dramatics. He was sufferring , there is no question. He was having an affair with the time of women he has spent decades trying `not to raise`. I could go on... but you all know how it goes. All of this , plus hours and thousands on therapists ... I do believe he just disintigrated and was powerless. I just needed to know WHY. I remember asking the therapist .. `I said , Ì have to know why É`. She looked at me and said `I think we know why`.  He was a man coming apart , undone, unravelled from so many issues that he managed to ignore , avoid etc from a very young age. It had nothing to do with you`. I now know why.. and can feel acceptance that I could never feel before. I am OKAY with the `Why`now. That has taken 15 months. It diminishes my pain of his affair .. maybe .. just maybe 1 % . I am convinced a midlife crisis affair happens for reasons very different than other `types`of affairs. A `thrill seeker or sex addict etc`does not fold up his entire life . I am convinced finally. My husband and I have talked this subject to death...

Thank you for that post, Barbiedoll.  I am in one of those moods where I nearly convince myself that maybe my husband is right but that sounds a great deal like him.

[Albatross]

Science said that PD is formed in early adulthood. Also as PD people become older their PD symptoms decline. Most of them become normal in middle age. PD people are whole life in crisis, they do not suddenly change 180 degree of personality after more then 20 years in marriage.

[MsT]

Bbdoll- I haven't read your whole story but have read some of it and know you are now working on your marriage together, right?
My question is if it feels worse now that he's out of the fog and more like a human being again?
I know that I have been attempting not to remove myself from the path of destruction by not talking to mine, and today, after not having seen or talked to him in a bit, I am so raging mad that he would dare do this to me that I can't decide if I want to physically assault him or vomit forever. But when he's here with the restlessness and rage and furrowed grimace, looking so sickly, the rage kind of dissipates because he so obviously has no idea what he's doing.
I haven't really had a lot of time to process this yet, so this thread is really helping me a lot, btw, so thank you 

[LisaLives]

Science said that PD is formed in early adulthood. Also as PD people become older their PD symptoms decline. Most of them become normal in middle age. PD people are whole life in crisis, they do not suddenly change 180 degree of personality after more then 20 years in marriage.

I have an undergrad major in cognitive science, but I have studied psychology, as a lay person, my whole life, and most of my best friends are practicing PhD psychologists, or counselors, and I work in the field.  I admit I am not an expert, but I think you are wrong.  Personality disorders are very difficult to diagnose.  They begin in childhood as maladaptive behaviors, usually born of dysfunctional family dynamics.  And usually they do not manifest until early adulthood, but, often, not until midlife.  In general, it takes a crisis of some sort to throw the person's life into chaos.  Schizoids are often diagnosed in very early adulthood when they have to deal with relationships, jobs, and the quarter-life crises.  Less severe PDs, like BPD and narcs often make it through that drama only to decompensate at midlife when their previous coping strategies stop working--things like attention and growth and success start declining and kids getting older cause multiple stressors to emerge.   

And that is why, in many people, MLC IS a true manifestation of a mild PD that had lain in wait for decades.  I knew my H had narc parents, we talked about it.  While it never occurred to me that he could be one, my two best friends, practicing PhD psychologists KNEW and didn't tell me until he left.  I see it now, and he is not a pathological, seriously diagnosable narc, but he is definitely higher on the PD spectrum than I might have preferred.  When I look around at the MLCers I know IRL, ALL of them have serious issues, most of them are trying to self-medicate, but I think for you to divorce MLC from PD in most cases would be an error.  Just MHO, and like I said, I am not an expert... 

[Albatross]

There You go:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3074477/