[Which of these do you believe was the main factor triggering your spouse's MLC?]

Which of these do you believe was the main factor triggering your spouse's MLC?

Stress and/ or burnout

12 (25%)

Medication

1 (2.1%)

Dealing with childhood issues

10 (20.8%)

Hormonal changes

3 (6.3%)

Depression

8 (16.7%)

Neurological changes, unrelated to anything outside

1 (2.1%)

Underlying personality disorder,

7 (14.6%)

Social fears (aging, mortality, children leaving, etc.)

2 (4.2%)

Genetics

0 (0%)

External factors (work, OW, etc.)

1 (2.1%)

None of these (please add a note) Death of his mother

3 (6.3%)

Total Members Voted: 48

Voting closed: August 20, 2016, 03:03:33 PM

[LettingGo]

Listen up, people.... Mid LIfe Crisis is REAL and it happens in MID LIFE!! Mid Life is anywhere between mid thirties and 60 as I understand it... it can be triggered by  loss, is triggered by an overwhelming wondering "is that all there is" and absolutely is related to age.... who here hasn't looked in the mirror and wondered "WTH!! I look just like my mother.... but I feel 30...."?

[forthetrees]

Mermaid.
My h went to a psychiatrist who said, "Oh, it´s an existential depression." in a flippant manner and we did not make much progress after that.

[HeartsBlessing]

Label it what you will; but the fact is; the CRISIS itself is real enough; one that is deep enough to tear families down; wreck people's lives; and it takes time to navigate; IF it's ever navigated.

It doesn't matter why or how it happens; the fact is it HAPPENS; and there's nothing that could be done by anyone EXCEPT the person who experiences it; to either resolve  it before it hits, or come through it without running away, when it does.

There are very few people who are cognizant enough to recognize what they are going through; the fog and confusion is that deep; and the crazy person doesn't recognize they are crazy; they just know what their perception tells them; and it's usually WRONG; because they are looking in the WRONG direction for their fix; outward, instead of inward. 

There are NO quick fixes, no fixing another person...this is an emotional and spiritual battle that must be fought and overcome by the person going through.

It is a FACT that childhood damage can be successfully hidden UNTIL the MIDDLE of life; before it forces its way out to be seen; and the worst issues are the ones that are seen FIRST early within the crisis itself; most of the time these worst instances of damage are what's run from; because they are the MOST painful to deal with.

True, it takes a trigger to throw them into the crisis/transition; but sometimes; the pressures of a well meaning LBS who doesn't understand what's wrong can be trigger enough to bring out the monster within.

I know it's real, because I LIVED through it with my husband; and EXPERIENCED it, myself and nobody can tell me any different.

And yes, LG; I've looked in the mirror; and said "Oh My God; it's my MOTHER!"  LOL!!

[growing every day]

Myth smyth..... And whatever is my response. This thing is real... call it what you want. Maybe we should call it what it really is....
The "I have decided to become a selfish SOB and leaves those I have loved behind in my dust to suffer immense pain. All by my actions disease. "
 Just my .02.

[Mermaid]

I read a book about a neuroscientist who had a stroke on the LHS of her brain, leaving her with only the emotional, spiritual RHS, and no language or internal narratives ("My Stroke of Insight").

It's not like our MLCers have had a stroke, but in some ways, there LHS and RHS may have become disassociated, one side (left) being more dominant, leaving them with a sense of an unfulfilled self. This has parallels with Jungian psychology and the shadow self. When I told H the story, he recognised the relevance of this. The RHS is almost like an inner child, free, playful, emotional, with the potential for great happiness.

I followed up my hunch that MLC / stress may be connected to LHS brain regions, and I found signs that there are neurological changes in midlife, which mirror those described by Jung, and that severe stress (burnout) leads to left hemisphere disfunction;

The effects of toxic stress on emotional health
· Anxiety with panic attacks, irritability, even angry outbursts
· Reinforcing the anxiety and avoidance brain circuit in the amygdalar region of the right hemisphere
· Inhibiting the optimistic, future-planning circuit in the prefrontal cortex of the left hemisphere.

http://betterthancured.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterised by disturbances in concentration and memory, symptoms which are a source of further distress for patients. Related to this, abnormalities in underlying working memory (WM) systems have been identified [Clark, C.R., McFarlane, A.C., Morris, P., Weber, D.L., Sonkkilla, C., Shaw, M.E., Marcina, J., Tochon-Danguy, H.J., Egan, G.F., 2003. Cerebral function in posttraumatic stress disorder during verbal working memory updating: a positron emission tomography study. Biological Psychiatry 53,  474-481.], indicating dysfunction in left hemisphere brain regions. In this study, we performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 13 patients with severe PTSD and matched non-traumatized Controls, during performance of visuo-verbal tasks that involved either maintenance or continual updating of word stimuli in WM. The PTSD group failed to show differential activation during WM updating, and instead appeared to show abnormal recruitment of WM updating network regions during WM maintenance. These regions included the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the inferior parietal lobe (IPL). Several other regions were significantly more activated in Controls than in PTSD  during WM updating, including the hippocampus, the anterior cingulate (AC), and the brainstem pons, key regions that are consistently implicated in the neurobiology of PTSD. These findings suggest compensatory recruitment of networks in PTSD normally only deployed during updating of WM and may reflect PTSD patients' difficulty engaging with their day-to-day environment.

http://www.growing.com/mind/PTSD/Docs/PTSD_0901.htm

  In most people, the left hemisphere specializes in speech, language and logical reasoning, while the right hemisphere handles more intuitive tasks, such as face recognition and the reading of emotional cues. But as scientists have recently discovered through studies with PET scans and magnetic resonance imaging, this pattern changes as we age. Unlike young adults, who handle most tasks on one side of the brain or the other, older ones tend to use both hemispheres. Duke University neuroscientist Robert Cabeza has dubbed this phenomenon Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in Older Adults—HAROLD for short—and his research suggests it is no accident.

http://www.coachinglogic.com/Myth_of_the_Midlife_Crisis.htm

Just some thoughts.

[Thundarr]

I completely agree that this is real no matter what label is attached to it.  My W who I've been with for 21 years was always loving toward me and especially the kids.  We were very physical and hugged each other and the kids several times a day as one of the love languages we shared.  We also set aside time for the kids each day and weekend and usually did things as a family.  We were very close, physically and emotionally.  We put our kids through Catholic school and brought them up believing in the church's teachings.  We had them go through all the sacraments.

Now, she really is the direct opposite of what she was.  She has turned not only against the church but against God himself and mocks those who follow, she doesn't even want to be touched by me and desires no relationship other than mutual parents, and worst of all she has left the kids and seems to have no real desire to see them and only comes by because she has to.

All this, and she brags to friends about leaving us and expects everyone to praise her.  The brief times she spends with the kids she takes their picture and posts it on FB so that others will think she's some kind of super devoted mom.  She moved into a ghetto and presents it to us and others as if she somehow bought her own mansion.  She's renting it from her dad who had been wanting to sell it, but she doesn't admit she's renting from her dad. 

She also has days where she won't even look in my direction when she talks.  She also is very brief and distant from the kids.

Is this real?  No doubt whatsoever.  I cannot imagine gracious, loving, caring, compassionate women becoming rabid demon-ows from Hell and still be in their right mind.  Were there triggers present? Definitely.  Unresolved childhood issues? Definitely.

My worry is that if there are different problems that cause all these same symptoms, then the successes that we hear of may be limited to one or two certain types.  There may be instances that are unresolvable and that the person will never go back to their old life and we have no way of knowing that until time plays out.  We need a way early on to tell what type of MLC a person has.  If for no other reason, it would give us a great deal of information that we could take into account in our decisions to stand or not to stand.

 If I knew that my W was gone for good, and that I would be raising the kids from here on out on my own I would definitely not stand and would move on in the hopes that I would be in a loving relationship and that I might find someone to be a mother to my kids.

[Mermaid]

Hi Thundarr,

I'm sorry you have to go through this. I know how painful this all is, for you and the children.

My provocative title of whether MLC is real is not to doubt for one second that our spouses are going through something deeply shocking and life changing. The question is what it is precisely they are going through.

After all my reading, I don't think MLC is one single disease with a similar set of symptoms, but several things (see the list at the beginning). Among the people I have met on the forum over the past year are people, like my H, who have had severe and prolonged stress. There are some MLCers who seem somewhat psychotic. There are some with deep (childhood) traumas that they have suppressed and are now dealing with the consequences. And there are others, not easily categorised in this way, who are generally confused, or immature, and so on.

The question is, do you know what is going on with your W? What is the nature of her confusion, the cause of her behaviour? This helps us in our decisions, and gives us courage to stand.

Hugs, Mermaid

[Thundarr]

Hey Mermaid,

I know that she's been making statements of feeling like she's getting old and running out of time for almost two years.

I know that her mother no longer recognizes her due to Alzheimers and that she hasn't dealt with it.  She's also has to grocery shop for them and check on them almost daily.

I know that she lost alot of weight, grew her hair out and lightened it, got back into '80s music, started hanging out with a completely new group of friends and doing things she never had (yard sales, flea markets etc).

I know she impulsively traded off our family mini-van for a compact that she did no research on and paid way too much for, while getting robbed on the van trade-in.  She picked that car, she says, because several other women she works with drive Toyotas.

I know she contacted her X from high school last August but blocked him later and has now added him on FB once again.

I know she was calling a married lawyer friend excessively earlier in the year, and now hangs out with him and his W almost every weekend.

I know she has abandoned me and the kids and only sees them occasionally, and prioritizes her time with her new friends over time with her.

I know our S6 has spent only 1 night with her in 7 weeks and our D10 only 3.

I know that I'm not the only one who notices that she's radically changed, as both of our families and even casual friends think she's very different now.  And not in a positive way.  She says people at work tell her she's changed but she refuses to elaborate.

I know she's expressed no concern for my pain whatsoever and has even mocked me for hurting or fearing for losing the house.

I know she says the kids will be fine and better off, even though they've never been in a dysfunctional environment.  She reasons that kids go through divorces all the time just fine and that this will make her a better person and a better mother.

I don't know what's going on with her.  I don't know her or if I will ever see her again.  I know I may never trust her or anyone else again as I fear I will have this constant fear that they will turn against me suddenly for no discernible reason.

Thanks for reading this, and let me know if you have any idea what is going on with her.

[Mermaid]

Hi Thundarr,

I'm no expert, just another LBS trying to make sense of this confusion. My H is one of the few people who has managed to express what he is going through, and this gives me some advantage in understanding all this. Not everyone gets the chance to listen to their MLCer, but if you can, do. Listen, don't judge, just validate, and don't take it personally.

In your W's case, from what you say, it doesn't sound like it was triggered by stress, she doesn't seem psychotic, but perhaps her mother's Alzheimers has made her fear for what she hasn't achieved. Instead of facing her loss, she's turning backwards and regressing. It sounds like she's trying to escape her reality and live/ re-live her youth (like so many MLCers).

In Jungian psychology, ML is a time of transition, of embracing the shadow self (the repressed/ unacknowledged side of one's psyche).  But this isn't conscious, and in crisis there's just a feeling of a life that they haven't lived, and being trapped in the life they've made. I feel that my H has built up a strong disassociation with his right hemisphere, and has forgotten how to be happy. His left hemisphere, critical, controlling and analytical, may have been damaged through stress burnout.

In the case of your wife, I don't know what could have led her to the point of crisis rather than transition. Did she grow up too quickly? Did she miss out on part of her adolescent development? Or were her home and family routines overwhelming?

It doesn't hurt to send some truth spears about the effect of her behaviour on your children (but keep them light and sharp).

I don't know her or if I will ever see her again.  I know I may never trust her or anyone else again as I fear I will have this constant fear that they will turn against me suddenly for no discernible reason.

I know how painful this is. You have a long journey ahead. I have the feeling that we were as trusting as children with our spouses, and never expected this behaviour. Slowly, we have to regain a sense of ourselves as whole, wonderful people in our own right. We're not half of a couple. We have to take responsibility for our lives, for our pain, for our future. WE have to lovingly detach ourselves from what our spouse is doing. It helps to understand, but we're not responsible for them, only for ourselves, and our own feelings.

Eventually, if and when your wife sees this new you, it will change how she sees you. Then, you will be strong enough to decide what and who you want in your future.

Take care, Mermaid.

[Thundarr]

Interesting questions, and I'll do my best to answer.

She grew up in a home where she was very close to her mom but no relationship with dad.  Her parents slept in separate rooms her whole life, and her dad was very controlling and didn't let her mom pick out anything for the house or even the cars she drove.  He would literally go buy her a new car and bring it home to her sight unseen.  He was physically abusive, but the only time she told me about was once he whipped her with a belt while drunk.

She moved out to go to college at 19, but never ended up enrolling.  Instead, she lived with one of her friends and a male roommate, Three's Company style.  One night she had been drinking and one of her male roommate's friends took advantage of her.  When her religious roommate and her other religious friends found out, they put her down and disowned her as a friend because in their eyes she had sinned unforgivably.  She moved back home and then we met 9 months later.

Incidentally, the college she was living at is the one I recently graduated from 3 days before BD.  When we went there for my comp exams two months before BD, she took a walk down memory lane and showed me the house she lived in and talked about what happened for the first time in years.  She said she was over it, but had alot of regrets about never enrolling in school and not making anything of herself.  The fact that there were old yearbooks laying around the school while she was waiting for me wasn't good as she looked up the senior pictures of several of her friends from 20 years ago and seemed really down on herself.  I tried to build her up but she wasn't hearing it. 

So her MLC must be about her feelings of failure, especially after seeing me finally succeed.  I don't know what it will take for her to resolve this, and pray it won't take the 10+ years to get her masters as well.  I don't know how long or if I really want to hold on at this point.  Thanks for your observations on this and for this thread in general.