[c3po]

Thank you so much for posting "the other side of the story." It is interesting to see how someone in MLC thinks. I am not sure I buy into the past issues argument for driving their behaviors. Lots of people have things that have happened in their past, myself included, that don't do stuff like what our MLCers have done. Is there something in their brain chemistry that makes them less resilient to what happens in their lives and consequently sends their flight or fight response into overdrive? I don't doubt that they think their reality and thought processes are real and true. I work in the mental health field too, and have seen people who are psychotic think that what they see and think is real when in reality it couldn't be further from the truth. Too bad there isn't some drug they could take that would bring them back.

[Dontgiveup]

My ex-wife also said she had to do this alone.

[HeyJude]

Interesting...i'm 27 months past BD..H living with OW..words i heard in Nov were ' ..was on a trainwreck and couldn't do anything about it'.. 'i know the grass isn't greener'.... "it's only a month by month arrangement'.... what can you believe? he's still there..i saw him a couple of days ago for the first time in 2 or 3 months..never said a word about his 'arrangement'..just looked stuck.

His weakness is the chemical high..the love drug...and it has worn off. i can see that. He says he doesn't blame me, it is all about him, he knows he's selfish and he totally chased the drug. Maybe it's just 'affair' stuff and not MLC for my H..i get confused about that sometimes..he's very stubborn, he thinks life is linear and you can't go back (he said that a long time ago so maybe changed his mind about that or won't remember saying it.) I don't get their definition of 'happy'..

r2d21111 - agree..i've had much trauma in my past to deal with....H had his share of a dysfunctional middle class family with a fairly emotionally distant mother ... my parents died of cancer (mum when i was 17..knew nothing about it until near end as my dad kept info from me) then dad died from cancer when i was 26.. had a home invasion/sexual abuse...we all have unresolved issues with family or whatever..i have tried to sort through my issues over the years; been incredibly loyal and supportive and trusting of H. He knew so much about my inner world, my vulnerabilities..yet betrayed me and our boys..he was consumed by something so huge I could see it literally draining him..and he lacked the maturity to make healthy choices..reverted to teenage behaviour.

I think i had my own crisis in my early thirties..when i became pregnant with first child..i thought it was hormones...i don't know..but i fled for some months..didn't want anything to do with H (we had been friends for a couple of years before starting our relationship)..could hardly talk to him on the phone. i knew i was being horrible and it was an awful dark feeling of despair and disconnect. Gradually i came out of it and i returned to the city my H was in when our son was 6 weeks old. (we have two boys..now 22 and 20) Don't we all face some sort of crisis in our lives?

T& L...it's good your friend will talk..if she is still technically in replay, i agree that what she feels maybe real to her at that moment but not necessarily 'the truth'...maybe that comes once completely out of the tunnel..completed the journey? do MLCers tell others how they feel at any given time what's going on for them yet not their spouses ... and we tend not to ask questions (is that because the answer could be different on any given day.. or we don't want to be seen to be pressuring them?) are they talking deep and meaningfully to someone else (OP) about their 'feelings'...somehow i don't think so in my H's case. Of course they function in the world, get on with work etc and maybe others see them as 'normal' but we see something else?

I was so tempted to ask my H questions about his state of being..talk about the damage it's done to our boys, yet i could see such a far away look in his eyes i thought 'his hurt/pain is greater to him at this point ..his self obessession rules..he's avoiding facing how to resolve what he's done and who he is"...but that was my take on it.

My last point..if MLC/affairs has been triggered by FOO issues then my children, who now have this in their history will be facing some triggers in their future..i see it already by the way they have suppressed so much..the hurt and the rejection. The father they once thought of so highly is no longer that same man.  So very sad.

[Trustandlove]

The subject of FOO issues comes up a lot on this forum; we're all looking for reasons for this MLC...

I just wrote her background for information; I wasn't intending to say "this is what caused it".  In my own case, it's me rather than my MLC H who has the messed-up FOO, by that reckoning it's me who should be having the crisis. 

What she didn't talk about at all was her H, except in passing.  In was as if she didn't consider him part of this at all.  That would chime with my own experience, and with a lot of what is written here -- with what DGU says, that his W said she had to do this herself. 

I didn't ask her outright if she realised how much she was hurting him, I may do that next time.  Her take is that "they" struggled for a long time, and the separation was better, as there was no longer the toxic atmosphere at home.  The few times she mentioned him was to say that she didn't think he was being firm enough with their daughters. 

I had heard the other side to that a couple of years ago, that his eldest D said that he didn't seem like her father any more -- not that he was behaving like the MLCer, but that he was no longer the strong force that he had been.   My own take is that he was so at sea himself that he couldn't be.  And as he had been forced to move out, didn't see his daughters daily, he could no longer have that say in their daily lives.  And his W did make him move out.  He spent a long, long time appeasing her, doing everything she wanted, so he agreed to leave as well.   (clearly he hasn't read the advice about not doing so here....). 

Now my friend of course interpreted it as him not being firm, not being a strong enough father, not enforcing rules enough, and so on.  How he feels just doesn't enter in to it for her -- so much so that I didn't even ask if she thought about how he felt.  I have a feeling that if I had, she'd just say that he couldn't go on, either. 

I did ask her last year sometime why she made him go; she fed me a story.  (justifying herself...).  She also said that she felt the girls needed her, as their mother, for the female influence.  That they needed their father all the time as well didn't enter into it for her; she thought that as long as they saw him it didn't really matter.  She justified it by saying that it was better for them that there wasn't the bad atmosphere at home.  She continues to say that.  I DID challenge that; she didn't like that. 

As to what she's been doing:

This is the yucky part; this is the part that the LBS has the hardest time with. 

She didn't have OM when she left, but she definitely planned to find one.  I remember her telling me 2 years ago that she'd "be a lot happier if she had a boyfriend". 

Well, she's had one, but seems to have broken up with him now.  I didn't ask how long he had been around; my guess is since sometime last year.  I had already heard through someone else that her daughters had thought he was awful; she says that she felt such love for him like she'd never felt before, that she couldn't accept less than that.  This is, of course, infatuation -- I did point that out.  She said yes, of course, but there was so much more....  she gave heart and soul to him, she said. 

She finished it because he was so very jealous, she said.  She said it was interesting to feel that kind of deep love, yet realise that she couldn't stay with him.  All in all no sense at all....  so very MLC. 

She wants to find someone else. 

I know that is hard for the LBS here to read; I'm not trying to say that she has made a final decision, what I really saw was someone deep in it.  She has a lot that is 'under control'; she functions well at work, she does deal with a lot of her daughters' things, and so on, but in herself, she still hasn't a clue.  She is experimenting.

She said she was learning about herself, about her wild side, which was a revelation.  Now I didn't know her before she met her H, but I've heard that she had a wild side then.  So this would tally with what so many MLCers do -- go back to that. 

More later...

[honour]

Is there something in their brain chemistry that makes them less resilient to what happens in their lives and consequently sends their flight or fight response into overdrive?

Yes, that is precisely what we I am saying. They are able to keep a lid on their demons until their brain chemistry (menopausal hormone release) changes. [It may be completely different for the male MLCer and I may be completely wrong but to date this is where all that I have experienced and learnt has brought me to.]

July 2010, (BD was August 2010, by July she had already gone off the deep end but no one knew at that time)  a friend was out walking with my W. Friend says to W, " how is it that your brother is an alcoholic, your ister has her problems but you are so sound?"  W replied saying, " I concentrated on being a good wife and mother." [Note the past tense of concentrate.] She may have done something dreadful but I thank God she kept the lid on it until our children were of an age not to be damaged. Who knows what restaint and courage that took? She may appear to the world to be bad but she may be a hero at the same time.

Lots of people have things that have happened in their past, myself included,

I have been subject to some hideous sh!te myself, sh!te that would have finished many people off but for me, the above theory still holds water.

I have a habit of chewing my lip. I'd rather not do it, it's  a stupid habit. Can I stop doing it? seemingly not. It's an explicable compulsion. Is MLC a similar compulsion? Don't get me wrong I'm not giving an MLCer a free pass to bad behaviour; we all have free will. But if I have free will, why can't I stop chewing my lip if I have free will?

honour

[Anjae]

Thanks for telling your friend’s part of the story. Your friend seems to me a mild MCLer, not one who has gone into too much wildness (even if she says she is finding her wild side).

I’m also one of those who thinks childwood/past unresolved issues or past problems cannot be the only reason. Many here, myself included, have had it worst than our MCLers when we were kids/ young. The problems and issues from the past alone do not cause the crisis. Maybe more the way you react to those problems, once they come up, or to the feeling that hit you in pre-MLC.

I don’t find it shocking that your friend wants to find someone else, after all that is what MCLers do, they want to find someone to be happy with. Since they were not happy with us and, for the ones of have had OW1/OM1 and that did not work out, off they go wanting to find someone else. 

I did not got “I can’t do this anymore”, I got “I can only do this (go clubbing and djing – things I have never heard were is life interest or want) now, then I will be too old. You can do your studies until you die”.

My husband did not grow to be what his parents expect of him. He got to do what he wanted. In fact, I found very little reasons for my husband to have had a MLC. Except, perhaps, the wild thing. He was always much well behaved then I was when we were kids, his family gave him much less freedom than mine gave me. I have no crazy wild needs left to burn, maybe he does… He never told me he was learning anything about himself. Not to say he isn’t.

What my husband had told me, when OW1 was no more was that, even if he knew it had been the wrong decision, he had to leave and get OW1 because he felt he was dying. He also mentioned that there was too much strive in the marriage at the time. Of course it was. He was already seeing OW1, I was suspicious there was someone else, he was depressed and sleeping very little, exploding with any little thing.

What really worries me about your friend is that she is a disturbed person looking after and treating other very disturbing people.

I understand that she needs someone to talk to and feel save when talking. Lucky she is calling you and talking to you. Much better than with someone who has no idea what MCL is and may end up giving all the wrong advice, not validating feeling, and encouraging wrong behaviour. I also agree that their feelings, even if twisted by the circumstances, are real at the time. The other thing my husband told me when OW1 was no more was that the rage and anger had made him become blind and forget that he was hurting me. That he let that got on the way.

Honour, menopausal hormonal release only could only apply to women in menopause or peri-menopause. It could not apply for a man or a woman who is not near/or menopause.

[Trustandlove]

In some moments of lucidity a few years back my H also said that he hadn't thought one minute about how much he was hurting me, and that he had then realised that his actions had hurt me very much indeed.  But that lucidity was short-lived; seems he was looking to allieviate his guilt. 

He's also since gone back to saying that whatever we had that was good was so long ago that it wasn't worth remembering; and yes, like you, of course their was tension in the last year or so, as he had already begun serious replay activities....  during that lucid time he admitted that he had just been so consumed by anger towards me and even said sorry for treating me so badly for so long, but again, whatever window opened got closed again very quickly.  Again, he was looking to alleviate guilt. 

Guilt was one feeling that my friend didn't express; I do wonder if she was feeling some when she said that she just couldn't have continued, or perhaps she was feeling some when she was justifying why she thought things were better for their daughters this way. 

I don't know if her MLC could be classified as mild; it could be what she shows to me.  Earlier on in her crisis I'd have called her a clinger; I think it's just plain boomerang now, as she "explores" further.  I think she's good at compartmentalising, so that's why she's able to keep her professional life separate. 

I also think she, despite knowing that she did all the heavy academic stuff because it was expected of her, somehow feels that her H doesn't measure up -- he isn't as super-academic, and he doesn't force it upon their daughters.  I hesitate to say more, because I just don't know enough. 

She said that she was having a hard time accepting that her youngest wasn't as bright academically as the older two, who are brilliant that way.  She blamed her H for not insisting the youngest one work more (while saying that she was so busy with oldest one right now that youngest was effectively living with her H....)

So very, very messed up, in my view, and I actually don't think it's so mild.  Milder in outright crazy behaviour, perhaps, but I think the crisis isn't mild at all.   I do know that her H feels the monster, though; he feels she's trying to keep him from being involved with her eldest's academic things, and so on, which does seem to be the case. 

I know the men reading this won't find it encouraging -- I can't say "well, she's seeing the light".  What is happening is a very slow process.  She says she is happy her H has someone else, although her body language wasn't quite in agreement.  I think she does still expect him to be "there" for her, no matter what. 

One thing that I have noticed, looking from the outside, is that her H has never been particularly firm; for a long time his policy was to appease, to say OK to everything, to be indispensable.  A bit more backbone from him wouldn't go amiss.  And by that I don't mean being nasty, I mean what we say here. 

The general opinion of those who know something of this is that she is going about doing whatever the he** she feels like, and he has to deal with it.  And everyone sees their girls feeling the effects. 

I don't know how "well" I did with her; how much she felt safe vs how many truth spears I threw; I've of course since thought of all sorts of things I wanted to say; perhaps another opportunity will arise. 

[crazyforhim]

I have to bookmark this one so I can catch up on the info....
very interesting to hear what's going on inside

[stayed]

Actually Honour, you can STOP chewing your lip!  You simply stop.  I had a bad habit of picking at the side of my thumb until it bled with my index finger.  No idea how it happened, what caused it, something that started in the winter time, inside my mitts.  I would take off my mitts and my thumb would be pulpy and bloody.

I simply stopped.  I employed all kinds of techniques, I remember tucking my thumb into the padded part of my palm... I remember, grabbing my hand and telling myself, outloud... STOP, Stayed!  Don't do that!  It took time, but every time I noticed myself doing it, I admonished myself, positioned my thumbs differently, whatever. 

I don't do it anymore and have not done it for YEARS.  Funny thing, I found myself doing it again a few weeks ago, after NOT DOING IT FOR A GOOD 20+ YEARS... I shook my hands and told myself, STOP STAYED... don't start that nonsense again. 

We can control our actions.  We have FREE WILL, if we choose NOT to exercise it, then so be it, but lets not fool ourselves... we can CONTROL anything, if we want to badly enough.  Something that is forced on us, rape, beating, a betraying spouse... NOT UNDER OUR CONTROL... but habits, cheating, smoking, swearing, whatever, all are UNDER our personal control. 

hugs Stayed.

[hobo1]

T&L

Thanks for posting.  I am also an LBS who has moved out of the house because of the toxic environment.  I am D now, but in many ways I see my ex just like this friend of yours.  To me, being the one who lost a wife, and exiled from my home and children, the MLC is anything but mild.

I was also appeasing, but will not be anymore.  Not sure what else I can do to be more Firm.  Sad that years later, she still feels that they were wrong for each other.