[LoveMeMyself]

Thanks for replying, SassyOne.  I appreciate your information and insight regarding the depression, MLC situation, etc.  I realize it is what it is........right?  There's no way around it..........must go through it.  I also realize, nothing, no matter what, will "fix" it or make it go any faster.  So, regardless of depression, treatment (meds or therapy or both), it is going through the MLC process.  My exH only admits to depression.  He once stated among a group of female co-workers that he's gone through a Midlife crisis twice and the last one (this one) is the worst.  I believe he did it in a joking manner but non the less he acknowledged it.  I mentioned the possibility to him in the very beginning and he got angry at me and said no, it's just depression.  Later, I gave him information and Conway's book.  He hasn't come forward admitting to having a MLC.  So, trust the process, accept it and let it be. 

I asked the question regarding "undo what's been done" on the "Ask the Mentor" thread.  RCR wrote some very good information as to how to handle such a comment.  Very good information. 

I also believe the AD's my exH takes has an effect on his "performance".  Before BD he actually discussed it with a doctor who gave him a prescription to help enhance his libido.  This was just a few short months of BD..........which he finally filled the prescription only to use on his OW#1 at the time.  He has mentioned testosterone levels to me but only briefly.  I had once suggested that he needed to get it checked.  He said he didn't want to seem like a man looking for a medical reason for everything wrong.  So, whatever.  I do not believe he has an OW now.  I think the fact that his lib do is as it is he has no interest what-so-ever. 

Thanks again.

[Sassyone]

LoveMyMan:

Depression can often be caused by low T too.  Sounds like your H is at least thinking about MLC.  It takes a lot for them to admit it that's for sure.  Depression, MLC are those hush hush lets not talk about it things.  I bet if they became more main stream discussions more people would seek treatment or at least be educated on them.

I am sure my H tried a second AD because of OW who I didn't know about at the time too. 

Hugs,

Sassy

[OnMyJourney]

Been managing a horse show office for 4 days with no internet access.  Finally came up for air  :)and realized I've missed so much great discussion.

Thank you AnneJ for the excellent articles and to everyone for your thoughts!   

I have so many comments and questions that I'll have to respond separately when I can.

OMJ

[OnMyJourney]

Kikki - thanks for that article. Fantastic read. My H went through most of those elements. H will readily admit he saw us as one person.

I think I've also read that seeing your partner and yourself as one person is part of co-dependency. 

OMJ

[OnMyJourney]

• Thinking speed will increase. You will have difficulty controlling your own thoughts. The brain will focus on torturing memories and you’ll find it difficult to stop thinking about these uncomfortable memories or images.
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I also wonder if this happens in stages or cycles because in the days before H left he was highly agitated and was recalling  abusive incidents that happened to him as a child, as well as a tramatic incident that happened to him as an adult. 

[OnMyJourney]

Clinical and chronic depression are the more acute forms of depression. Those, like all other types, have several levels of intensity. I’m not so certain MLC is di-sease rather than disease…

Apparently there is also the depression type call "anhedonia".  Some psychiatrists say that they commonly hear complaints of "falling out of love" from their patients and think these are prime examples of anhedonia.  It causes your capacity for pleasure to be so low that it takes enormous stimulation to feel anything.

This made me think about Sassyone's H:

We talked a lot this weekend about depression and replay.  He told me it was a stimulant that he was constantly looking for like a high of sorts.  He also said it didn't matter if it was a good stimulant (i.e. sex, ow) or bad stimulant (fights with OW, me, the kids), he needed the adrenaline high.  It really made me see why the monstering part was so volatile . . . he needed his fix.  He also explained how when he knew the ADs were working and his brain would clear and he could think. 

I wonder if he needed these "stimulants"  just to feel anything at all.

OMJ

[OnMyJourney]

I am still curious for feedback as to why MLC is not treatable if the information about biological components/depression is the root cause instead of emotional/developmental issues.

Good question. 
In one of RCR's articles (couldn't find right now) it mentions that some MLCer's get to a point where they start taking ADs and I got the impression that this then helped them to see clearer.  I've also read from other post-MLCer's that taking AD's helped them see how irrational their thinking was.  This makes me think it's treatable. 

Another problem with depressives is that they are in denial and adamantly believe that nothing is wrong because they are so convinced that their thoughts are real and rational so it is VERY difficult to get them to treatment. 

 

  So the depression part can be treated, and aside from anti-depressants, talk therapy to go through the issues is a must.  The part that is hard is to get an MLC'er to get the therapy and ADs.  I am convinced that my H's replay was far shorter than most because he placated me and when to therapy and his psych dr. for meds. 

He was a typical MLCer in that he lied to the therapist and MC until almost two months after he started taking ADs (tried 2 different types) when then meds finally clicked in.  He has told me that at that point he knew something was wrong with him and could finally allow certain things to seep in for him to process.  He also told me it wasn't until the psych, therapist and MC told him he was depressed that he believed it.  Once he allowed himself to believe that there was a psychological and physical cause of why he was feeling like he was, he allowed himself to move forward and out of replay. 

Sassyone -  In your h's case it sounds as though depression was the issue in your H's situation.

[OnMyJourney]

Since I believe MLC is a development issue, I believe it must be gone through.

Jame's Hollis' Midlife Passages book talks about midlife crisis (he doesn't use this term) as a passage. This book is not a light read by any account.  A reader summarized Hollis's views as,  "he sees it as wonderful warnings that new directions are needed to achieve a meaningful life. He compares the depression, the loss of energy, the unexplained anger, the flare up of passion, as earthquake type pressures that give evidence of the rumblings below.

The passage allows for us to accept our shadow so that one's faults are put in perspective and do not weigh one down day after day with guilt and flashbacks and recriminations. This gives us the strength to go into the final years where one by one we lose all those whom we have loved and eventually they will lose us."

 

[Anjae]

You’re welcome, OMJ.

My husband never told me he saw us as one person. We did see ourselves as a unit, but that is what a couple is. Two people that complement each other, whose total is more than the parts.

Good question, OMJ. Does the thinking speed in their heads happens in stages or cycles… I think the thinking is pretty fast before, during and after BD. From the correspondence that my husband exchanged with OW1 it is possible to see is mind, and what he terms “his felings” start to race up the more he starts to decide to leave. He never brought anything from childhood up but he was totally manic a couple of weeks before he left and until some 2 or 3 months out of home.

The thinking may calm down when they are more stable with other person but I’m only guessing here. When they are heading towards rock bottom, and they start to feel nothing can hold them from it, their heads, again, start to go fast. At least the last one happened to my cousin (my cousin never left or got OW).

Mermaid writes a bit about anhedonia in her threads/posts since her husband suffers from it. Her husband is more a wallower that a replayer. Anhedonia is part of depression, since when we are depressed we lost the joy of doing things we used to like. We see everything grey and have interest for nothing. It is also part of Schizophrenia. In our MLCers it has to do with the depression since they are not Schizophrenics. Maybe some suffer more severely from and for those who are wallowers it may be more obvious because the don’t engage in all those activities than the ones in Replay and High Replay engage. I think wallowers don’t have the amount of adrenaline rush than replayers have some their anhedonia can be more obvious. They are apathetic, visibly numb, sometimes it is like they are dragging themselves.

I think that if MLCers take AD they start to see things more clear. That does not mean the crisis is over. A depression is not over because one is taking the meds, let alone a MLC. But the Ad help to see how irrational the behaviour is, so it may make it milder.

Jame's Hollis' Midlife Passages book talks about midlife crisis (he doesn't use this term) as a passage. This book is not a light read by any account.  A reader summarized Hollis's views as,  "he sees it as wonderful warnings that new directions are needed to achieve a meaningful life. He compares the depression, the loss of energy, the unexplained anger, the flare up of passion, as earthquake type pressures that give evidence of the rumblings below.

The passage allows for us to accept our shadow so that one's faults are put in perspective and do not weigh one down day after day with guilt and flashbacks and recriminations. This gives us the strength to go into the final years where one by one we lose all those whom we have loved and eventually they will lose us."

I don’t disagree that MLC is a passage. However I don’t think it is necessary to get to the extremes our MLCer get to have that passage. And I’m certain many MLCers, like of us, already know they have a dark side. My husband always said he had a Darth Vader side. It is true, like us all, he had a dark side. But that dark side never got out of hand.

In my view the crisis magnifies the Shadow, augmenting ones faults, and creating much more guilt than the previous existing one. And it will leave people forever regretting what they have done. In that sense, it does not take any guilt away, let alone if the MLCer end up without the spouse and the marriage.

A person who had done what our MLCers have done may be burdened with it forever. I find what they do (to us and themselves) too much of a high price to pay to become a better and stronger person.

It almost like saying Europe become much better and stronger after being totally devastated and destroyed by WWII. Even if so, the price was too high (and for half of Europe that stronger and better only come many decades after Soviet Unuion crumble to pieces) Not to mention we (Europe) are, again, heading the same way, making people paying a too high price because of a crisis, an economic/financial one.

I would vote any day for a less better and less stronger husband than the maybe, after MLC, stronger and better version. Yes, husband, and all our spouses, may become much better but… I’m not so sure it will be/is/was worthy all the pain and devastation. Even less when one thinks that, with meds, it could have been minimized.

[Dontgiveup]

Just as an fyi.....there is a thread somewhere on this site about James Hollis and "self-actualization", which I called a fancy term for the maturation process.