[Storm Rider]

Buggy,

So your timeline is similar to mine and JAs, and W and W, I think, but the overprint of getting OW pregnant has thrown a war zone into what otherwise might be more standard progress. I know Snodderly on another site says that some MLCers go into a second deep replay at the end of the standard replay. This is the hard core MLCers who just keep on running. I would suspect that having such a large bomb in your MLCers life at this stage might have a similar effect and disrupt his journey? He would just not have the breathing space right now to start to work on himself. But then again, perhaps he might just be overwhelmed by it all and need that timeout from everything about now and so create it?

[UNHAPPYPUP]

My H is in depression now too.  I think he MAY be near liminality, but I hesitate to write that for fear I may be wrong.

BD was Christmas Day, last year.  MLC started about 6 months before  - sleepless, restless, EA began, and the only response to my concern was "I'm fine - just stressed about work".  This year has been a mix of depression, hostility, aggression, EA withdrawl in Feb...started up again in June which I found out about...to the best of my knowledge it is over but I stopped checking so maybe it isn't.
He has never moved out.
This is going to be a hard Christmas for us both ...as we know it may be our last together as well.
Last week he drove cross country to see his parents. His mom will be passing soon, though she is young. I thought the thinking/driving time would do him well.  He came back happier, but that only lasted a day - now the depression is more apparent than ever.
I am reading a book about co-dependency and interestingly enough I see both of us there...he with his childhood issues and constant accomodating and me with dealing with his depression.  He is low-energy MLC.  Looking back, I think he has been depressed for about 10-12 years. He never really celebrated life...vacations...holidays....I think he has a mix of depression that has been long term, depression fallout from his Dad having depression, and MLC.  A lovely, lonely combination.  I feel bad wishing he would hit bottom and come back up, and at the same time I worried about suicide. 
Two psychologists, one medical doctor and one pastor all told him depression, yet he will not help himself. I am protecting myself, but moving on and sad at the  same time.

[Storm Rider]

Thanks for sharing UP. The only way any of us will be sure where our H's are is when we look back at this period with hindsight. Even those who seem to be following a more textbook journey may well cycle back and forth, let alone those whose cycle a lot on top of that! And this part is so gradual as well.

It is so very hard to sit back and not be able to help when someone has major signs of depression. I know my brother saw countless professionals (many court appointed) in the last two years with his very major depression. He could not cope with literally leaving the house for a year. He was on 30 different pills a day, was told he would never work again, but took no notice of the professionals until one day he met a little old guy he had to see(like the wax on wax off guy from the first karate kid movie). Something just clicked with this guy, his message was similar to what he learn here, but my brother was ready to hear it, and he reached his bottom and turned. Over the next year he came off all his medication, got back into life and has been working now for six months. He just got back from an overseas holiday filled with extreme sport, so these things can turn around.

[UNHAPPYPUP]

Thanks for your response.  It really means a lot to me to hear advice from those more experienced than I.
After reading this and other MLC sites for a while it seems that many experiencing MLC have had turbulent childhoods. I have come to believe that the holidays are the worst times for them - even if those memories are buried in their sub-conscious. I wonder if how I feel now (holiday blues) is how he grew up - disappointed, rejected, sad...while the rest of the world seems so happy! 

I count my blessings...he knows intellectually he should and that they are there, but that "something" is blocking it.  That's his realm: he knows intellectually something is off, but he can't put his finger on it, and is in denial about his "happy" childhood and his depression.  I have also noticed that he doesn't want to watch any shows about angels or ghosts, and he has little to no religious beliefs. Life in the shadows perhaps? 

[justasking]

Storm

It was my understanding that OW maybe present during liminality if the realstionship has changed so significantly i.e not giving the MLCer what they want and their awakening coincides with this.

I'm not sure about my H shadow. Need to read up on it to understand better.

xx

[Bewildered]

Hello Everyone here on this topic -

I think my H is in liminality or withdrawal .. why?
He has tried to sort himself out and face his issues for I think at least 6 months now but has always until now pulled himself out of the well and back into replay but beleive  its now almost impossible for him to do this, facing his issues (shadow) is fast approaching and also; because he had started behaving differently first a few months ago he was showing me he was trying to change - we had a lovely dinner together and he kept saying I really have had a lovely time tonight non -stop and was I felt we were on a date and it was obvious he missed me and kept asking me all about me etc (all on my thread) but then dis sapeared right after this  NOW been 4 weeks - hes ignored my email asking him to call regarding Xmas - his Mum has asked son 23 " Where are you spending Xmas and with who", she has been a nightmare MIL and never speaks to me (hardly did when we were together - very demanding of my H) so I'm guessing she doesn't know what hes up too? He is ignoring friends trying to contact him - the only thing hes doing is going to work but (from D) missed some meetings and seems to her "Dad is trying very hard to pretend he is very happy" plus from what the say hes trying out different personas - one a veggie eco man, the other a charity worker another a friend to struggling social entrepreneurs - All testing the weakest part of his personality - empathy, compassion, etc so

keep you posted - XX B

I think liminality must be the worst for them but the best for us - as we can at least see that the reply stage has been useful ?   

[Storm Rider]

Happy Pup,

I think you have the same amount of experience dealing with this as me, I just waffle on a bit more!

Bewildered,

I like your thoughts on seeing your H trying out different personas at the moment, and how you relate them to testing out the weak points of his personality. That sounds like the trying on of new skins that could be part of the climb out of liminality - most interesting! I think you mentioned a while back in patients thread you saw something similar with a work mate of yours coming through MLC, you saw it as a change before he returned to his wife.

I think HB and others have mentioned it in more general terms perhaps, as seeing weird stuff and different personalities at this time.

Thanks, it is helping me pull it all together. Please keep us updated with any other observations along these lines. Most other MLCers seem to be only getting close to liminality, or testing it out a bit, rather than trying to perhaps climb out the other side.

[Bewildered]

SRider

will do - he's disappeared now for nearly 5 weeks - except for a reply to an email I'd sent re: finances ( a bit pathetic and patronising so I didn't reply).

a lot of the things he says also are more trying to show me hes changing and is sorry for the way he behaved and I thank him or agree with his 'new ' way of seeing and doing things, as a teenager all he did was work hard to get to Oxford and was very much pushed by his mother - lots of expectations and therefore pressure, he really I don't think rebelled or had any fun and now hes doing what he wanted to do but think its not as fun as he thought it would be .... the grass is never greener is it?

keep you posted

Happy Christmas to All

B xx xx

[Rebel Yell]

I like the statement that "the grass is greener where you fertilize it."

[Standing Wife]

well, rebel, if the grass is greener "where you fertilize it'...then us LBS's should have the greenest grass in town then with all the "fertilizer' that our MLCers try and dish up to us as truths