Hi All!
I would like to clarify a few things if I may? I stupidly did not take into account that people would be reading the post who were not familiar with my story. I do apologize for that.
To clarify-as to the issue of pretzeling: Most of us are all too familiar with the silly complaints our spouses in MLC have had about us, and we can divine the difference between real complaints and the nonsense ones. For example, Genius said he and I could not be together because I once made him watch Everybody Loves Raymond for 15 minutes which was the worst 15 minutes of his life. Many of us, however, realize that there is a grain (or boulder) of truth in some of the complaints.
When I say Jae wanted his wife to change, it is the more legitimate things I am discussing. I hold Jae 100% accountable for his horrible actions and nasty thoughtless mean reactions to things. I do not wish to be seen as defending him in any way. I have been terribly hard on him, freely kicking him in the shell on more than one occasion as I have written often. He refers to living at my home as boot camp in fact.
That said, Jae and I discussed many of your all responses to what he had written. His thoughts on pretzels begin from a reverse point than what we are used to here as we many times discuss then stupid and hilarious aspect of such things as eating tacos incorrectly. Jae says he did not want her to pretzel. Instead he wanted her to UN-pretzel. He thinks she became too much like him, tried too hard to please him, tried to give him things he did not want but that she thought he wanted, she made him the focus of her life instead of having a life of her own outside of her position as his wife.
When they got together they were both very active, social people. They both had dreams, hopes, and desires. Ex-wife had a drop dead figure even after the first 2 kids. She was tiny in height and thin in build, dark hair, and as Jae says "eyes like a Hershey's Kiss, and smiled all the time. She was always cooking new dishes and having friends over for potlucks, card games, and to celebrate the holidays. She was so interested in caring for animals, raised some award winning dogs, took in injured creatures, bred fish, and raised exotic birds. She laughed all the time.
Over time she changed. She gave up her dreams to work with animals. She refused to go out socially. She refused to even go to his work Christmas party when he got a $5,000 award for safety and innovation. She gained 40 pounds and quit cooking. Jae bought her the dogs so they could go for walks together but she refused. She said her legs hurt too much. She refused to look for a house to buy. She said it was too much responsibility and work. She got to the point she would not go out to grocery shop or to the laundry. She rarely let the kids leave the house except to go to school. She gave up reading and going to the movies. She would sit on her couch for hours a day watching soap operas and refuse to even answer the phone for fear that she would miss something on one of them. She suddenly mimicked his thoughts even though before they had always had lively political discussions.
Then she got pregnant with their youngest child. She did not quit smoking as she had done before. She rarely went to the doctor appointments. She did not decorate a room or buy new baby things. She just sat on the couch drinking Pepsi and smoking cigarettes. When she had the baby, she was premature and very tiny with lots of health problems. She spent 10 weeks + in ICU. Ex-wife went to the hospital a total of once a week for the ten weeks. Jae was there daily for hours to feed her, hold her, and talk to her. Ex-wife told me she had two kids at home that needed her and she did not have time to take the kids to a babysitter and sit at the hospital. The hospital even had a counselor and the Department of Children and Families look into the situation before they would allow the baby to go home.
About a year later, I remember her saying to Jae, “I don’t give a d*mn what you do so long as you bring home my money, my case of Pepsi and my carton of cigarettes. And the TV better work.”
Once the kids were in school, he asked her to get a job, just something part-time to get her out of the house. It was not for the money. She worked for a total of 4 hours the first time and walked out saying it was too hard. (She checked out books for people at the library.) Then she decided she just did not like people. Then it was that her kids needed her. Jae took her to a volunteer session at the local animal shelter because she said she was interested in doing that. She refused to volunteer there as it broke all her fingernails. He paid $20,000 for her to go to tech school and she never went nor told him that she had changed her mind and not gone. He offered her tickets for a cruise or to see her sister. She said she could not be away from home and her shows that long.
Jae asked her to just see a doctor, get out of the house, do something with him, just talk to him. She responded, “What makes you think I want to talk to you?”
In his words, she pretzeled herself into putting him first for many years. “She gave up herself because she thought I wanted her to be the perfect Mrs. Cleaver type wife. She didn’t remember I had fallen in love with her when she had plans and dreams. When I could give her those things she refused them. Then she turned herself into me, agreeing with me on everything. She had no thoughts of her own. I used to love talking with her. Then, she closed herself off from the world, wouldn’t even read the newspaper or watch the news with me. We had nothing to talk about. I didn’t know where my wife had gone. I failed at taking care of her and as a husband. Our depression fed off each others’ depression. Then I went into h*ll and dragged her and my kids right along with me.”
In hindsight I wonder if she did not have post-partum depression after the second child and was only made worse by the third pregnancy. Incidentally, Ex-wife still sits on the couch all day drinking Pepsi and smoking. She is currently p*ssed off because she will have to drive their youngest child to school 3 days a week. She has called Jae about that 4 times since Thursday when she found out I could not do it and he could not as he is at work during that time. She has been turned down for disability compensation for the final time, and is moving for the 15th time since she and Jae split. He will be helping her move to a new apartment this weekend. Personally I think she is having the beginnings of her own MLC. She has been hanging out with her daughter's friends, letting them have band practice at her house, and now leaves messages on my phone from "the cool mom." She has also started wearing skinny jeans and half shirts as well as listening to rap music. She called Jae one day to tell him it was now time for her to have a life and that he better get used to it.
But none of this excuses Jae's magnificent downward spiral. He coped poorly, reacted in anger instead of appropriately, was a complete *ss much of the time, broke the law frequently, and blew his family's world apart instead of acting like a strong man. He was a selfish nasty bast*rd who is now paying for his actions, but is becoming a caring, wonderfully sweet, gentle, understanding man. As many of you noted, the process takes much longer than described in many cases.
Jae says that he is responsible for the length of his crisis ultimately.
“I don’t know why exactly. I felt like I was waiting for something, waiting for her to act, waiting for some change so I could come home. I went through periods I knew I wanted to go home but just couldn’t. I would check up on her, see what she was doing, what was happening. Most times she never even knew. Once I was outside her apartment, thinking whether I should go in or not. Then I heard her start screaming at her boyfriend and saw his clothes fly out the door. I left-ran really. It scared the sh*t out of me. She was always just like I left her. ”
I also asked him why he thought he was bad so long, fogged in like he says, and how that was related to ex-wife and what she did. Jae says now that he had a lot of things to work through that he was hiding from. (Some of you that have read my thread know that ex-wife had no boundaries as to Jae, his interaction with the kids or her. She let him stay at her and her boyfriend’s place whenever he wanted, allowed him in the house even when he was drunk or/and under the influence of drugs, and took a couple years to even file for child support and divorce. He disrespected her in words, language, and behavior. She put up with that.) He said firmly that if ex-wife had not allowed him to walk all over her, to push her around, he would have been required to act in a more respectful way or go away. That I believe, as that is how I and many, many others dealt with him at the time. He also says he knew because of that, that she would take him back at any time. He twisted that in his little reptile brain to mean that he could continue doing anything he wanted for as long as he wanted. If she was still the same every time he checked on her, than nothing had changed and he could go home whenever he wanted. She never moved from the shelf where he had left her.
Good afternoon xyzcf. I don’t recall that we have spoken before, so I thank you for your time and comments. I agree with you quite heartily that the length of time is indeed much more than as described or expected. The forever story is beautiful and inspirational. Excellent point concerning the manic in our lifestyle as well as theirs. I agree wholeheartedly that the work is for ourselves and some level of contact at times can be helpful in many cases, as well as the observation about the internal clock. To clarify my earlier comments, it is my opinion that there are unintended consequences to all major actions. One of the unintended consequences of the LBS doing the work on themselves for themselves is that in some, perhaps many of the cases, the MLC partner notices. In noticing, it can shake up the MLC partner. They react, examine, and perhaps have to grow just to keep up or choose to fall by the wayside. It calls into question the notions they have in their heads about us. Reality shifts, but yes, in tiny incremental ways.
Jae had no significant event to shock him. The final draw back to town was a milestone birthday for his youngest child. Still he managed to do that drunk and get incarcerated on his way back here, but no shock that awakened him. Just one day he woke up and did not like who he had become.
paradigmshift stated, “In Jae's case, it seems many other men were able to pick up where he failed and he knows it.” True, many other men picked up where he failed. He is good friends with the man she currently resides with and they do many social things together including going to sporting events, hunting, fishing, and car races. Jae feels no ill will to ex-wife’s boyfriend and has thanked him for helping to take care of her and the kids when he went off into space. Jae’s ex-wife states that almost any man with a paycheck would do as long as he let her run the house, stay home and not have to work, and he paid all the bills. A couple weeks ago when I took her out kicking and screaming for a drink, she told me, the one additional benefit to the guy she is with now is that she does not have to have sex with him often as he drinks a lot more now than he did in the beginning.
Moment, I guess we all have our positions on the whole MLC journey, all have different types of MLC experiences that shade our views, and each situation is the same and different. Only you know your J and his motives/personality. Just as I know Jae's. Interpretations of their writings will vary therefore. I do think it is interesting the different takes each of the two has on it. Incidentally, Jae is not mad at his wife. That is why he has spent the last year rebuilding a relationship with her and why I say they would be back together but for.
Best to you all! I shall now return to my own sandbox as I fear I have spoken too much, and for that I apologize.
if people won’t listen to you, there’s no point in talking to people. If they won’t listen, you’re just banging your head against a wall.
Sadly Ive used up all the time I had allotted to spend banging my head on the wall
a view into MLC from a MLCer - part 2
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