[Kenai]

Hi there all,

Hope I do not take the discussion very far away from the original topic but I in the context of this conversation, I would like to ask you: How did you discover about the MLC (of your spouse, I mean naming it that way) and at what point or how did you get sure that your H or W was a MLC-case?
It would be also interesting to know at what stage or moment or how did J end up thinking he was having the midlife-depression (thinking that usually the MLCer does not want to acknowledge having one)?

In my case, after the BD and caos in my mind, I actually googled something like "what does it mean when your spouse says he does not love you anymore". One of the first options was an article by the website Divorce Support that said that usually such a comment has two issues in the background: 1) The spouse is having an affair and/or 2) The spouse is having MLC. At the moment, I did not conside my H having an affair, so I started to click on MLC. The basic description on MLC in the website of Divorce Support was the exact description of my H. That is how I started to suspect this option and started to look for info. Yet, I find that most of the info is quite stereotyped and limited. The best info I have found is in here, and in the website of Divorce Support.

But at least for me it would be interesting to hear how you ended up suspecting your spouse having MLC? What lead to that info? Did you know about MLC beforehand and knew to "expect" something like that? Or was the situation just so crazy that there had to be another option?

Kenai.


Split off from the 'a view into MLC from a MLCer' thread.

[Dagolark]

I too was googling the ILYBINILWY speech, and when I found some MLC forums, I started reading the threads and going... omg, he did this, and this, and said this, and this too!

I personally am not as certain as many others because mine is a vanisher. Those with clingers, who witness the mood swings and memory loss and general madness, have surely clearer markers to pinpoint...

[blackice]

my d17 said to me that she thought her dad was having a mid life crisis. that was what led me here. perceptive child of mine.

[The lighthouse]

I too googled with questions 'what does it mean when this....what does it mean when that' and found HS.  For me it was like the biggest aha moment I've ever had and everything suddenly made sense.  I couldn't stop reading and the more I read the clearer it all became. It was like piecing together a jigsaw and still is.  I just keep discovering more and more pieces.

[xyzcf]

http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=5201.msg342942#new

Is a thread dedicated to how you found this forum. You might want to post your experiences there or read other's.

[paradigmshift]

Good Grief.  (In reference to a few posts back before LisaLives post)

I don't believe I or anyone said we as LBS's needed to change because the MLC spouse had a crisis.

Best to you all!  I am leaving for my holiday weekend soon and wish you all a safe and happy weekend.

LP,

This is a forum for us all to share our thoughts, brainstorm, and help one another. It wouldn't have mattered even if you had said that the LBS needs to change because the MLCer had a crisis. Everyone has their own opinion on things ya Mix & match. Sift through the chaff and keep the gold.

Have a great holiday!

[calamity]

From LL: 

Even those of us who have done substantial work and feel relatively whole, will ALWAYS have shame triggers.

Funnily enough, on the radio today I heard the fellow who wrote [?] the tv show Community say that, he carried ridiculous burdens of past shames until he started to blog about them.  He said letting it out & telling someone, allowed him to forget about them & stop being embarrassed.

The idea that mirror work was done for the mlc spouse?  Most of us do the work so that we can overcome the grief.

[CallanG]

LP , that was a great post you touched on many things that have been floating through my mind recently and some of which I have relayed to my H . I hope that you have a great vacations .

Callan

[Kenai]

I find it hugely interesting to know how you ended up thinking that it was MLC - and even more interesting that there are apparently quite a few of us who googled the same lines... 

I hope you keep sharing on this question - whether here or in another thread. The other thread recommended is interesting but here my point was to find out, what made the LBS think his/her spouse's case was the MLC in the first place - how did you end with thinking about the MLC. The other thread seems to be focused on how you found this website, which is important and interesting, but for example in my case, I already suspected MLC when I found myself here - at this stage I already knew to search on MLC. However, originally at the BD, I did not have a clue. Had I not googled those lines he said, and ended up with the MLC-info, I would still be in a complete caos, wondering if he is just crazy or if I am being crazy... And now that I have been mentioning the MLC with my friends, they also often come up asking how did I ended up suspecting MLC because they did not have a clue - As I think I have said elsewhere, at least I have had a very stereotyped impression of MLC, perhaps based on movies, in which 50-something men go with younger girls and buy a sportscar (as in American Beauty). Of course, as we can read in this website, this search of youth IS a SYMPTOM of the MLC but I thought that was the very charasteristics/foundation of it. However, my H does not seem to have this particular symptom, at least not visibly, he is "only" 37. In that sense, on my own just like that I probably would have not thought of MLC. And that seems to be the factor why he thinks he does not have it (but it is clear that he has all the other symptoms of depression). However, now I have apparently learnt that there is much more to this issue, that the chase of youth with sportscar is just a symptom, and we deal with rather depression and a self-destructive way to self-discovery/treating shadows (more like in the movie Family Man).
 
At least for me, it has been extremely useful to read these couple of answers to this question here - I think it is very telling that quite a few of us have googled same kinf of stuff, the same lines. So hope we can keep sharing - sorry if some of you think this is the wrong place for it. I do think it has to do with all this, and speaking of which, I would be equally interested in knowing at what point J - the original MLCer here- figured he has Midlife Crisis or started to call his crisis that way. Perhaps eventually his case was more dramatic with the sportscars etc... But also in his text it gets clear that it included thought-systems a lot more complicated.

Sorry for insisting... But I just found these answers here extremely interesting and important.
Kenai.

[CallanG]

Hi  Kenai

I googled something very similar because I was just so shocked by H's behaviour . I remember saying to my IC when I first called he that something just did not seem right . She reminded me of that not long ago , she said that I have never really moved far from  the belief that something was very wrong with the way it was all happening .

Callan