[nah]

The day after BD I said to my husband, "This is so cliche, just a typical midlife crisis"  I said this before on this forum, if midlife crisis is real, he has it.  Right down to the red sports car (bought and sold) and she is half his age AND blond.  He really didn't miss a checkbox.

When I said that however, I was just referring to what most of the general public believes midlife crisis is, a sad old balding man driving around with a young blond on his arm.  Something we use to joke about, right?  We have all seen that guy in public and now my H is one of them.

It took me few weeks to believe a midlife crisis is real and not just a joke.  My mother didn't use the word "midlife crisis" but when I first told her H had left she responded immediately with, "Oh, yes, well, he will be back.  Men when they get a certain age, something happens with their brain."

So if this is true, if we all know the term (but don't understand it), if the older generation knows it happens (but don't generally talk about it), where are all the psychologists?  Where are all the clinics?  Why do we have to just happen upon a website ?  Where are all the REAL statistics???...just about everyone of us has asked, "How many come back???"  and we are all told the same thing, "ummm.... there is no way of knowing"  Why?  Why aren't there statistics?  Why is this such a secret?  Why is MLC considered a joke?

[Thunder]

When my H first went off the deep end I knew nothing about MLC.  Everyone was so shocked my sister said...maybe he's having a midlife crisis!!  We laughed about it.

I googled MLC and could not believe what I was reading.  It was like they were talking about my H and that is when I finally knew what was wrong with him.  Minus the ow and the red car, it fit perfectly him like a glove.  Aging was his biggest problem.  He was doing everything in his power to turn the hands of time backwards.

So I'm definately a believer!!   

 

[Kenai]

Nah: Your questions above are also my questions. Although I would also like to go even further to the not-so-typical-symptoms and/or more profound info, not just the typical joke, as you say. I have also many female-friends in the 40s who very clearly suffor from MLC - they do not get the red sportscar nor the younger boy. But their thoughts about not feeling anything, about fantasies with OM, about blaming the family-life or spouse, about running away... Are still similar. A female-friend of mine wrote me last autumn about her thoughts that were almost similar to what my H now says! So far, she has not left her family but I think psychologists diagnosed or doubted bi-polar depression and she was taking therapy. Now I think it was just MLC... Now my H is in similar position. I wonder, truyly wonder, how come there are so little studies, so little info, so little therapy-help etc...  Just thinking how many families and lives this ruins...

[nah]

My husband (who rarely has talked to me since BD) even said at one of the hearings that some of his friends "think he's stupid", my h continued, "especially the ones that know you, I know what I'm doing, I'm not stupid you know"

I don't know who these friends are, but I'm pretty sure it's men who have had the same feelings but did not act on them. 

Another one of his friends said to me (days after BD), "well, it's every man's fantasy"  huh?!?      , It's every man's fantasy to destroy your family and everything you worked for???

and yes, I have a female friend that said she feels like she is going through some "crazy female midlife fantasy", she travels for work and showed me a picture of a very young male "friend" that she has been seeing.

I could list dozens of stories here, so it seems somewhat common.  Maybe the problem is, the MLCer themselves just don't want to be helped, so no one does anything about it.  I still would like to see some real statistics, though, why don't they exist?

[Dagolark]

As soon as I started talking about what happened, I got half of the people piping up saying 'omg, is he having a MLC or something??' and the other half 'oh year, you know also my father/uncle/random acquaintance did it too...'

It would seem everywhere I turn there's people in MLC, and yet nobody has seriously studied it. I think it might be because it's mainly the spouse that sees it, not everyone around the person, and there's a big culture - at least in my country - of keeping the 'dirty laundry' within the family. Even my guy is not telling anyone what he did and he monstered at me when I even dared mention his cheating to his father because 'it's private' and nobody should know. So maybe this is one reason why it's not more out in the open. Also, as you say, because most MLCers themselves don't go to therapy until they're near the end of the tunnel, so nobody can see them and psychoanalize them as the crisis begins...

[nah]

Yep, even closer to home. 

My FIL did this to my MIL when H was in grade school.  It was NEVER talked about.  Well, of course, when my MIL tried to pretend she was such a great person when everyone was watching and walked up to me (btw SIXTEEN MONTHS after h left me) to tell me "nothing has changed".  I said to her, "how could you ignore me like this, you know how this feels"  She looked at me confused.  I said your husband did the same thing to you.  THEN, she whispered (so nobody could hear), "oh, it was only for a short time"  Ummmmm... he abandoned his family for two/three years.  Why would she forty years later still try to sweep it under the rug?  and why why why would she and the whole family turn their backs on me?  SMH

[UKStander]

My mother didn't use the word "midlife crisis" but when I first told her H had left she responded immediately with, "Oh, yes, well, he will be back.  Men when they get a certain age, something happens with their brain."

So if this is true, if we all know the term (but don't understand it), if the older generation knows it happens (but don't generally talk about it), where are all the psychologists?  Where are all the clinics?  Why do we have to just happen upon a website ?  Where are all the REAL statistics???...just about everyone of us has asked, "How many come back???"  and we are all told the same thing, "ummm.... there is no way of knowing"  Why?  Why aren't there statistics?  Why is this such a secret?  Why is MLC considered a joke?

Hear, hear and we could we start an action group now?  There's an organisation in the UK called The Marriage Foundation and I went with a fellow lbs to one of their conferences in London. They're all about supporting and saving marriage as an institution. I have their site bookmarked, and when I've got time I plan to draw their attention to this major invisible destroyer of marriages....

[bipolared]

I think it is something like Kikki mentioned on another thread, that there is this prevailing belief that it happened b/c it is the spouse's fault.  And since most people seem to think that this is principally a man's thing, it is the woman's fault.  She just wasn't enough somehow.  Didn't most of us initially blame ourselves?  So even though it is so common no one seriously wants to look at it as a mental thing, people just want to point fingers and find blame elsewhere.
I am finding that practically no one realizes that women have MLCs too.

[xyzcf]

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.

Perhaps Kenai or some other person would start a discussion  topic  thread to further look at this. Just so that we do not hijack moment's thread and can somehow keep the focus on the view from the MLCer.


Split off from the 'a view into MLC from a MLCer - part 2' thread.

[nah]

 So even though it is so common no one seriously wants to look at it as a mental thing,

I think this is the main point.  Divorce is so common that it's the new normal.  People just do a shoulder shrug.  On top of that, especially men, do not want to talk about depression.  It's unmanly, right?  But destroying your family and walking around with a cute, young thing, what could be more manly than that???  Even his f'n family, I talked to his sister that I was worried about him (2-3 weeks post BD), the only thing he asked for when he left was his guns.  She rushed out and was going to save the day.  She never talked to me again.  I don't know what happened and maybe never will.  The weird thing was, she was going to talk to her "counselor friend" and get back to me.  So what did the counselor say to make my sil do a complete 180⁰

It can't be him, he just "changed" and "doesn't know why his feelings changed" and maybe "I'm just f*cked up in the head" oh and one of the best, "I'm shaking and crying because I'm so scared", these are all quotes he wrote to me but this is still normal according to everybody else.

This was all 16 months ago, we are almost divorced (he keeps finding a way to delay), he bought a huge house that he can't afford and is still living with the girl.  Everyone has accepted her.  Divorce is normal, so nothing to see here.