This is a compilation of all the quotes I have managed to collect from various sources of what MLC'ers have said about what they felt during their crisis...
I thought I would make it available to everyone as it has helped me to understand.
Hope this helps others...
If anyone else has other quotes from MLC'ers they have come across please feel free to add them
Previous threads
http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=4793.0http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=3776.0http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=3564.0http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=3528.0http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=3521.0He never responded during those times but he did talk to me lately about that saying that it was the most miserable times in his life. That it was pure hell. He would lay there at night with so much pain, hurt, shame, and guilt that he couldn't stand it. He said he would think how can OW b OK she left her family and she is OK with everything while I am in pure torment.
He said at that time most of the time I thought we were over but there were moments of Clarity when I would think what the hell is going on.
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Since we reconciled, let me tell you what my husband has told me. While he was in the worst of his MLC, he didn't trust anybody, least of all ME. He was convinced that I was the PROBLEM, that the only way forward for him was to take care of his HAPPINESS. His happiness was the only thing that mattered to him,
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I asked my brother-in-law who returned home after two years:
"Did you miss my sister when you were gone? Did you even think about her?”
"Non stop ALL the time. My head was swinging wildly. I never stopped thinking of her."
“Why did you leave?”
"I couldn't stand the way she spoke to me. The other woman was nicer."
"Why'd you come back?"
"Because I couldn't stop picturing her and the kids' faces when I closed my eyes. Plus, I didn't want her to be with someone else."
"Why two years?"
"That's how long it took for me to be tortured enough to finally figure it out."
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He says now, he cannot fathom why he behaved the way he did, it was like he was insane and he feels that in fact he had a breakdown.
He cant really explain what happened or why, he says he literally cant put his mind into his mind as it was then and understand his behaviour or choices.
Each day that he reflects back on that horrid time, he sees it differently: he admits that he didn't care at all for how i felt or the children. His mind would not even entertain the thought that we were hurt. He was "frantic" he needed to "change".
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I just became very 'at odds' with the differences between whom I saw in the mirror and how I felt inside. confused As if they were two separate people...finally the mirror image and my inside person seem to be becoming one at last!
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There were times the old husband made an appearance and I got the occasional nice message or call but most of the time he pushed me away as hard as he could. He said seeing me was "too hard" so he wasn't even willing to be friends.
I know he suffered, I observed that, but I also suffered and in a sense I feel like he slept through it. The crisis severed our bond to the point where at times I could be sitting right next to him and I felt like there was no one in the room with me.
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I am a MH nurse who has also had three episodes of very serious depression.
It's an illness which completely alters your view of yourself, other people and the world. It is an illness which alters your perception to such a degree that you act in ways which are difficult to understand and so removed from your usual personality and character.
When I was very ill I genuinely believed that I was an awful, awful person who had a terrible life and who no-one could possibly love and that everyone would be better off without.
I cut myself off from anyone who cared about me because I either believed they were just pretending to care or in the case of my parents, sibling and boyfriend - I believed they loved me but I didn't deserve that love because I was a complete b*stard and I was just bringing them down and ruining their lives. When forced to see or speak to people I was so irritable and so resentful that they just wouldn't leave me the Funk alone that I was horrible at times and said things that were completely untrue but which I believed at the time. Classic depressive thinking.
IF that was what he was going through and thinking then it wasn't a mid - life crisis, it was a very ill man.
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My h is just now able to articulate a feeling of "needing to abandon", that drove him from our home and kept him in the OW mess. He explains it just that way--a feeling that he had to leave. It didn't make sense to him but it was a deep drive that felt real at the time and kept him in a constant state of confusion. ___________________________________________________________________________
My husband does not have a reliable memory of any of this....crazy. He has told the therapists over and over and over , about this "cord or rope " that runs between us and he was very very aware of this rope. Odd... because that means he thought of me often. It will never be understandable to me. I am just trying to find a way to accept . I also would add that my husband is he 'poster child" for compartmentalization "boxes"... although he calls them "drawers". No 2 "drawers" are open at the same time. We have been told it is a common brain fuction for men , especially for dealing with ways to simply "survive" life.
My husband calls it compartmentalization ( after a million hours with a shrink) . He never thought of me when he was with her . ( I feel anxiety in my stomach just remembering it all ) Women cannot imagine how this happens .. but it is true . My husband has used "compartmentalization " all his life.. just to survive his childhood . It is so foreign to us, so inhuman , beyond our ability to comprehend how this could ever ever happen.. but it does .My husband said that no matter what I said " it was turned into an angry negative instantly in his brain". He felt ZERO ZERO emotional connection to me or his kids , his family , his job, committments .. nothing . He was empty . He only felt anger and negative input etc . He says , he felt ZERO emotional connection to the OW .. he was not capable .
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My D24 had had depression for many years and she doesn't remember half of the antics she engaged in - she knew at the time what she was doing was wrong but memory becomes extremely distorted in depression.
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I was OUT OF MY MIND. Several times I talked to H about me moving out (like I could move then???), I brought up divorce once, and I really withdrew from H. I also became depressed, mean, and in my own way smug.
My point is that while in crisis, I felt possessed with anger. Anger about my health, my body's betrayal of me, and anger that surged up from my childhood.
I felt like brain cells were firing that were not connected to other brain cells. I felt numb, frozen, and I did not realize the gravity of the things I was saying and doing. I did not realize how hurtful I was being to H. I didn't realize how different I was acting from the person I had been prior to my crisis.
I was in total survival mode. It was like I did not want to hurt him, but it was him or me and if I had to hurt him to escape my pain, then I just had to.
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H said before we went to see a pastor Sunday that when he looks back at the "rubbish" he did, it felt like he was "possessed". Interestingly, H took it to mean "mental illness" as well as " spiritual possession", it was to him like being 'split-self' because he still could feel it was 'wrong' as in 'learned morality' but it 'felt good' as in 'primal instinct', unfortunately primal instinct won.
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"you got tired of being "different" .. but really you had something meaningful that they didn't .. " I think you hit it right on the nail. To be honest yes I wanted to the "the" guy. In a way live the charlie sheen lifestyle and looking back its stupid but at the time it was appealing. I wanted to party I wanted to enjoy life. I found it was empty, shallow, artificial, it was only temporary. It wasn't fullfilling. It was like eating a big delicious pizza. In the moment you're eating it, it taste so damn good. Once you're done you feel full, your stomach hurts, you feel disgusted, and you ate a $h!te load of calories and messed up your diet and doing long term damage for a short term satisfaction. I see that now. Im not saying im perfect, no. Not at all, far from it. What I'm saying is I see my mistakes, I see what I did wrong, or at least most of them and I really want to be a better person.
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I was just talking to a friend last night that self-admittedly went through a MLC years ago. He said he sunk into a deep depression and went cuckoo. He's told me repeatedly that someone in depression will refuse listening to anyone telling them that they are in a depression. People don't want to face their own demons. If anything, by telling someone they are depressed, the person will fight the idea even more.
So I asked him what made him snap out of it. He said he's really not sure, but he thinks it was because one day he was wallowing and he realized that there truly was nobody else to blame anymore. He was alone, and there was no attention for his depression, and he thinks that what made him realized that the problem was his and his alone.
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my W would talk about how her head was messed up and she didn't know why. She describes it as "I knew that I shouldn't be doing what I was doing and I knew what I should have been doing, but for some reason I continued to do it anyway. I couldn't stop myself."
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He began to talk and said that he had been having these issues come to the forefront of his mind that he could no longer ignore.
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He used to be an outgoing character and he was now looking in the mirror and barely recognised himself. He had been supressing his feelings of hurt for so long and he had turned himself inward and they were eating away at him. He said that he was someone who always went with other people's flow and just accepted things and never felt that even when he spoke others took any notice so he stopped bothering. He said he felt quite angry at that but he'd been doing it so long he didn't know how to change it. He didn't elaborate but he said that there were issues coming inside his head that he hadn't even thought about for 20 years and he couldn't understand why they were in his head now, but he felt an urgency to do something about it.
. I asked if he felt pressured by them and he said yes. Even his dog needing a walk felt like pressure because he couldn't find the will to do it.
I asked him if he felt guilty about his family friends etc, even the dog and he said to me. I can't believe that you seem to understand all that's going on in my head. He said he felt shameful of the fact that he could cry at any second and that he couldn't deal with his personal issues in the logical
way he deals with everything else
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My ExH got lost -- very lost in the fog of midlife crisis. He took a sledgehammer to every good thing in his life: his career, his finances, his reputation, his friendships, his health, and his marriage. In short, he blew up his life -- chasing after the "greener grass" he suddenly thought was out there.
Five years later, the fog has lifted and he's stunned at what he did. He can't explain it, other than to say he "went insane."
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It is no secret that I had a mid-life crisis fueled by depression, which was caused by my own feelings of inadequacy and feeling non-important. It is also no secret that I am the sole cause of my issues. I did not have the coping tools I needed in order to recognize something missing in myself, that needed to be addressed and worked through. I never felt good enough, and my self-taught coping mechanism was to be very outgoing, ignore conflict and to avoid confrontation. This way, everyone would like me.
Not being able to cope with conflict and avoid confrontation allowed me to put up a wall around my feelings that no one knew about. I pretended to be happy and content and before I knew it, the years passed by .
In January 2011, I was ripe for the affair and I chose to allow it. I allowed someone else to make me feel good without giving my W a chance.
I read a newsletter today from John Folk-Williams. The Storied Mind Newsletter, Newsletter #29, "Depressed Partners Who Blame and Leave". In it, he reviews five types of depressive behavior from Angry and Abusive to Numb. I recognized myself in every single one of them last year and I still feel angry at times that I allowed myself to make the decision I did and live a double life for eight months.
I left my w, at first, it was emotionally and then very briefly it was physically. I am very lucky that she was able to recognize that something was not right with me and allowed me to recognize on my own, some time in August, that I was not fair to her and did not give her the chance she was asking for to make our marriage better and whole.
John mentioned in his article that it takes time to recognize and challenge the stories that we tell ourselves and my w gave me that time..
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H states that RCR's information on Midlifers as written above is SPOT ON. He really has trouble remembering things from last year (lucky him) and he does try so he can help me in my healing, but honestly they are blank. (Drives me nuts
.) He also states that the strobe light reference is true. Last year he was like a horse with blinders on doing only what he wanted to do . . . he didn't care nor think about anyone but himself. If it fit his needs, he did it. However, there were times when he felt like a strobe light would go off and he could see clearly. They didn't happen often, but when it did he knew something was wrong. Eventually the moments of clarity happened more regularly. Now he does not remember what he did, but he does remember that I was there for him and never left. He also stated he does not remember it being fun, (I told him that I often view his replay as his fun time), but he sees it as something that happened 100 years ago and a horrible history lesson. He also cannot believe what he did. The remorse comes eventually. So good news is there is no fun, love or happy times associated with replay . . . eventually. He did state that he must of been having fun or it must have been his definition of fun at the time, but that he cannot comprehend it anymore. I hope this brings someone some hope and the necessary information they need to keep standing. As many say (I think it was RY) standing ain't for sissies.
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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
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As my H tells me, it was like a tornado in his head. Constant noise and he just wanted to block it out with OW, work, booze, anything but me and then sometimes me. Acting as if and giving him space, no texting or calling and no questions at the point at all. Texting him to talk is all pursuit and pursuit means pressure.
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, he said, "The reason for me that weeks'd go by where I wasn't feeling to bad about things was because I was f*ckin MANIC, and to keep myself manic meant the pain would stay away. I always knew it was there and if I was not in a constant state of motion and action and drugs and drinking and women and parties I felt the pain. While high, however I did it, I didn't feel the pain and the squirrels in my head quit spinning me in giant circles, confusing me. That was where the pleasure came in that cost me my soul. And I had to crank it up farther and farther to keep the bad thoughts out."
. Any recovering addict will tell you that you may start out getting pleasure from something (but then the monkey is on your back). You only need the pleasure cuz your covering over a hole in you where the pain is. This sorta pleasure that is. (The rest of the time the things that brought you pleasure before don't cuz they are not enough to get by the anhedonia crap. Just not enough stimulation.) "And you know why this guy kept doing those things? It wasn't cuz he got pleasure, it was an addict has to do them to maintain. Your always chasing the next high. Avoiding the crash. And ya need more and more just to maintain. It's not fun anymore. It is a 'has to do just to get by'."
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True in our case anyway. H is home, and being a physician is fully aware that this is what he went through (perhaps still going through to some extent, but not in "crisis" mode.)
Every so often, if it comes up, i might bring up something he said or did during that nightmarish time, and he is stunned. He believes he said and did it, so he doesn't deny it...but it's as if "another person" did it. He accepts responsibility however, even if that was a severe depressive episode. He insists that his brain is different now...he can't explain it, but there was something wrong he said, on how he "thought". He didn't care or have feelings for anyone he said. He had no empathy and it didn't occur to him that his family was hurt. He said he hated himself and therefore me. He was frantic for change.
The basis for how he got into that mess he is still working on....he knows. How his self-worth or happiness is dependent on the wrong things...etc. he sees me and him as one person or sometimes Interesting how just "knowing" gave him power against this thing. I thought it might be interesting to study this from an MLCer who is looking back on the destruction he caused.
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In my case, through the initial period of deep MLC which manifested outwardly between March '02 & March '04, I'd spun such brilliant BS that everyone thought I was right to want a separation/divorce. In March '04, my husband left for the second time. I'd gotten rid of om before that but was still trying to live it up. I was crashing hard and fairly regularly. I still managed for another year to outrun reality though it did creep in occasionally. My husband stopped fighting for me when he left the second time. That was the biggest jolt. It was good to have that pressure off for awhile though. By summer 2005, I was coming apart at the seams. Completely. I'd exhausted myself with the things of the world that had enticed me, I was looking at families and missing my own. For the first time, I started to see that there had been good times. I had REALLY forgotten them. There are still times as recently as a week ago that I'll remember something and mention it to my husband and he'll look at me as if to say "did you JUST remember/realize that?" and if I were to answer, I'd say yes. MLC stole a big chunk of the good things about my marriage. It seems I get them back a little at a time. But I FORGOT. I did not see us as my husband saw us.
So you (husbands of MLC wives) really are holding something precious that no one else has; you're holding the real truth about your lives together. You're the only one that's going to understand her when she comes back. You're all that's going to be familiar and if you're not there...
Anyway after a while, I started seeing how I had contributed to the bad times. By October 2005 I was completely broken and flat on my face in repentance. Thinking of it still makes me cry.
I was a mean MLCer.
I convinced myself and everyone around me that my husband was the biggest SOB that ever walked. I BELIEVED it. I twisted every argument we'd ever had but ESPECIALLY as he fought me THEN.
I had all my family in support of my efforts.
Eventually, and it took a long time, I convinced my husband we were really through.
He stood for over 2 years, though.
Alone.
Without a message board or a clue about MLC.
He just believed in me and in us.
It seemed when in order to save his own sanity he had to let go I started waking up.
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As for me being in MLC was sort of like marbles rolling around in my head and maybe even my heart. It was a dull pain, I cried alot so I justfied my behavior by being mean and using other people's niceness to me as their weakness and took advantage. I often thought that running away was the answer. If only I could get away from all of these nagging people who had made my life so miserable all of this time. CRAZY.
It did not feel "Bag Ladyish" to me but felt heavy. That is the only way to describe it. HEAVY. You are not in your right mind at all and you feel justified.
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H expressed that he remembered saying he was "two people and was now neither one of them". He said it surprised him too. That it was a coherent thought and felt "right". It was also why he found it so hard to explain the thought processes that lead to so many bad decisions/choices. He just didn't think the same way any more.
Thoughts didn't touch each other. There was no side by side comparison of the two things I was doing. That's why it felt schizoid." I things were wrong as I was saying them. It was so weird. An "out of body" experience."
I didn't have the tools nor the strength to get free."
"As hard as I tried not to think of you and DS you guys would pop into my head when I would least expect it. I tried to be mean, not give you false hope, run away, do the "rubbish" things I did but you were still there. You didn't act the way I thought you would, which is kick me to the curb, and I missed you. I missed DS and I missed me, too."
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H said his memory was very disjointed. He remembered an event but not when it was and was looking at himself and thinking that events were compressed and then expanded but found it very hard to put himself back in the mindset of the time of the event. "looking back, it does seem ridiculous to feel what I felt but I was just going along with things because I was running away. I can't tell you what I was thinking because looking back now, it was obvious I wasn't thinking at all,right?"
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I know it sounds like I made a choice, alright many choices, bad choices but it wasn't like that. I was just pressured from all sides and I knew it was wrong but i couldn't, ok wouldn't, didnt stop, then it got tangled and all I could do was want out of the situation but I was in a deep deep hole and I kept digging because I knew more and more clearly nearer the end that if you found out, (that H didn't stop with OW), it would be catastrophic and you would stop loving me."
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" because of the urge to "just run and keep running" while still feeling a "pull" back to me and DS and "I am not a stupid man but I don't know why I was doing such bizarre things, it was like I was intoxicated
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You know I was in a bad place when I did that rubbish right? You think I was happy and having fun but it wasn't. It couldn't be because the whole thing was rotten. Rotten to the core. Rotten at the core. When you are that low anything is better than feeling that low, so it was like a drug, an intoxication and there was always the hangover of guilt. Sure I suppressed it to carry on, to lead that double life but it wasn't even much of a life was it? The highs aren't really highs it's just better than being that low."
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Just this past month, H has slowly added that if he "could have faced his demons/ issues" things wouldn't have escalated with the OW. He felt unheard, unable to win an argument compounded by the fact that what he did was " cowardly" and that "lying was part of the cowardice". He just wanted to please everyone and let resentment build. one of the things H said stands out for me, " by trying to please everyone, I gave my power away.
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When he was deep in the tunnel, he "forgot me", put me [his old life]in a box/compartmentalised, only to be taken out when trying to maintain the "other part of his dual life"
I believe the dissociative thought processes that enabled H to lead a dual life is why "much is forgotten when they exit the tunnel".
"I could have a thought then it would be gone"
"I could feel the wrongness at the time and your hurt but it could not be linked mentally at all to anything else that was happening in the other box"
"I heard you but it didn't register as applying to the other box"
"It was like I had certain brain cells firing but they would be unconnected to the other brain cells"
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I had been feeling that I had done something very wrong for months leading up to our reconciliation and had started working on myself thru better diet, exercise, re-connecting with friends & family, etc.
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I believe I also had an MLC, though there was no infidelity (I was a wallower). I don't know if the symptoms are the same for men as for women. I experienced foggy and/or racing/swimming thinking that made it hard for me to make rational plans or get through a day.
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I experienced foggy thinking, irrational behaviour, crazy thinking and a lot of anger. Previous to my MLC I was well organized, financially responsible and generally very happy and outgoing. While I was in the thick of it, I let things slide even forgetting to pay bills on time. Surprisingly my work did not suffer (I was actually promoted during this period) and I became a workaholic throwing myself into my job as a result. I remember listening to a song called "The Tears Of A Clown" by Smokey Robinson and thinking "this is my aha moment" as I finally recognized my depression. While I was living with OW I lost all touch with friends and family, except my brother, who was going through his own crisis which continues to this day, he was my only cheerleader - crazy!
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During the crisis I convinced myself that my W was humdrum and unadventurous and that our relationship had grown stagnant (all ludicrous of course) all the while getting my ego stroked by the OW. I definitely can look back on this now to see just how manipulative OW was. Gosh no one in their right mind would have fallen for this malarkey.
I was not thinking straight during the affair. I experienced false highs (which I can now attribute to the infatuation combined with drinking), followed by feelings of depression (which was something new for me). I coped with the lows by drinking too much while I was with OW as a form of distraction and avoidance of the damage I was causing.
Some part of me knew that this was not love, even though I repeatedly told my W that was I "in love" with OW. I chalk it up to infatuation, but honestly most of the time, after the initial big high had worn off, I actually found her downright annoying and immature.
Now that I understand how infatuation hormones work it makes total sense to me.
My love for my W never faltered, I would often email her & text just to tell her how much I loved her, so I didn't experience any falling out of love with her.
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The Fog - a false impression that "the grass is greener" - ah NO, it's not. As they say "the grass isn't always greener on the other side - it's greener where you water it" - I took a new job prior to my MLC, a big promotion - and lost total sight of who I was and how important my marriage was, I was on a roller coaster ride of self importance and as soon as someone like the OW started obsessing over me I bite the proverbial hook - dumb dumb dumb.
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Guilt - I felt a lot (while I was thick in the fog), so my answer to this was to have a glass of wine to forget about it (don't recommend this behaviour). When I was honest with myself (I stunted this emotion) I felt truly terrible to hurt the person that I was closest to in the world.
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The final and most severe rock bottom ever was felt at the very end of the affair, I was a total emotional wreck, I knew I needed to leave OW and get my health and my life back in order. I was longing for my life partner back.I was an emotional train wreck. I was not sleeping so I was perpetually tired, I was having headaches, I had a red rash on my face, heart palpitations, weight gain - I just felt horrible - that was my "health" side of rock bottom. I felt Lonely, helpless, devastated. , I was ridden with shame at how I could disrespect the one I loved the most.
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As recently as two weeks ago, my husband brought up something that occured during my MLC and I absolutely do not recall acting the way he says I acted. It's not that we have "selective" memory. It's that there is so much that is going on in our heads during MLC, often some of the most traumatic and/or emotional things get pushed deep into our subconscious. I have looked at my husband a few times in the past 3 or 4 months and apologized right in the middle of a conversation about the past because I didn't remember it when I came out of the tunnel so I never really apologized for those particular things because I didnt recall them AT ALL. It stops me in my tracks to find out these "new" things from his point of view that I did back then and I don't know how long this will last. Will I still be being reminded of things 2 or 3 years from now in the middle of conversations? Fact is, it is very possible.
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We were in the grocery store last spring, grabbing a bag of cat food. We started arguing about which to get since we were just getting an "emergency bag" until we got to the pet store for our normal brand, and I was arguing against one particular kind because I knew our cat J wouldn't eat it. It was halfway into the argument before I realized J had died several months earlier. I know he was euthanized at our vet and that I was holding him, and I see where he's buried in my backyard every day, but no memories still to this day surrounding his passing. It's like he was here, and now he is gone.
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There are a few things you have yet to grasp about MLC.
1) We (the MLCer) will comb through every aspect of the past to get a handful of "reasons" we will tell YOU that it is over and should have been back then.
2) Whatever the MLCer says, he or she really means it WHEN THEY ARE SAYING IT.
3) Neither of the above will apply on the other side of the tunnel. Half of it won't even be remembered at all.
But as long as your husband is in MLC (and I really believe he is) he's not reliable, his memory is not reliable, his entire view of the future is not reliable. Nothing he says, feels or does while in MLC will be the same once he is out. The only thing that will be the same are the bruises and scars YOU carry because of all he has done.
There's a wall going up around your heart now.
It's going to get higher.
That is not necessarily a bad thing under these circumstances. The layers will peel away when the time comes to rebuild, if YOU choose to do so.
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I would not really know what to talk about otherwise. MLC for me was a living hell that was punctuated by the height of selfishness. I felt like a child at times, I could not formulate my thoughts into cohesive sentences to speak to my wife. If something about her bothered me it become huge in my mind and at least to me so sensitive that to talk about it with her would be downright impossible.
I kept secrets because it felt like "They were mine" all mine and I did not have to share them with anyone.
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I regretted everything I did and felt all the pain I caused. It was hard to overcome that hurt and to try to make amends. I wanted to tell my W how sorry I was and tried but she was well on her way into MLC and did not want to hear me. She still does not and it still hurts. Maybe that is why I keep ripping the scab off my healing wounds and can't seem to detach the way I should
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the pain is all mental, for me it started with not wanting to do ANY of the things I always liked to do. Nothing brought me any sense of comfort or relaxation. It was very much like a serious depression with all the symptoms of it. But it went further then that as it progressed into the fog state where I was walking around in perpetual confusion and would forget the simplest things. I also did not sleep well and began to have the feeling of not being able to feel at ease. RCR described MLC as a state of Dis-Ease not Disease. I find that to be the most descriptive way to say it, I was always feeling dis-ease or the lack of ease. No matter what anyone did or said I could not feel at ease within my own skin.
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Yes I to had to battle the memories of times past during that time. I was forced to look back at my own life and was somehow made to look at events from a different perspective then the one I had known. Mopst of the time it was very uncomfortable and showed me things about myself that I either hated, was embarassed about or most definitely wanted to change (or hide) about my personality. It also showed me aspects of my relationship that were terribly uncomfortable. It was driving me slowly insane and by lashing out at those around me I was able for the moment to stop the flood of images going through my mind. It was an insane answer to an insane problem. I was also seeing a phychiatrist and was taking AD's. None of that mattered.
The things my W says on FB are sometimes hurtful but I temper that with the memory of how I felt towards her. I know now she is not deliberately trying to harm me and is not capable of being empathetic towards me, so she cannot feel my pain or happiness.Yet she is still here which means she has not been able to detach from me. This then means I still have a chance to show her changes instead of talking about them. In my W's case I feel this will have a great impact on her ability to process and find her way out of the tunnel. So yes I do feel like what I do matters a great deal at this juncture. Do nothing and I will be divorced within a couple of months, do something and perhaps it will put a break in her armor long enough for her own emotions to crash in around her sweeping her from the exit of her tunnel and into the light, the painful hurt filled light that she has to use to do mirror work on herself.
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H said he had absolutely no empathy for anyone during that time. People had no feelings and were like "things" to him. Burdens, numbers, impersonal objects. More things that "trapped" him in his hateful job and him getting older and relatives dying around him. OW offered an escape. She could have been anything: drugs, a sailboat or a brand new car. She also was an object. Eventually, H had to get to the core issues of his MLC.
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H had left her had OW but denied for 12 months then she found out. He stayed with OW for 6 more months and then the " Turmoil inside my head" woke him up and he told OW he made a huge mistake and needed to go home.
They went to MC and he now kisses the ground she walks on. He said to me "When I was in that tunel I was so crazed. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't care. Finally I just got to missing your sister and her grace and dignity." He told me that he would look at the OW after a while and think"MY W is so much better than this. Why am I here.'
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Just wanted to add something about H's seeming ( I can't wrap my head around it still-- may be I can but emotionally I can't accept that--for now) inability to make a decision either way -divorce and merge properly with the OW or purge the OW and come back still vexes me. H tries to explain it as inertia and confusion and a " grey mist decending" every time and he had to keep running. Running took so much energy H didn't have the strength to make a decision
It was just easier to maintain the "status quo".
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H said something really interesting about "being in a dark place/a bad place." but that depression wasn't feeling low all the time. It had high phases, and the lows just seem lower and the highs weren't as high. It just kept on (with OW) after the first "outing" in the hopes of getting that initial feeling back. h called it "chasing the dragon". He also said that on some level, he knew it was wrong and i didn't deserve the "rubbish". And he still really hasn't worked out what the "dragon" is
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H felt, looking back, it wasn't really dreamlike but out of synch. He described it as "looking at a picture that had been sliced in half and put back together but slightly out of line." He said he was making decisions at the time, but based on that misaligned picture, so the decisions were "cock-eyed" to say the least.
I tried to discuss further, what actions or inactions by me affected him at this time as he continued after the first call from Parasite. He said that at that point, what I said or didn't say he was still fuzzy/foggy about because there was a whole wall of negativity/justification that had taken time to build to enable him "to do what I did but it wasn't you, it was me and I couldn't face it." " I couldn't deny it but I couldn't face it."
" I don't know why but I had somehow convinced myself you would file. The longer you didn't, the more confused I got. I know all the things we discussed about the waiting period till Easter but it didn't register. I just felt as time went on how it felt more and more wrong, what I was doing but I didn't know how to get out of it. Because I knew it had to all come out. That I hadn't stopped. So how could I get out of the situation without telling you because that would be wrong. I couldn't not tell you but to tell you would mean you might not want me back."
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When I broached the subject of what I did or didn't do that affected him, H said it was not an " all at once" thing. Most things were "buried deep" , H didn't know whether it was subconscious but my actions (hugs, willingness to tell him I wouldn't give up on him, that he was lovable) confused him but it did make him think when he had quiet moments and that gave him somewhere to start. He started to want to be back, he didn't know whether I would take him back but he had to try, he wanted to try.
I asked what if I had just left him his space "without the communication" till the end of the status quo period at Easter. He said it was important to have had that communication, to have some form "whether a text or call or letter" because without it he would have run, left everything -- job, family, disappeared and " destroyed himself in the running". "To know you were there, even though I was being a sh1t and you didn't how big a sh1t, helped me not disappear."
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Here's my take as a former recovered MLCer badass...
We touch and go because we are attracted to comforting beacon from the Lighthouse that shines through the darkness. Then it becomes too much for us and we retreat. Remember our coping skills are broken and it takes a long time to get our chit together.
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My XW certainly noticed that I was spending a lot of time with this OW and objected to it. But, silly me, I was having none of it! My depression and silly mind wanted OUT. When I came home from work on my XW's birthday.......I dropped the bomb on her birthday! I had no empathy or feeling whatsoever. Did all the silly MLC stuff....going out at all hours, coming home when I wanted to....sleeping on the edge of the bed...hogging my cell phone/pager...talking and texting my OW alllll the time. My fog really thickened from the bomb dropping until it cleared out sometime around about 10 months later. I was a menace!
I recall when the fog lifted from my brain. It was a lot similar to the Claritin commercials you see on tv. Bingo! The fog seemed to peel off on its own and the clarity was shocking to me. I recall asking..."What happened here? Where have I been?" When the fog went away, I could feel myself again.
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He told me it terrified him when he thought about it and how he couldn't believe he became that man. He told me, when he looks into that, it is like looking into a black hole and it terrifies him. Half asleep I muttered, ah honey, $hit happens! He angrily retorted, that sort of $hit shouldn't have happened, that should never have been done to you. I then muttered something like, well you were sick honey, it's not like you did it intentionally. He said... "oh yes I did... at the time it was VERY deliberate! How could I do that to you, you were always a great wife, you were always there for me, followed me wherever I went, made our house a home, always loved me. Even when I was living with OW, I knew you LOVED ME... totally! How could I do that to you? Why did I do that to you? I didn't say anything more HB, I simply hugged him close, snuggled down and went to sleep.... strangely content.
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I have a friend whose H went through MLC and came home. She asked him why he was more worried about the OW and her manipulative threats and stayed with her much longer than he wanted to. He said that when he looked around him at the mess she (his W) appeared much stronger than OW who remained needy and helpless! Therefore he felt more responsible for her because of the promises he made. My friend did point out her side!!!!!!!!! But her H saw her as strong and determined even though I saw the emotional trauma we all have. Even though her H desperately wanted to come home the responsibility to OW kept pulling him back. All this only became apparent after he returned and they started talking.
The MLC brain is so foggy they don't deal with reality as we see it and that's why the OW is able to hold on longer than is healthy.
Author
Topic: 
MLC Script VI