[Rollercoasterider]

People in the forum have mentioned Tiger Woods, Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson as having MLC. Of course I don't know any of them personally, but from my understanding of celebrity gossip... Mel Gibson - maybe. Apparently he was a solid guy for what 28? years and now seems to have gone bonkers. Seems out of character. Also he seems depressed and headed for some really hard times. Charlie Sheen - absolutely not. The guy is a philanderer. Remember all the prostitutes? Lots of women. Beats them up. Knives. Drugs. This isn't out of character. Sadly, it is his character. While men in MLC may act like Charlie Sheen, I don't believe Charlie Sheen is in MLC. Tiger Woods - probably not. Despite his well crafted public image, my understanding is that he was a womanizer before the marriage and he never stopped. He admitted that as a celebrity he believed the rules didn't apply to him. He was just having all the fun he thought he deserved.

I agree, Mel seems changed and in extreme Monster, but I find it laughable when people talk about Tiger Woods and especially Charlie Sheen on the context of MLC. Though I think Tiger has a greater chance of decency and reform than Charlie.

Okay now I'm confused...a lot of what RCR wrote makes me feel like how could we every know because infatuation hormones are part of the MLC affair and regular affairs and they are incredibly addictive and powerful...

Yeah, I know, it confuses me too. But all of you are highlighting some important differences—especially personality changes, whether you notice them prior to Bomb Drop or after.

• However the year before I saw him slip away there was a clear year of ANGER...with odd tantrums...and a real distancing...and grasping and TOTAL disregard for me and my feelings.
• Lots of vanity, working out..couldn't walk past a mirror without looking.
• The children...my goodness...lots of childlike personas presenting themselves. This progressively became more common as he slipped into DEEP replay...I saw babylike behavior, school age behavior (6-8 yrs) and teenage behavior, and perhaps 20ish behavior. This was also very connected to music...my H would sing music from these times...as well...like songs that were hits when he was born, or songs that were popular when he was school aged and teenager. It was a very CLEAR pattern. I also would here LANGUAGE indicative of those times. I don't have much interaction with H now so it's hard to tell if these childlike personas are still presenting. For me this is one of the biggest indicators of my H's MLC, a real sign that he has returned to childhood. I have even had interactions with him where I got the sense that he didn't see me as his wife at all and was CONFUSED at why my two-year old daughter was insisting he kiss me. This is a very strange aspect of MLC and sometimes was difficult for me to watch. My D8 even picked up on it when he was living here.
• MONSTER during NC. It seems like when I remove myself from my H he lashes out at me even more. I feel that in an affair that type of attachment albeit negative wouldn't manifest. I don't know I could be wrong.

Thought I would offer my own perspective as I have also had an affair which my husband discovered approx 2and a half years before BD, something which I believe to be the "trigger event" for his own MLC.
My own affair was an emotionally bonded affair.

Emotionally-Bonded Affair: This is an affair fueled by in-fatuative addiction. They believe they are soul mates.
Sound familiar? But this does not mean it is or is not MLC. An MLC affair is an emotionally-bonded affair just like squares are rectangles.

I do not feel I was in MLC but was infatuated with OM until I eventually ( after about 13 months of PA) came to see him as weak (and myself!) and not someone I wanted to spend my future with, coupled with a corresponding internal recommitment to my H and my M. I can definitely identify with the soul mate component from both myself and OM, I also projected blame for the A on my husband ( focused upon him being unsupportive and his depressive personality !). My husband was totally unaware of my A until discovery approx 2 months after it had ended , I did not do monster or display any Replay behaviours (othr than losing weight, taking an interest in my appearance which I feel would be typical of any A MLC or not), indeed my husband indicated that I deserved an acting aard for carrying on so normally whilst conducting the A, ie I had no personality change and continued to function in demanding job and being wife and mother. I experienced significant shame and remorse during the A, on discovery and to this day ! I have expressed this to my H throughout.

From your description I agree that your affair did not seem like MLC. Some MLCers start the physical affair before Bomb Drop and hide it well as you did, the changes and differences in MLC versus a non-MLC emotionally-bonded affair may not be evident until after Bomb Drop. Had your husband discovered your affair before it was over—especially if in the in-fatuative heights—the outcome may have been different. It may have triggered an MLC, but perhaps more likely it would have got you to think. Had he responded well and surrounded both of you with supportive friends of the marriage, the exposure may have caused you to end the affair, or run to the alienator briefly and return sooner than an MLCer.

Replay and Monster are usually mild or absent until Bomb Drop. Since your affair was secret and you were not trying to escape the marriage, you had less motivation for Replay and Monster. Monster especially is an action of projection toward the person seen as standing in the MLCer’s way of happiness.

Some MLCers display clear Replay before Bomb Drop that is noticeable by the spouse at that time, but this is not the case with all. Often a spouse simply thinks they are going through a phase and that they will weather this time together. This may especially true of the MLCer experienced a significant trauma where depression may be expected—such as the death of a parent.

Fast forward to today and why I feel my H's A is different and that my H is in MLC. BD was July this year some of the things I feel make his an MLC case are:

• complete personality change -from dutiful and loving man to selfish monster spewing alien
• periods of vanishing alternating with sporadic contact with kids and a complete abandonment of old friends and family
• replay style behaviours including new hobbies and grungy style of dress (shoes with holes in) slang style of talking
• No planning , despite saying marriage over and doesn’t love me at BD made no moves to get out - has now been left 6 weeks (largely prompted by me as I found his monster and cake eating too much - I know we should let them go of own accord but I wasn’t able to take it)
• Memory loss have to repeat several conversations
• Lies about OW -is not able to admit he is in R with her
• Running behaviours - can be at the house for hours and doesn’t remove coat and hat, frequently stands to drink his cup of tea and actually stands near the door of our living room with one foot on the wall (behind him as if he is ready to launch himself like a runner -get the picture)
• Negative attachment- turns up to do Monster - an example it would have been our 20th Wedding Anniversary this week , I honour it by going to the church we were married in to pray for our M ( I am not religious but it felt like something I wanted to do). He honours it by turning up unexpectedly having not been NC for over a week to collect furniture for his new rented house from our garage, stomps about throwing furniture swearing and snarling at me throughout - Happy Anniversary ! Next day again unexpected returns silent and depressed eats something falls asleep watches TV with us then leaves late hey ho!

I’m not sure if this is helpful but I am clear that our situations are different even if the Affair attachments have similarities. I don’t feel I was MLC but feel confident that my husband is (in addition to above he has childhood issues alcoholic/mental health issues divorced parents etc , I am from stable and loving family).

These are all excellent differences. Sweetheart disclosed his affair before he moved and before it was physical. He told me he was leaving for her, they were soul mates and that I would know they were physical when he was no longer intimate with me. When it became blatantly obvious that this had occurred, he denied it moments after telling me (in a secretly taped conversation) that if we ever had sex again he’d have to be tested. The lies did not last because I refused to allow him to lie about something of which we were both aware. When he hid the affair two years later, I was not aware and thus the lies worked.


As I think about it further, I think that Sweetheart’s MLC may have been an example of MLC triggered by the affair. I have not to this day figured out a trigger 12-36 months prior. I have guesses. I was given a lay-off notice with an eight month notice before the end. At that time I was half way through my MFA and worried I’d have to quit. But on that day I figured out how I would do it—all the employees received a generous severance package. But Sweetheart flipped out—he through ice cubes at me while I was on the phone telling a friend my plans.

I feel that the alienator was BPD and she was quick to use emotional blackmail. He saw her true colours almost as soon as the affair was physical—she called his work—where she’d recently been fired—and threatened to sic her Daddy’s lawyer on them if they fired Sweetheart…he was on leave for a bad back. She did that two weeks after the affair went physical; that level of possessiveness scared him.


I did not notice significant changes before Bomb Drop. He had the year before or so got heavily into bicycling and just before Bomb was also getting serious about Mountain Biking—bought an expensive road bike and an expensive Mt. Bike. But he has a BS in phys ed. and worked as a personal trainer at a gym in addition to his full time work as the fitness director for a retirement home. Fitness was and is important to him.

The alienator caught him when he was vulnerable, but had he started MLC already or did she trigger it? I think he was a candidate for MLC, but had she not shown up it might have been later with a clearer trigger. I’m glad it happened then because I was able to handle it; at a different place in our lives would I have responded the same? Would I have learned and wanted to Stand? Would I have had other obstacles—children—that made it more difficult?

[Rollercoasterider]

Voyager,

I have a question of RCR from my own perspective.

Jung gave the range as 35-50, but as the average lifespan increases this is more accurate. I also notice differences in the younger MLCers of that range from the older MLCers. As for the length of marriage…20+ works for the older end of the range and perhaps 10 or 12+ for the younger end.

What do you see as the differences between the older and younger MLCers? My h is 56, but I think the cracks appeared when he was in his early 50's before going on to full replay behaviour last year.

According to Daniel Levinson, life transitions occur every 7-10 years. Given that, the range of 35-50 or 40-60 spans a few transitions and we can assume that those various transitions may be different based on age or where a person is in life—be it career, family or both. A 40 year old MLCer is more likely these days to have young children, whereas a 55 year old MLCer has late teenagers or young adult children—college age.

Also consider the integration of the contrasexual complexes—anima and animus. Men become more in tune with their femininity and women with their masculinity. If this integration has already occurred in an earlier transition—or is further along—by later midlife the MLCer will respond differently to the crisis than when part of the crisis may be an avoidance of the contrasexual complex as it surfaces. So an older MLC male may show a greater degree of overt depression and a milder Replay. They may be a lower-energy MLCer. This is not the case with all—the lines are subjective. But even when there is infidelity I see a difference in the descriptions of Monster. Consider Buggy’s younger MLCer who has young children—including infants. He has displayed an angry, taunting and flaunting Monster. And older male Replayer may simmer below the surface with greater control over anger. His energy may seem darker and in some ways more frightening because he holds it in and may be quieter and more brooding.

I have a good friend from DB—her MLCer was a source for my description of those Stuck In-Between as a Lost Soul. She once told me she thought most cases of MLC were 50+ or at least 48+ and at the same time I thought they were 40-45—at Bomb. But our separate perceptions were a reflective of our own ages and our MLCers. Sweetheart was 39.5 at Bomb Drop and her MLCer was in his 50s, their children are grown and the oldest is married—he might have a child. In the beginning as we went through together I didn’t notice the differences. Her MLCer was angry and had an alienator who rivaled Sweetheart’s as an affair down with a personality disorder. His energy also seemed high, but in a darker anger, where Sweethearts was more about taunting-and-flaunting as a disturbed method of being flirtatious. Her MLCer was also a Boomerang—though not clinging—and came home at least once and perhaps more.

As for females, I see the same running and high-energy in the younger MLCers as I do in the males and perhaps a crisis that is more about menopause and hormones in the older end of the range—OldPilot’s MLCer.

[Voyager]

RCR
Many thanks for coming back to my question, I see a lot of what you say in my h's behaviour, his monser is certainly more controlled and was almost a laser like focussed anger, rather than a spitting spewing one, he's always denied he has anger towards me, preferring to think of it as "managing" an awkward situation.
 But it is scary because it is simmering. I think he is quite high energy but definitely not a boomerang. Like your friend an affair down and 20 years younger, so I saw some real youthful behaviours before he left.
Not sure if the age of the MLCer also plays a role in how you respond?? Just wondering.
I guess also hoping they get tired out quicker!!

[Bewildered]

My H is a text book MLC - I promise you the web sites were written for him yet I have days I too struggle to understand the MLC journey, and if he is a MLCer ! Yet whatever he does its textbook, now he's (I think) in withdrawal or liminality, Been NC for 5 weeks tomorrow and no Christmas Hi or anything to anyone of us .. kids got a text re his Mum sending them money and she had forgotten daughter so he text-ed to tell D that Granny had made an error and it had gone in .. D (Ive just collected her) has been away for 4 weeks and so couldn't access her email so wound not have know so think an excuse to contact D from H?

This we both think as he's finally stood up to his M (Granny - hip Hip Hooray as she's a manipulative controlling women who told my H that his arrival ruined her glittering career?? Last year she sent  D Xmas money £200 to D and £500 to S -  but nothing happened H did not say anything even when D complained and S split the extra £200 between them) this year it seems H has sorted out not only that she forgot D but ensured it was equal to what she had sent to S 10days ago  (she favours boy's think if shed had a girl what would she be like now - a mental asylum?) + an email asking Son if he'd got the money (no email to D) and also asking him who he is spending Xmas with and where?? so that is why we know its odd - 10 days ago and H sorts this out today? So we deduce she never sent money till H sorted this out?
could be wrong but ....

So anyway .. MLC to me is leaving when the issues or problems can be sorted .. all marriages have difficult times but MLC they run away and invent silly reasons why and the most ridiculous being that its all out fault and they were never happy and we had drifted apart ? they changed into someone who now loved the opposite towhat they used , wanted to be this or that and we'd stopped them form doing ?? blah blah and talk rubbish and behave like crazy people, I have always been thinking my J is either MLC or gone bonkers crazy !!!

he left with one bag, still his post comes here, has joined sereval gyms and other such stuff and has put down home address and me as his Next of Kin???
went from denial to anger then now hes in a full time pity party but the most important bits are since hes come to then of replay (still pops back as he is scared to really look at himself but the signs are there that he is).
He had another OW which I know started before he left - a consequence o his obsessionwith exercising she is like him obsessive buts if now over
His actions worry his work colleagues and they think hes crazy
he had stopped contat with old friends and only recently has rekindled these
he treated the kids like me .. maybe a little more friendly but if they didn't do as he wanted he went NC and if they toldhim how they felt he said they were horrible to be mean to him he deserved his happiness and he always tells then how happy he is etc
D says he pretends to be happy S says hes crazy and treats him with little respect ..

H started to do things he had always hated - pop concerts, camping a lot and  non stop seeing dull people who he always said he'd disliked ?? BUT the best is he at first blamed me for not letting him do these things (total rubbish).
At first he bragged about where he'd been hen it went I don't want to do this anymore
re camping but I booked it 6 months ago ..
I find so and so   so so dull but they are my only friends ..
To D and S  .. i go out all the time with so and so but they are lesbians and all there friends are gay but they are all the friends I have (boo hoo)  (D thinks its a message to me as this is since the OW relationship went sour we are guessing September ish hes saying there is none else.

when we first met he was 25 and very emotionally immature (this is now my reflection) but very grown up intellectually  - and I seemed to put any issues between us right .. he is used to me being the fixer .. well this journey i never asked for has taught me such a lot about me .. i have fixed all my life as my Mum made me the fixer (my Sister 2 years yonder was the sickly one who needed her, i was the independent one who had to stand on her own two feet) My M S and H always pulled me in different ways and I let them especially tried to make my Mum proud of me (Dad died when I was 21) 

He does live now in a fantasy but I think hes seeing this now and yet doesn't know how to fix it

2011 will be intersting BUT this week I have got somewhere I never thought i would ..
I really can see my life being better witout he man he is now in it and am thinking of him less and have detached to the point that If he cant see how he can fix this then
that is  what will be because I'm happy to help assist and guide but he needs to ask for it ?

I have many divorce lawyer friends - they think hes not typical when he left wanted a divorce now denies it
in fact hes lucky he remembers where he lives as his memory is awful, he told me when we were tallking about politics (id asked him how he felt) that he doesn't feel, or think so he cant feel - he just wants to be happy and doesn't care about me anymore ..
or the kids in 'that way' (whatever that is) no normal man extracting himself could say this - they would do anything to make it OK for the ones they were abandoning but he seemed to be punishing us for ??

just my perspective but keep you updated if I ever hear from him again ..
B xx

[Dontgiveup]

Just wanted to add in with a couple of things about my MLCer.  Bomb drop was not an affair, but it was the desire to end the marriage.  My MLCer is on the younger side.  Soon after bomb drop, I talked to a counselor that I know and he was the first to say he thought it was MLC.  I then found several websites, with this one and Jim Conway's being my preferences due to my beliefs.

Though my MLCer was not having an affair at bomb drop, she said one of the reasons she wanted to divorce was so we could each find someone more like ourselves.

A few of the main symptoms, if you will, that my MLCer showed...

She verbalized hopelessness a lot, using the word hopeless frequently
She put a negative spin on all the fun things we had done in our marriage, such as trips, vacations, etc
She brought up our families and childhood many times, especially how good mine was and how bad hers was
During the early weeks and months, she went back and forth many times on what she wanted to do

There are more, but those are some of the basics.

[OldPilot]

Just my own .02 but the character played by Charlie Sheen in 2-1/2 men seems like he is alway in MLC,
Issues with his mother, drinking, running around. If that is not MLC, what is it?

[Rollercoasterider]

Just my own .02 but the character played by Charlie Sheen in 2-1/2 men seems like he is alway in MLC,
Issues with his mother, drinking, running around. If that is not MLC, what is it?

Always in Replay maybe--wait, definitely.
I think Charlie Sheen is basically playing himself, so to talk about one is to talk about both.
If it's not MLC, it could be a variety of things. I think he's a narcissist. He's not MLC because the person in MLC is different than pre-MLC. Charlie's Replay persona is still Charlie and not some temporary MLC character. He also seems absent of guilt, shame and the typical fears symptomatic of MLC. He may drown himself in alcohol and women, but where's the depression? Everything about his life is isolated to the Bachelor Party type of Replay.

[exiled]

One of the changes I have noticed in MLCer is the loss of introspection.
In the beginning stage of her MLC my W struggled with her conscience.
But slowly but surely her Shadow took over and she began to compromise her values and standards.
She insists that we abide by such values as equity, fairness, and integrity when we regard each other
but her actions don't reflect any of them.  In the past, she would have caught the irony and laughed at herself.
But now, she is dead serious and incapable of seeing her inconsistency.  In fact, she would manipulate
anything to justify her actions.  She has regressed to become a simpleminded, opportunistic person.
I guess that's why people say MLC is second puberty.

[citizenattorney]

Nice illumination thanks I will read it several times.

[citizenattorney]

What was the purge at DB you reference? Sounds scary.