[Standing in Patience]

I have been reviewing documentaries. Perhaps you can locate them on YouTube or maybe Netflix or streaming videos. They aren't necessarily and specifically about mlc but:

Love and Cheating - a reference to the midlife crisis is mentioned
Secret to Love - talks about the realistic periods/types of love in a marriage.

Secret to Love talked about infatuation versus mature love. Love that takes you through the good times and the bad. There is a reference to some people thinking that love should be the same type of love when you first meet someone and that should be the same through you whole lifetime together and how that is unrealistic in the real world.

[Little Debbie]

I watched it a few weeks back. I found it to be a very disturbing, dark movie.
It was like watching a train wreck. I saw what you saw, I heard what you heard.
My heart hurt for the wife and the kids. I felt like just slapping him to make him
snap out of it. I think it shows something beyond MLC to the point of total and
complete breakdown emotionally. I don't think I'd watch it with kids, although I
did watch it with my 18yo.

Hi Rebel Yell,

It was only disturbing to me because of how real it showed what depression can do to a person. 

My heart hurt for the wife and kids too.  I looked at it tho as a mental illness that crept up on this man so I felt bad for him in a different way.  Slapping him would of done no good.

The experience that I have been thru in the last 2 /1/2 years with my MLC H has been a complete emotional breakdown.  To me that is not beyond MLC but, is MLC.  Just my opinion thru my experiences.

Yes I agree it is probably to deep for young children.  My D's are 23 and 17 (18 come Jan) so I will be watching it again with them.

Thank you so much for your opinion on this movie I appreciate it.

[kikki]

My experience of my H's MLC, also included a complete emotional breakdown.

I can imagine that this would vary from person to person.

[Bewildered]

was at a friends and this film came on worth a watch
http://www.tnt.tv/dramalounge/article/?oid=26964

Rob Lowe Lives His Own Perfect Day
TNT original explores true meaning of success
 
 by David Martindale
about the author >>

 

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Rob Lowe Lives His Own Perfect Day
TNT original explores true meaning of success
 
In A Perfect Day, a TNT original movie, Rob Lowe plays a novelist who lets overnight success get the better of him. He enjoys the money that comes from writing a bestseller, of course. But the real high for Robert Harlan, Lowe's character, is having an adoring public. He becomes addicted to fame. And as is often the case with addictions, he changes. A dark, ugly side emerges. A devoted family man transforms into a self-centered, thoughtless human being. "The journey that my character goes on," Lowe says, "is sort of unpleasant."

Lowe can relate. He remembers undergoing a similar metamorphosis. He was 15 and costarring in his first TV series, a sitcom called A New Kind of Family. Teenage girls in the studio audience couldn't get enough of him that evening. "I came out for my first curtain call," Lowe recalls, "and I was probably enjoying it a little too much." Afterwards, Eileen Brennan, the sitcom's leading lady, brought him back to earth with a few choice words. "And she made certain that, from that night on, there was nobody under the age of 15 in the audience!"

Lowe, the former "Brat Pack" actor and West Wing cast member, is now in his third decade of showbiz stardom. He has survived -– thrived, even –- because he sorted out his priorities. "What would it mean if you only had one day to live?" he says. "What would you want to do? All the extraneous stuff [such as fame and fortune] is just crap. What you would care about is that you'd want more time. And you'd want to use that time to be with the people you love."

Lowe's character in A Perfect Day (which premieres at 8 p.m. ET on Monday, Dec. 18) eventually reestablishes the same priorities after taking his ego-trip detour. The lesson is by no means unique to this film. "But when done in a fun way and a really interesting way," Lowe notes, "I think it works every time."

Lowe, who this season has a recurring role as a Republican senator in ABC's Brothers & Sisters, is also a sucker for heartfelt Christmas stories. That's another reason he was drawn to A Perfect Day, which plays out with the holiday season as a backdrop. Lowe's annual yuletide viewing favorites include It's a Wonderful Life ("the granddaddy of all of them") and A Charlie Brown Christmas ("with that little tree"). If A Perfect Day eventually rates repeat screenings in the same way as those other classics, he'll be thrilled. "I think, when you deal with universal themes, you certainly have a chance at that."

In the movie, Robert Harlan literally must decide how and with whom he wants to spend the last day of his life. In Lowe's case, it's been purely theoretical so far. But his choice, he says, would be to spend his last day -– and all of the days he'll get between now and then –- cherishing life with his wife and two sons. Already in an upbeat mood for this interview, he brightens even more when the discussion turns to sons Matthew, age 13, and John, 11.

It has occurred to Lowe, by the way, that they're almost the same age he was when he began his Hollywood acting career. If he has his druthers, though, they won't follow him into the family business. "They're both particularly good at helping me run my lines, for whatever that's worth," he says. "One is so good at it that the other day my wife and I had to have a talk about, 'Maybe we shouldn't have him helping you with your lines any more.' Because I think we're just aiding and abetting the delinquency of a minor." That was just a joke, mind you. "Not that I have anything against actors," Lowe continues. "Acting's been great for me. But for my kids, I'm sort of hoping for Supreme Court Justices!" And you can bet he'll be there on the day they're sworn in.

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[limitless]

The Vow -

It seems that I "see" MLC in just about any and every relationship film that I watch.  I know that this is due to the situation that I am in.....as it is on my mind more than I like it to be.   

Anyway - if you don't want to be "spoiled" on the plot of the new film "The Vow" - quit reading.....NOW.

Carriage returns to keep you from reading on.....
















Anyway - the film is about a married woman, who through tramatic brain trauma, "forgets" her life with her husband of 5 years.  She wakes up in the hospital and completely forgets who he is, that she is married to him, that they ever met....etc.  The last thing she remembers is 6 years before - when she was engaged to another man.  During the time, before she met her husband, she had become estranged from her family, she broke off her engagement, quit law school, and moved away to the city - to a new life.  She meets her husband, marries and lives happily for 5+ years.

Then....an accident....that takes her memories of the past 6 years.  All she can remember is being with her family, going to law school and being engaged to someone else.  Her husband is a stranger.  Someone she doesn't know...can't remember....doesn't love.

The parallels between this story and MLC really hit me!  Talk about an identify crisis!  She had no idea who she was.....how she got there.

So, she retreats - back to the previous time and re-traces those same steps.  Goes back to her "old" life - re-enters law school, gets back with her family - seems to go back to her old finance.  She and her husband divorce.  It is through re-living these same steps - she finds out who she is and what she wants out of life - even though she never regains the memory of meeting and marrying her husband.

The film ends with the wife (now ex-wife) back in the city, back to being an artist (having quit law school - again), breaks it off (again) with her old fiance and searching out her (ex) husband.  The two decide, rather than go to an old place that they went to previously - to try somewhere new - and begin a new relationship. 

And, the husband?  Well, the film pretty much showed that there was not a whole lot he could do about the situation.  He loved his wife......un-conditionally.  He missed her.  He wanted her in his life.  But, she had to figure out who she was.  He could not force himself on her....date her and re-woo her......complain or be angry with her.  He just let her be.  He was sad....but his only wish was for her to be happy....and, if that was without him...then that is how it had to be.  I couldn't help but feel so sorry for him.  He loved her so much!  But, she wasn't the same person anymore - he could see that.  At the end of the film - she was a "new" person - a bit of the old, a bit of the new - her core personality was there......but she was different as well.

A bit like MLC - at least, for me.  Of course, they didn't have any children.....I think the story would have been quite a bit different had children been in the mix.......Apparently, this film was inspired by true events.  At the end of the film - they showed a photo of the couple with their two children (born after the incident).  She never regained her memory....but they were able to re-build.....

Sorry, if I ruined the film for you.....

L

[L&S]

The most accurate MLC depiction I have ever seen on film is the BBC mini-series "The Six Wives of Henry the 8th."

Whoever wrote this series had MLC on the brain.  It is a MUST watch - it IS amazing, you will say OMG this is the most classic MLC ever.

Just to get you interested:  Henry the 8th is a normal loving husband & father for 18 years to wife Catherine of Aragon and their daughter.  He is a devout man who loves him family.  Then WHAMMO, midlife hits and suddenly he wants to do it over with a younger woman and male heir.  But how will he get rid of his first wife?  No, he didn't chop her head off...he did worse.

LBSs much watch this to see how Catherine of Aragon responded...she was the ultimate stander.  Your heart will break for her (the scene where he sends a servant to demand that she give the family christening gown to the OW is heart wrenching).

WATCH THIS MOVIE...it is six episodes, but the MLC resolves in the first three.  And its a true story.  Lets all be thankful that our MLCers don't have the power that the king of England had - he wielded total destruction and he became a sick & lonely old man full of bitterness and unrealized dreams.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066714/

[Wed2Him?Whatever.]

I just had to re-visit this thread.

I have recently begun watching The Tudors on BBC America.  All I can say is, "WOW."  This is my H.  A few months after BD, he still didn't seem to know what it was that was making him so unhappy, and he came up with a number of things.  Some of you might recall me posting about how my H made a point of bringing up my cat pajamas.  Yep... he was totally grasping at straws.

Then a friend he had not seen in over a year called up, going through a separation, and my H invited himself over to his place, where he renewed his connection with him and his two young children.  And that my fellow LBS was all she wrote.  It was love.

My H (Henry VIII) has decided he must have a male heir no matter the cost.  I (Catherine of Aragon) am dumbfounded at how he is able to completely disregard the life, love and happiness that we have shared over so many years together.  It is AWFUL.

[Anjae]

Had never though of Henry VIII has a man in MLC. Having a male hair was a need of the time and if there was not one it was not uncommon to put aside a wife. At the time the thought of a woman as Queen of England was unthinkable. The irony is that, of course in the end a woman become Queen of England: Elisabeth I. Catherine was the widow of Henry’s brother, she should had never married Henry. But the Catholic Church allowed for it. I’m not certain Catherine stand for love, more because she was a Catholic and because being Queen was of great importance to her, I think. Both her marriages were for political reasons, not love. But Henry comes out of it all as a fool. Putting aside wives, beheading wives, and, no make hair survives. He messed up his and many other lives for nothing. Except for coming up with the Church of England.

[theheartknows]

    Just saw a movie about a marital relationship with Meryl Strep and Tommy Lee Jones. Did anyone else see it and feel that the male character exhibited signs of MLC? Dealing w my H MLC has made me see realtionships in a new light.
     I was thinking about Don Quixote the other day. His delusion, his relationship with Dulcinea...possible MLC?
     I thought it might be fun to see if anybody has had similar thoughts about any books, plays or movies they have seen?

[Thundarr]

I'll say it first - any talk about "Eat, Pray, Love" is banned.

Now, I did pick up the ultimate MLC movie the other day and it's "City Slickers" with Billy Crystal.  Three 9-5ers decide they want to be cowboys at 45 and go out west and leave their families for a time.  Jack Palance helps to show them that the life they left was perfect for them and they go home happy.  One of my favorite comedies and W and I saw it and it's sequel together.  Highly recommended!