[Any midlife crisis victims who can share their experiences during their transition]

Any midlife crisis victims who can share their experiences during their transition

What went through your mind

2 (66.7%)

Did you really stop loving your spouse

1 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 3

[whatthe????]

Sewing-
I am in tears with your words.  The clarity you bring is amazing!  Also, it really helps to understand where the MLCer is coming from and how their brain is or isn't working.  Let me ask you this though.  My h is still very much interested in me sexually-I don't feel that there is much of a connection there but I feel that he uses it to help him hold on to "us".  Is that a possibility with his thought process?  There is an OW and supposedly on a PA.   I am about 8 months post BD and about 3 yrs in. 

[whatthe????]

supposedly an EA but come on now!

[sewing22]

whatthe,

it means that your h is still attracted to you. It means that he is just as confused as any one else in depression and having sex with you is still a way for him to FEEL. 

I completely stopped having sex with my h once I started my EA, that did lead to a PA at some point (but the physical part with OM was very infrequent because he was married himself and also going through a MLC, I can see that now, OM was also out of my h's league in every way--my h (now exh) is a great guy!).

Its probably soothing to your h to still have sex with you. It could temporarily relive him of his pain. Ya know?

Men use sex as a way to attach themselves. So at the very least, he's still trying to stay attached to you on some level.

[Beacon]

Sewing,

Thank you again for sharing your story. I have copied and saved your post so I can read it when in need. I now feel like I have a better idea about what's going on inside my W's head. Everything you described it her. She has even shared with me some of her thoughts and feeling at the beginning of her crisis which I know may not be common because most don't know what is going on but I think she has her moments of clarity. I knew it started when she told me one day crying "I have no idea what i'm doing honey, ive gone bat sh!te crazy". That is when I knew there was  problem and it just went downhill from there.

[crazyjourney]

Thank you that was a very heart felt post.

I hope you didnt get traumatised going back to it, its a very sad thing isnt it, I hope more research is gone into and some day it can be out in the open and understood and of course helped.

I wonder do you have any idea how you think it happened to you in the first place, do you look back and think you missed  parts of important development in your earlier years for some reason or other.

Thank you again.

x

[MsT]

http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=5388.0

[sewing22]

crazyjourney,

I believe that the parts of myself that made me feel broken, combined with the depression (chemical imbalance) that I went through (making it a midlife crisis) lead me down that path.

I don't think I had ever learned how to combine responsibility with passion. This means that once I got married, I very much felt like I was going through the motions the whole time, like I wasn't a W, but playing the role of one. All of this was unbeknownst to me, however. I hadn't figured out how to engage in true intimacy and that is what I had to face. If you can't engage in true intimacy by way of real vulnerability, you create all sorts of ways around that. I explained all of my pre-MLC behaviors in one of the other post above. I replaced true vulnerability and intimacy with those behaviors. But once I became covertly depressed, I couldn't hide from myself any longer. I didn't know who the hell I was because I had been living so unauthentically for so long by replacing true vulnerability and intimacy with my pre-MLC behaviors that I hadn't developed into a secure adult, but a replica of one!!!

The façade came down once I had lost my baby and became depressed--I no longer had the energy to act out the pre-MLC behaviors, and these were the things that kept me covertly depressed for years (although I never knew it, hence the "covert depression"). These were the tools I used all of my life to cope, to keep running from the shame I felt for not feeling good enough. They weren't working anymore.

This is what a MLC is. It really is an awaking, an acceptance and a transition (if you're strong enough to go through it without getting stuck) into feeling the pain about yourself that you have been keeping at bay by any means necessary, walking through that pain and coming out on the other side of it. 

Does this make any sense? 

[BlueBittz]

This situation is by all means the worst experience ive had to dealt with...its unbelievable the sh** one has to endure. I sometimes feel so angry to have HAVE to understand that all this is a normal transition for some....but lord help us all...this is all craziness.

BB

Hi

From what I have picked up over the years mlc is actually a spiritual death, so yes that is what your h feels but he isnt actually dieing in the physical sense.

Mine told his mam in the early days when she was asking him questions as to why he left, like he had felt like it was like a slow death!!! I mean who would say something like that about their marriage.

Its totally script they all say similar bs.

hugs x

[BlueBittz]

Thank you sooooo much sewing for sharing your experience with us. Everything you have said does help tremendously. Having a MLC point of view helps with all these torturous questions running through ones mind nonstop...🌸🌸

Beacon,

Its because the MLCer feels like crap. You feel confused and so unsure of just about every thing and you have no idea why you can't feel any more. You don't believe you are depressed because every thing you know about depression is not exactly what you are going through--like you can still get up out of bed, you can still go to work, you can still have an occasional laugh. Although some things will be obvious to others, like I didn't cook or clean for two whole years (it wasn't until recently when my mother told me that she knew something was off because I never went into the kitchen and I stopped picking up around the house--my h at the time knew it also and did EVERYTHING around the house). But honestly I thought I was still acting normal, even though I knew I didn't feel normal. I felt nothing. So you don't get help because you can function, and that't not what you know about depression. So you wait and wait for yourself to get back to normal. Only, it never comes.

And when you've waited long enough and can't wait any longer because you are in so much pain and the people you used to love and call family haven't been able to help you, you subconsciously begin to search for something that will make you feel. ENTER THE OW/OM. They are so far removed from your trauma, they are separate and apart from your history and you can start over with them. You can be new and lighthearted, and you can suddenly FEEL again. So what could be wrong with something that saves you life!!!???

For a time, the OW/OM feel like they have saved the MLCer's life by helping them to FEEL again!!! So can you understand how powerful that is???  Its like you have just found the medication that will help you out of your depression!! POWERFUL STUFF.

Only, sadly, its only temporary. My numbness was lifted, but the same ol' cloud still hovered over me, while the sun shown just steps away from my shadow. I still wasn't happy because things were all wrong. I had developed an affair while I was married, I had left my h (who loved me dearly), I had taken our D (we had a child after the stillbirth of our first child that sent me into depression) who was 2 years old at the time and put her into a broken family dynamic. The list was looooooong. 

True happiness isn't born out of painful chaos, no matter what the MLCer tells you about his new life or what it looks like. Its only temporary because God, the earth the universe is GOING to make you face yourself.

[crazyjourney]

Hi Sewing

Yes it makes perfect sense, if I wasnt staring at a mlc with my xh then no it wouldnt but looking back I can see how he was a recipe for this to happen.

I think he has been running to a certain extent all his life, so sad because he is such a good and nice person at his core.

Funny you should mention passion, one of the things he said at BD was that the passion had gone!!! course I was taking it all personally at the time, who wouldnt eh.

Thank you, I think you have added a lot of very important information for us all.

xx