[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

[sewing22]

Hi BB,

Yes, I have gone through a MLC and live to tell about it. Please ask me any questions you like.

[crazyjourney]

Hi Sewing

first question can you remember that much about it, we are told a lot of it goes from recollection?

Can you remember how you came out of it, gradually and then wham mind of thing.

Sorry you are going though it again on the other side, no matter what you did yourself I dont wish this on you and of course it appears the mlcer has not very much control and a sense of reverse reality.

Hugs x

[crazyjourney]

lol kind of thing not mind, typo.

[BlueBittz]

Hi Hauk, yes...he just gave up...i actually met up with him yesturday and during our very brief conversation he told me that he felt he was dieing and getting sick during his time with us. You can just imagine the pain that caused me. And slso stated how much his new girlfriend understands him. In other words, living with us was hell and basically i never understood him. He ask me to not feel bad.

He also still talks about death often. He tells me he feels like he has to hurry up with whatever plans he has because he has little time....this is driving me insane. I begged for him to tell me if he discovered an illness of any sort...if he was diagnosed with something...and he tells me he does not want to go to see a doctor but that he knows his body and knows he is dieing.....as you can imagine...he is telling me all this, plus how he was not happy with us, plus how slow i am in terms of progressing in life, plus how he states that where we live is aweful. Its likes everything he sees in us is not good enough for him. Insult on insult....and he calmly states...."oh, i know its not your fault or D fault, but god does things for the better". Is this crazy or am i going crazy??.

lt's probably just too hard on your d to deal with Blue, she's only 16 , her dads took off , she couldn't cope with all that and your stuff alone too plus her own life . Give her time ,don't give up on her . l don't think she had a choice.

As for h , well just touching on it for now. But l was of the rails for about 2yrs but there was somuch going on in our life too , it was about the worst time to cave in and let w thinkk l just didn't want the marriage anymore , yet she was going thtough all this very very heavy stuff that she;d hid from me on top of it , perfect storm.

l can see why she fave up at the time but l just can't see why she never actually talked to me and complained for 12mths first , before giving up. And then around bd , when everything came out from both of us , why she didn't stay to try and give it time , we would have been fine in time now that we both knew what was going on.

So , similar to your h , just gave up and walked.  l get what happened with us over about 3 yrs but so what , marriages go through rough times , so does life, but that part l don't get at all.

[crazyjourney]

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

[sewing22]

Hi Sewing

first question can you remember that much about it, we are told a lot of it goes from recollection?

Can you remember how you came out of it, gradually and then wham mind of thing.

Sorry you are going though it again on the other side, no matter what you did yourself I dont wish this on you and of course it appears the mlcer has not very much control and a sense of reverse reality.

Hugs x

Crazyjourney,

This site is helping me to remember things that I went through, so yes, so much of it is hidden in the subconscious.

I came out of it only when I attended to thing(s) that made me feel broken. For me that meant gaining my independence and claiming my self-esteem, which before my MLC I now know had been low, but I hid my feelings of shame and low self-esteem through EGO and defenses. In other words, before my MLC, I had no idea who I really was and only after my MLC did I start to live in my true essence. Before MLC, I felt like I was going through the motions, not really connected to anything, only I never knew it. I thought I was normal and that I enjoyed life. If you had asked me pre-MLC is I was truly a happy and fulfilled person I would have most certainly told you, YES. But I believe I never knew any better. I now know that I was covertly depressed for years, hiding behind defenses such as BEING A KNOW IT ALL, being extremely competent in whatever I did, being judgmental of others, hiding behind knowledge in place of exposing my true vulnerability, and last but not least, using grandiosity as a way of feeling in control.

These were all of my pre-MLC behaviors. And then I got knocked down. The worse thing that could ever happen to me, happened. I lost my first child during my first marriage at 8 months pregnant to stillbirth. And it knocked me down. For so long I had held ugly truths away from my life. I had everything in control, all the time (or so I thought). For the first time, I had no control over my sadness, my emotions, my life and my image. And I became depressed.

I lost all feeling for my then h, almost overnight--this is what depression does to a person. The chemical imbalance in your brain lowers your serotonin levels to where you lose feelings. I was numb. And I knew I was in trouble.

Our feelings are our truth, so if I no longer had feelings for my h, then I must not love him any longer, right?  Only, it was the depression, the chemical imbalance that was telling me this. Which is why I believe that we really do need to get actively more aggressive as a community in speaking out about covert depression and its wicked affects, so that people know that depression takes on many forms, not just the typical overtly depressed symptoms that are most commonly associated with it. And we need to get clear on what depression looks like particularly in men so that health professionals can more readily identify it.

I was in so much pain (numb) that I could no longer deal with feeling the pressures of giving to my h emotionally. I could not be a wife because as a wife I was expected to give and I just didn't have a thing left. Looking at my h every day was a constant reminder of how much I didn't have, how incompetent I was, basically, it was a constant reminder of the unhappiness I felt. I never believed it was him who was at fault, I just had no idea what the hell was going on, but I knew that I had fallen out of love with him and needed to break from the pressure to perform. And the guilt I felt for not being able to deliver as his w was overwhelming and I believed that by leaving I was not only doing myself a favor, I was doing him a favor as well. he needed a better w than me.

I gradually began to come out of it by living on my own. After dating for about a year and a half, I realized that none of that was working for me, so I spent a lot of time on my own. Going to work, studying buddist principles, learning to meditate, spending time with friends and healing myself through self care. I don't believe I had ever done that before.

Only after learning how to give myself the gift of self care-- being good to myself through eating right, sleeping right, buying my own home and licking my wounds, so to speak did I begin to come out of it. But the OW/OM thing is only a filler. Its a distraction from facing your wounds that got you here in the first place.

I am a believer that the MLCer--depressed person much first learn how to care for themselves in a real, authentic way before they can snap out of it. This is what is meant by coming out of the tunnel. This is why the MLC can't attend to any one else's needs, because they need to figure out how to attend to their own needs, first. I don't believe that people who already know how to take care of their own needs ever even find themselves in MLC.

But the end result was claiming my true happiness. I now know that I had no idea who I was before my MLC. Now live in the moment and enjoy life in a real way.

[Roma]

Thank you Sewing22 for explaining so well what you went thru. Really adds insight for me about my h.

[MyBrainIsBroken]

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.

This is a good way to describe it. I remember feeling that I couldn't be the person I had been any longer because that person no longer existed.

[Beacon]

Great post sewing and thank you for sharing.

And the guilt I felt for not being able to deliver as his w was overwhelming and I believed that by leaving I was not only doing myself a favor, I was doing him a favor as well. he needed a better w than me.

I heard this line so many times prior to my W leaving. She would always talk about how much of a monster she is, how I deserve better then her, how bad of a person she is.

It's just horrible for me to think that she thinks of herself like that but that is the depths of the depression and I agree that covert depression needs more attention in the community.

I think these stories from those who have been through MLC are very enlightening and really help out us LBSr's. So again thank you!!!!

[sewing22]

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.