[in it]

I don't know if this will be relevant but..

When I first posted ( 2010) I was looking for back up for my then 17 year old D. The ex wanted her to meet the now exow. I kept telling her she didn't have to. Generous people posted so I could show her it was OK to tell her father she did not want to meet her. She did tell him, she was scared to death, but she did it.

I must admit I misunderstood a lot on this site.I didn't read many of the articles because some of it didn't make sense or maybe apply to my situation. I couldn't figure out how to detach and stay in contact. I wasn't getting hit with enough 2 x 4's I guess. The only way I could detach successfully is to go total NC.

He was saying nasty things in 2010-11 ..No boundaries Just show up at my work or my home. No one has to listen to the vile things they say or tolerate their entitled attitude. I still read about  MLCer's doing this.

 IMHO to hell with standing for your marriage stand up for yourself. Hang up the phone on them or if they are harassing you call the cops. Kindness translates to weakness to them.

Going back after a year was a huge mistake(me foolishly thinking from reading on here I was dealing with someone in an MLC)  and took a major toll on me at every possible level. It isn't he wasn't ready or not fully baked. The oven is broke in his situation.

 The ex is an abusive man and always will be. So MLC no MLC doesn't really mean anything to me anymore. Foo issues hormones childhood trauma whatever. I really don't care much what his problems are. He'd be the same to someone else he was to me.

Didn't matter what I did. If I was quiet "What was the matter? And if I opened my mouth that wasn't the thing to say.I'm not bitter just more upset with myself that I didn't leave sooner. There are real reasons women do not leave an abusive relationship. I'm pretty textbook so not too unusual. I've forgiven myself and have worked hard to stay away from toxic relationships.

So my mirror work has been exploring me and why I tolerated it for so long. I have a lot of answers to those questions now.Reading about abused women and the mind set of all of that. I didn't ever feel like my self esteem suffered much during the relationship. Due to FOO issues I thought that's what a normal relationship was.

 My self awareness is better ( now that three years have passed) and the trauma and triggers seem to be healing. All of that was due to an incident where he could have easily killed me if he had shoved me just a bit harder when I was leaving him. I didn't realize my life would be in danger doing that.

I'm grateful for every single day and it used to be a lot more than it's been lately. But for the longest time I'd look to the sky as I drove home from work at night and say out loud.

Thank God I am not going home to him.

[Trustandlove]

Finally having gathered a few thoughts, I'll try to express them here...

What message did I perceive? That you believe in marriage and would like to stop divorce, and that maybe if others understood MLC from your perspective, they would not take the world view about what is happening to their spouse and jump to the conclusion of ending their marriages before letting this dis-ease run its course.

This was said earlier, and is what I perceive as well.    That the divorce rate could be brought down if more people took a stand. 

So that goes to say that I do believe that MLC is something that has to run its course; I have seen in my own experience that it will do so.

My views are also influenced by my own life -- I went through a horrible stretch early on, when it wouldn't even be considered any kind of life crisis, although it was in response to my own family's situation.  I ran away, behaved very badly, did things I'm not proud of, hurt people left, right and centre.  Moved totally away from my own values and tried to adjust those values to reflect my behaviour. 

And I came out of that, realised that I COULD do so, and set about making amends.  Now that is a lot easier at 24 than at 54, because you just haven't had enough time to cause as much destruction. 

So I do know that while someone is in a crisis they just won't listen, and I also know that the behaviour of others during the crisis does have an influence, even if it doesn't show at the time.  I know the courage it takes to admit a mistake and try to make amends for it. 

Before HS I read Conway and anything else that I could get my hands on; I found another forum early on which did describe the crisis well, but wasn't really open to the idea of standing; on that one, some marriages did reconcile, indeed there was a whole separate reconciliation board, but it didn't recognise the idea of cycling or the various types of MLCer; in that sense the continuum from clinger to vanisher is much more useful.  And it did have a kick-em-to-the-curb mentality, after saying that you could wait a little bit (a few months or perhaps a year or two....). 

I mentioned HS on that forum and was jumped upon for even mentioning the idea of standing, that it was all false hope and a crock.   

So the articles here were a lifesaver; I turned to them often for comfort when my world was spinning -- at first for the hope that he would come out quickly, then just to calm myself down.    And they made me realise that I had to work on myself more than on trying to convince my H of anything. 

The articles have changed somewhat since the beginning; many I find well-articulated and practical; some, however, such as the ones on liminality, depression, and so on are quite metaphorical, with verse rather than straightforward practical descriptions.   I find those a bit harder, especially if I'm trying to use those to describe to someone else in real life what this all means. 

I recognise the limitations of short articles; there is so much to say and it cannot possibly be squeezed into just a few words. 

I do believe that MLC is a process, as I said earlier I do think that the timeline is very conservative, unfortunately, but I agree that giving a longer one would scare newbies to death. 

Where I'm not quite sure about things is where the process diverges from what RCR knows best -- the clinging boomerang.  The clinger may well be the "typical" MLCer, the one "most likely" to return, so it is perhaps easiest to look at the process through those lenses. 

I don't know if it is possible to write more about those that aren't so clingy.... 

I think the articles do a pretty good job of showing what the stages of MLC might be; I do remember being given the "slinky" analogy, that progress appears so slow because they go all the way around the circle only to be about one millimetre ahead.  I'm not sure if that is still in the articles, it could be something I remember from earlier. 

There was also a list that compared actions of acceptance and denial that I still have printed out, but that is no longer in the articles. 

Where it does get difficult is of course when it goes on for so long; RCR herself doesn't have this experience, and there are only a few of us who do who still post.  I'll admit that one reason I'm still here is perhaps as research fodder. 

And because I still find that I have to balance on the tightrope.    And because I am the one with a difficult FOO, and I made a decision many years ago, before MLC, that the rot would stop here if I could in any way do anything about it.  So my actions are motivated by my desire to do everything I can to NOT pass on the rot to my own children, and to speak openly about what is and isn't right, to encourage open discussion about feelings, and to put the whole first, recognising that that also means that each individual needs to feel valuable. 

So having said that I had gathered my thoughts, I don't know if that is very clear; I definitely believe that MLC is something distinct from an "ordinary" walk-away spouse; where it gets less clear is later on; RCR says that the person who comes out may well be very different from the one that went in; what is hard to determine is what "out" means; it would seem to indicate some kind of self-awareness, which I have seen and then seen disappear again.

I remember RCR saying that at some point it became a lifestyle choice; that is what is also unclear -- but perhaps more unclear in my own case because I have seen the despair even while my H professes he has "accepted" his now-not-so-new life. 

[OldPilot]

I thought that it might be a good idea to add another story here with a not so happy ending.

I believe in MLC.

My mother is bipolar and has the disease on a scale of 1-10 about a 50.

That being said it is sometimes under control if she stays on her meds.
She certainly had a MLC which occurred much later in life.
One thing that mid life does is magnify your prior problems and make them much worse.
My mother was no exception to this, she finally got a  divorce from my father, got a huge settlement of cash and proceeded to replay activities with a vengeance.
I remember her taking a trip to Vienna which blew through $10,000 which at the time was a lot of money.
So after about 5 years she had spent her entire settlement and had nothing left she somewhat crashed and ended up in jail using the rest of her money on lawyers to get herself out, the judge ordered her back on meds, and she was on probation that required her to take her meds.

She is now an old woman who I must think is out of her crisis, my father has passed away and she still blames him for all of her problems.

There has never been any remorse or reflection and I doubt that there ever will be.

It has been over 25 years from her divorce.

In retrospect I can see the highs and lows of her crisis but my point is because of her underlying disease, there was never an emergence from that.

My .02 for this Sunday morning.

[Trustandlove]

Interesting story, OP. 

I absolutely agree that midlife magnifies your problems and makes them much worse; add to that a few powerful triggers and something/someone which/who promises an escape from it all and you do have, as you said earlier, the perfect storm.

A lack of coping skills is the issue here as well; in your mother's case the underlying disease was that, in many MLCers they just never learned that part somewhere along the line, possibly due to being indulged when they should have been made to take responsibility.  (and I don't mean that someone was necessarily deliberately spoiling them, it may well have been done thinking that it was showing love....)

It is so easy to say that the LBS is the cause of all the problems, it stops any reflection. 

(and $10K would still seem like a lot of money today....)

[Thunder]

trusting "Simply put, I believe MLC is a severe crisis of identity.  I believe it is rooted in childhood and FOO issues, but there must be something more to it than that to cause some people with childhood wounding to be fine at midlife and others to go crazy and turn their worlds upside down.  I agree that 3-7 years seems conservative at this point from what I have observed. 

I do not believe we caused their crisis or contributed to it.  I think it would have happened no matter who they were
I also think it has a lot to do with hormones.married to.  Therefore, I don't think we can change their crisis.  It is their journey to navigate, and they choose to do so without us.  We have our own journeys to travel.  If it were a marriage issue, so many of them would not walk away from parenting, cut ties to other people, and destroy finances. 

I do think that the best thing we can do is step out of the way, live our lives the best we can for ourselves and our kids (if we have them), and choose joy.  Let them have their crises.  They are going to whether we want them to or not."

I couldn't have said it better, trusting, and I believe the same. (a severe crisis of identity) and it also has a lot to do with hormones, or lack of. 
I understood this more when I saw my H actually experiencing hot flashes.  This is not something that happens in their mind only, it's physical.  Anyone who has experienced hot flashes knows this.

RCR's articles are spot on.   

[Trustandlove]

I'm definitely in the "severe crisis of identity" camp. 

[Medusa]

I also consider MLC to fall under the umbrella of a personality crisis triggered by a person's inability to address FOO issues. I don't discount a chemical/hormonal imbalance; however, my experience is that FOO issues play a crucial role.

Why? STBX told me that "this" was about his father, who died when STBX was 13. He also mentioned a couple of times that he lived with his father's ghost...which points directly to his mother. STBX talked a lot in the months surrounding BD about emotional intelligence. I see now he was trying to tell me something. It made no sense at the time.

So of course neither me nor the marriage caused the crisis. However, I can see how both contributed. Our relationship became co-dependent, where I was responsible for his happiness. I met his needs for many years, and he mine. What I did not understand was how I became (or perhaps always was) a mother figure to him. He sought comfort from me. A couple of months before BD, I went to a terrible depression after being laid off and having to reapply for my job. He was already depressed, he couldn't tolerate my depression, and so he looked elsewhere for someone to become his mother figure. I certainly don't blame my depression for his crisis, but I can also see the causal chain. Had I not gone through what at that time, we might still be together--and him still miserable.

Might. Because honestly, does any of us know whether or not our spouse would have gone into crisis had they been with someone else? We can think we know the answer, but until we find a way to reach that alternate universe, we do not know.

I think part of the difficult we have with the camps that say, yes, I contributed but didn't know it and no, I have no responsibility in any of it, has more to do with the type of relationship we had with our spouse. Air has spoken about twisting herself into a pretzel to make OB happy. To me that resonates of co-dependency. And I think that may be the key: those of us who were in a co-dependent relationship have a different experience than those who were not. Neither is right or wrong; this is how we have experienced our lives.

Standing is a crucial concept in a throw-away society. I see it as a crucial step in the development/healing process. Initially we Stand. Until we really learn about MLC, we think we are dealing with garden-variety affairs and can outlast them. We don't believe our spouse is going to take 2 years.  Most of us here are separated, and we learn about ourselves. Some continue to stand for the marriage. That's right for them. Some don't have a clue what they want and Stand for themselves. Both contribute to the healing. And then some of us will, for whatever reason, end the Stand. For me it was a difficult decision: I waffled for about a year. Even though I had intellectually moved on, part of my heart needed time to catch up before I was truly ready for divorce.

I believe things happen for a reason. STBX and I were supposed to be together for as long as we were. We are no longer supposed to be together. Had we remained, both of us would have continued on through out lives as broken people. I do not know of STBX will ever become whole. I do know that while I still have work to do, I'm much closer to wholeness than I was before.

And that, I think, is the point of the philosophy of HS, ultimately. Reconciliation or not, the mirror work is crucial for us. We know those MLCers who try to come back do so very broken and the LBS needs to have a kind of strength unlike anything we've experienced in the past. So even if the mission statement is about saving marriages, which is fine, my view is that it is also about saving the LBS, reconciliation or not.

[Watcher]

I believe my W is having a severe identity crisis. I also believe that this crisis was brought on by her FOO issues. Her psychiatrist at BD alluded to a chemical imbalance but  he only focused on OM. She is dissatisfied with work, home and her life in general. Now I see the warning signs a year prior to BD as she had a difficult time with our children aging. She is angry and depressed. Those are the 2 commonalities of her mlc. She is angry at the world, God, her Dr, medication, her dad, and , of course, ME. I am #1 on the list.

The articles have been very helpful but it takes awhile to truly appreciate your work RCR. In the beginning, I felt that I understood everything that you were trying to convey but time and life experiences with my W brought  everything into clarity. I find myself rereading the articles many times because I always find something new as the mlc advances. What I thought I understood at 6 months, is more clearer now at 14 months and probably will be further understood at 20 months. Its a constant learning process.

I do trust the process mainly because she is pretty textbook and follows the mlc script from everything that I have read. I could have probably done a better job in year one but I think we all are going to stumble our way through this initially until we figure ourselves out.

[Thunder]

I couldn't agree more, Watcher.

It takes time and rereading RCR's articles for them to sink in.
I suppose it's the shock at first.  You just can't get your head around that they will take years to come out of this.  Just kill me now!  THAT is not what I wanted to hear!

I wanted to hear he will come out of his crisis in 2 years and be my loving H again.
I did NOT think time was my friend.
I did not believe he wanted to find someone else.  He wouldn't do that.  He couldn't possibly be looking.
I didn't think "I" needed to do mirror work.  I was perfectly fine with who I was.

Well then hard reality sets in after awhile and you understand.   

[The lighthouse]

I agree with Watcher that as time goes on I still find myself reading the articles and I find new things and gain more clarity as my H's MLC progresses.  I am at the 5 year mark post BD, but in retrospect I believe my H was spiraling down for some years before BD.

When I found HS I was 20 months post BD and had been dim with my H for the last 12 months of that 20 month period.  It was something I did instinctively for my own sanity and didn't even know that it was termed as going 'dim' at the time.  In fact I hadn't even realised at this point that my H was in fact having a MLC, but as soon as I found HS and read the articles the penny dropped immediately.  I knew this was my H.  When I read in the articles that NC wasn't beneficial if you hoped to one day reconcile I answered the phone the next time my H called and things changed over night.  I still believe in my case that that 12 month dim period was beneficial but that I found HS and adapted to paving the way just at the right time in my H's crisis.

I tend to think MLC is a perfect storm of chemical/hormonal imbalance, FOO issues, stress/coping issues (addictions), depression, and a crisis of identity. 

There is a definite difference in my H now to 5 years ago.  At first he was like a walking shell of himself and was completely zoned out.  There didn't seem to be much going on inside his head at all at that time or for quite some time.  He seemed completely numb which suggests to me the chemical/hormonal imbalance. 

He was under a lot of stress at BD with a new job of 6 months in which he had a lot more responsibility and working hours and he was coming to the end of 3 years of study for a diploma.  He also had a near miss fatal work accident where he was almost crushed by falling steel only weeks before BD.  He had previous issues with alcohol and had had counseling for it but had started to drink heavily again.  I have witnessed depression throughout the crisis.  For the most part he follows the MLC script though I can't say I have witnessed a 180 like others have, more a loss of his moral compass and a compulsion towards self-sabotage.  I have seen very little monster and he has never blamed me for his actions.  I did get the script 'he wasn't wanted or loved at home' and 'we had grown apart'.

I have found the paving the way and the mirror work articles very beneficial.  Grace, agape and the unconditionals sit easily with who I am anyway so they have been easy to adopt in a more mindful way.  I have learned much about myself through mirror work.  I see now that I was a fixer, that I enabled my H and that I didn't set boundaries.  A big thing I have learned is the art of responding instead of reacting.  I still struggle at times with detachment because he is a boomerang and there have been numerous touch and goes.

As time has gone on and because my H appears to follow the script I have found it easier to trust in the process.  He is at the stage where he is aware of the destruction he has caused and aware of his own pain, but as yet has had no true self-awareness except to admit that he now sees he was running away from himself and that he took all his problems with him.  As time has gone on I now believe that the 2-7 year time frame is a conservative one, and that in many cases MLC can last much longer.