[1trouble]

I am exploring a theory I have and welcome comments.

We say MLC'ers do a 180 from the people we knew, but do they?
My theory is they become an extreme version of the person they was before.
For example if someone pre MLC was in control of the money within the marriage, I wonder if they are more likely to use this to 'control' their LBS?

If someone was a conflict avoider pre MLC, have they continued through this crisis, trying not to be the bad guy or have they done a complete turn and argue about anything and everything? 

For this discussion, I am not talking about their moral code, religion, core values as that, in my opinion
is dealt with by cognitive dissonance and skewed reasoning.

I am talking about actual behaviour traits.

Here are just some examples of the things I am looking for.
If your MLC'er has blamed you for everything, were they people pre-crisis who found it hard to admit if they made a mistake?

If in your marriage it was his way or no way and so you gave in to this, has he been doing things to gain control in MLC?

Did your MLC'er use money as a control aspect in your marriage in small ways and has been more extreme in MLC?

Did your MLC'er display controlled anger but has been out of control in crisis?

these are just some examples.....

Conversely, have you seen things in your H in MLC that you never ever thought he would do honestly and you cannot in any shape or form remember even the slightest incident of these parts of his personality pre MLC.

I am not talking about what happens in their relationships with their AP, I am talking about how they are treating you.

I wont be around for a couple of days but I look forward to reading the comments of anyone who wants to contribute to this thread

[Nas]

I am exploring a theory I have and welcome comments.

We say MLC'ers do a 180 from the people we knew, but do they?
My theory is they become an extreme version of the person they was before.
For example if someone pre MLC was in control of the money within the marriage, I wonder if they are more likely to use this to 'control' their LBS?

If someone was a conflict avoider pre MLC, have they continued through this crisis, trying not to be the bad guy or have they done a complete turn and argue about anything and everything? 

For this discussion, I am not talking about their moral code, religion, core values as that, in my opinion
is dealt with by cognitive dissonance and skewed reasoning.

I am talking about actual behaviour traits.

Here are just some examples of the things I am looking for.
If your MLC'er has blamed you for everything, were they people pre-crisis who found it hard to admit if they made a mistake?

He definitely blamed me for everything after BD.  Pre-BD he would admit to his mistakes but he also seemed to beat himself up for mistakes, as his self-esteem has always been pretty low.

If in your marriage it was his way or no way and so you gave in to this, has he been doing things to gain control in MLC?

He always wanted his own way and looked to me to make things the way he wanted.  For example, H despises seafood and would act like a big baby if he had to smell it.  So if there were 6 of us going to dinner and anyone mentioned a seafood restaurant, he would shoot me a look that said, "Please don't let them make us go to a seafood restaurant."  And I would have to be the one to say I didn't want seafood to ensure H didn't end up at a restaurant he didn't like.

I'm not really sure how that is manifesting now during MLC, except that of course he is just doing whatever he wants.  I can't imagine he would refuse to go to a seafood restaurant with OW and her friends, so I imagine he is just "sucking it up" a whole lot more these days.

Did your MLC'er use money as a control aspect in your marriage in small ways and has been more extreme in MLC?

He didn't use money for control, but in our marriage his money was very much "his" money, in that we didn't have a joint account and after he paid his share of the bills, he never had to ask if he wanted to do something with the rest of his money.  He could make purchases and things like that.  Pre-MLC he would always run a major purchase by me.  Starting in summer 2013, I believe the beginning of MLC, he was blowing a fortune without my knowledge.

Did your MLC'er display controlled anger but has been out of control in crisis?

My H only  had a few angry outbursts in 15 years, although he told me more than once, "You've never seen me get really angry."  So I always knew he had a lot of anger inside of him.  I am not surprised, since he grew up with an alcoholic mother (who appears to be either narcissistic or histrionic) and an apparently critical father.

these are just some examples.....

Conversely, have you seen things in your H in MLC that you never ever thought he would do honestly and you cannot in any shape or form remember even the slightest incident of these parts of his personality pre MLC.

I am not talking about what happens in their relationships with their AP, I am talking about how they are treating you.

I think his having an affair at all is something I never ever thought he would do.  Particularly because H's father's affair was something H used to talk about with disgust.  His father's OW was someone he had dated when he was younger (just like H's OW). He left H's mother and died of a sudden heart attack 11 months later while with the OW. H used to talk about the OW with so much anger and when he referred to her at all, he called her "that woman."  I to this day don't know her name.

As far as other things that differ from his pre-MLC personality, he was always honest even when in some instances where it wouldn't have hurt anyone and would have been in his best interest to bend the truth.   

I wont be around for a couple of days but I look forward to reading the comments of anyone who wants to contribute to this thread

[Medusa]

Hi, 1T. Thanks for starting this had as the preliminary discussion on your thread has been percolating in my brain all day.

I do think some of their behaviors become more pronounced, but in other ways, the do a 180.

STBX's more pronounced behaviors include

1. Going from loving flying to becoming completely obsessed with it.

2. Being careful with money to becoming fixated on it while also being a spendthrift.  Before BD, everything was ours. Now it's all his.

3. Being a man who couldn't let go of certain thing to one who seems to believe everything is aimed at making his life more difficult.

4. Wanting to have things planned to getting pi$$ed over spontaneity (can you say control?)

5. Being a man who never wanted his kids to have to work while they were in school to being a man who continues to give them an allowance (they are 22 and 23).

The 180 behaviors include

1. Being a man who was in complete control of huis emotions to one who, from what I can tell, is now ruled by them (shocking, right?).

2. Being a man who loved to just hang out at home to one who always wanted to go out and do stuff (usually flying which usually included OW)

3. Being very proud of our kids achievements to treating them like they are objects whose purpose is to make him feel proud.

4. Being a man who desperately wanted a strong bond with his son to being a man who so alienated his son that they no longer have much of a relationship and being a man who was very hard on his daughter for various reasons to being a man who buys here love through trips to Europe.

5. Being very articulate with perfect grammar to losing a lot of his beautiful, big words and having trouble with subject-verb agreement.

So, for STBX, when looking strictly at behaviors, he's split pretty evenly. I must add the caveat, though, that he and I have no relationship and haven't for nearly 3 years. Most of my lists are what I observed in the 8 months after BD or have gleaned since. I could be very wrong about who he is now: I honestly no longer know him.

[Anjae]

All Mr J's behaviour are a 180.

He was never controlling with money. Nor selfish. He as kind and generous. He become a real monster with me, going so far as physically hurt me. He also cleaned the bank accounts and told me he could not care less if I end up living in the stree and had nothing to eat.

He was not a conflict avoider. He was also not a conflict lover (who is, unless there is something wrong with us?). He was normal. All his MLC behaviours, towards me or in regard to himself, are things I had never seen before. He is a completly different person that he was pre crisis.

As for the discussion started on your thread regarding MLCers not being capable of deliberately want to hurt us or being able to be deliberate in their actions. I don't know if all are, more some are. And some really are trying to hurt us on purpose. Normally so that we hate them and it makes it easy for them to leave and lead their MLC life.

RCR writes about that in her articles.  She also writes about how being in an affair requires planning. A lot of it. And MLCer who get into an affair hide and plan. Mr J used to meet his OW1 in hotel bedrooms. That required a lot of planning and being out of town. He also created a secret MySpace account for the two of them. That is also a deliberated action. So it was the idea of trying to pretend his relationship with OW1 had started a certain day in a certain place, after he had left.

That plan was blow apart because I received and anonymous telling about Mr J and OW1. Not to mention the fact that he had went and talked with the guy to whose house he was moving into, a couple of months before he left and told the guy things were not good between us and we were going to give it a time. He just forgot to let me know things were not good between us and that we were going to give it a time.

I gave Mr J's and OW1's correspondence. The whole planning and scheming is there in detail. There was no action he was not aware of or in. In fact, several of the ideas they were(had) put in place were his. What he may not be aware of, and probably wasn't, was the why for the affair and the actions. But he knew very well what he was doing.

As were his divorce court cases.

[Ready2Transform]

Interesting!

If your MLC'er has blamed you for everything, were they people pre-crisis who found it hard to admit if they made a mistake?

This isn't a black and white answer for me. He certainly never blamed me for anything prior, so that is a true 180. And he could at times be very hard on himself, so I can't say he never admitted to mistakes. But I can't say he didn't blame at all. He had a lot of anger at his parents, and usually if there was a failure in his life he would redirect it toward someone else or make a lot of excuses.

For example, he went to college for one semester after high school on scholarship. He lost the scholarship because he got an incomplete in one of his mandatory classes, because he walked out of the final to go to the job his father got him. His professor was a real challenge (I had the guy too a few years later, and he loved to weed people out of the program) but he always spoke very fondly of Hoss to me and I know it was an incomplete and not a failing grade because he would have given Hoss a chance to retake it.

I also know Hoss would not have lost his job had he stayed, BUT...he was going to fail the final. Walking out was his way not to fail, just like walking out of our marriage was his way of me not kicking him out! He would rather leave everything open ended then blame the professor (which he did) or blame his dad for expecting him to be at the job site (which he also did). He did this with all of his jobs over the years, too. I can see it now. It's why our divorce isn't over as well: as long as it is open ended, he hasn't gotten it wrong.

If in your marriage it was his way or no way and so you gave in to this, has he been doing things to gain control in MLC?

That wasn't our dynamic in marriage, no. But he has done anything and everything to control during MLC.

Did your MLC'er use money as a control aspect in your marriage in small ways and has been more extreme in MLC?

He didn't at all during marriage. His biggest money issue was having no foresight between having 'fun' with money and taking care of business with money. That changed when we got married because I am Type A and could oversee our joint funds. His spending was ridiculously out of control in his 20s though and it was common for him to have utilities turned off in his apartment. The only reason he wasn't homeless is because he rented from his aunt and she would float him on time if he was late with payment, and I was working and would "buy" his things from him so he could make payments. My dad got him out of jams, too. There was no concept of saving for the future and that was common in his family. His dad always got a bonus at Christmas time and would literally spend the whole thing at once because he "deserved" it. Meanwhile they lived paycheck to paycheck the rest of the year. THAT in itself is a form of control to someone like me who loved being accountable with money and having a concept of what to expect from the future, but it wasn't intentional by him.

In MLC though? He has hobbled me financially and taken great joy in it. He would take the money I earned from my accounts and literally not let me touch it (we'd be at the drivethrough at the bank and he'd tuck it under his leg, then look at me and evil smile). I was nothing but a paycheck to him, and he ran up an obscene amount of debt in my name then denied it all.

Did your MLC'er display controlled anger but has been out of control in crisis?

Yes. I think he was able to be more aggressive at work when he had a day job, and not having that as an outlet once we started working from home together in 2008 planted a seed for a really disgusting Monster.

Conversely, have you seen things in your H in MLC that you never ever thought he would do honestly and you cannot in any shape or form remember even the slightest incident of these parts of his personality pre MLC.

Absolutely. The creepiness. The leering at women. Racism at times, which is just insane to me. He started making fun of the handicapped at one point, where he was the first person to jump in and be their defender before. He was a Buddhist for animal rights and an avid rescuer, and started watching tons of animal gutting videos because he wanted to learn to "be a man", slaughter pigs (what the OW wanted to do) and hunt. Supposedly he's a hunter now, and he literally abandoned all of our animals without a care, even knowing some of them had special needs (at the time he filed the D I was solely paying for specialty treatments to save his elderly cat's kidneys). The things he said to me in his darkest moments. Definitely someone I would have never known was lurking in there. No sign of it at all.

[Ropeburn]

The man I married turned into a completely different person

1 All you had to do was say I need something he was right there...not just me nobody the man would give you the shirt off his back and work til the job was done if you needed that
2. compassion : the kindest caring man you would ever meet :  his mom is going through breastfeeding cancer he is no where ( until last week he went and cut a load of wood ) ..my father died no show ..my problems nothing the man would have spent the night holding my hand before ...he loved me unconditionally
3.  I took care of the money period he did not want to do it ..joint account ...2 weeks before BD he opened an account and stated I will never have his money again
4. We always did things together we fished ..Rode 4 wheelers ..hunted we did together unless we both needed seperated time and that was fine worked for 10 yrs
5.So all in all if you didn't know him before this and you met him now you would really wonder WTH I want him back  as I do time to time
   1 yr post BD I'm hanging in there he swears no OW  and i hope for his sanity there is not because if he ever makes it out that would kill the man I know

[Thunder]

I really don't know how to answer this.

My H did change into a person he was not, but not a complete change.

He always had very high morals.  One of the things I loved about him.
I saw he wanted to break free and find other women and explore his options, yet he ended up not doing that.  It was just not in his nature.

He had nothing to stop him.  I never stood in his way, but something in him just never allowed him to go that far.

[bipolared]

My H did sort of blame me for stuff before.  His family was very critical and mindful of their possessions so if say, the refrigerator stopped working-he would be like, "What did YOU do to the refrigerator?  That sort of thing.  That of course has been magnified;  we all know even climate change is my fault
He went from being a dad who would be happy when our kids would call us in the middle of the night b/c he didn't like them being away from home to being a dad who blew off plans and left town for the weekend without telling them. Ignored texts, didn't call for weeks at a time, said stuff like "it's only been a week" when D19 chastised him for not contacting her.
He used to love ordering pizza and watching the Star Wars trilogy;  now he has to be doing things all the time.  Totally into running, lifting weights, and outdoor activities.
Like Medusa's H, he valued his relationship with the girls and really wanted it to be loving and close.  They adored him but now D16 has no interest in being around him.
Was a HORRIBLE liar, totally transparent and he was almost too truthful.  Now if he is awake or his mouth is moving...
Used to talk endless crap about other people who cheated and left their families.
He did used to project(but I didn't know about projection then) so of course that is magnified.
I guess he has done a bit of both for different things-done the 180 in some cases, became an exaggeration of his former self in others.

[Jaybeecee]

Bipolar ex,
My xH was always blaming me and the kids for stuff breaking also.  He would monster (pre MLC) this is because you don't take care of it, even though it was obviously not the case. If we ever got lost while he was driving, this was always my fault too.   One time early in our marriage, my friend was driving a golf cart and got it stuck in a sand trap.  I was the passenger and he blamed me.

xH would be the first to apologize if he made a mistake also.  Mostly because he had a bad temper and would react before thinking.  He claims to have the same problem now with OW, "I'm always the one apologizing to her". Of course the fault lies with us not him.

I do see some behaviors as more extreme versions of his usual behaviors-self esteem issues, self control issues, impulse control issues, wreckless spending were all present before but are much more exaggerated now.

He has always told little white lies. Due to his self esteem issues, he always wanted to seem important and better than others so he would frequently exaggerate the truth. Obviously now the lies are much bigger.

The complete 180's are lack of compassion for me- he can literally now leave me sobbing in a corner and drive away leaving the kids to find me.
The kids-he works mostly from home (well OW's house now) so he was primary caregiver for my boys most of their lives.  He coached them in baseball, basketball and football.  Although he is still head coach for football, he leaves most of the coaching to the assistants.  Otherwise he sees them at sports or with OW and her kids only.
His family-he was super close to them and would talk to his mom almost every day.  He avoids talking to them as much as possible now due to the shame.
His past-xH loved looking at pictures and would reminisce every holiday about what we had done on past holidays.  He currently has not a single picture in his possession.
And of course the most obvious, OW.  He was always so disgusted by people who cheated.  I was so secure i would point out women to him when we would go out together that I thought were his type.  It was just a silly game we played.

[Searching4Answers]

Interesting...

One of the main reasons that I question whether my ex is MLC or not is because of this exact question.

At first I thought that he had done a 180 but later realized that I had blinders on and saw what I wanted to see - I took things at face value. As I got some distance, I saw that he had always been this way but he tried to filter his behaviors so he didn't look like such an a$$hole. Deep down I knew that he was like this but never thought he would be like this with me! I remember questioning this with some of his family, commenting on how he had changed, and they told me he hasn't changed - he has always been like this.

In my situation, all of ex's negative traits were exaggerated - it was like he didn't care anymore what anyone thought of him and did whatever he wanted regardless of the damage. My ex was sadistic - this is not my opinion - this is and always has been his declaration. He used to keep it check but no longer. He actually gets pleasure from inflicting pain but prior to BD he was almost ashamed of it then he became ruled by it. I had to get out of the way.

I was told at BD that he was going to have relationship with OW and that I needed to deal with it! He continued to taunt me and shove this relationship in my face for the next year. Living with the MLCer is pure he!!.

Interestingly enough, I never got the "I'm not in love with you" speech or the blaming. It was just the opposite - he would tell me that he loved me (to keep me from detaching I think).

To answer the question - I believe that my ex's true self emerged. So, it begs the questions, if he was always like this is it MLC? I think that MLC may have been what allowed him to embrace his true self and stop hiding from it but I will never really know. If he was always like this, will ever come out of the tunnel?

I do not have any contact with him - it has been roughly 10 months now even though he reaches out to me every few months to see if I will engage him. So I have no idea what his current state is.