[MsT]

Hi. I'm new here and glad I found you, thanks for being here, and also very curious.
I just wondered how long it took you to realize what you were dealing with and how you reacted to their freaking out before you started to understand what was really happening and how helpless you actually were to stop it.
Thanks

previous thread: http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=628.0

[calamity]

Hi,

Took me 3 months to a year to realize what I was dealing with although some instinct told me this was not normal.

Letting go of control [that I never had!] took longer.  2 more years?  Depends on my mood.

[limitless]

I realized MLC pretty much immediately.

The acknowledgement that I was powerless to do ANYTHING about it took a long time (too long).  2+ Years?

L

[ruggedendurance]

Had no clue as to what was going on.

Even after a ton of study and reinforcement?

I still felt she had "just grown tired" of me.........  Or.    The love had died.

I'm over two years into this.    After seeing them clueless and destructive for sooooo long?

I realize she can't find her a$$ with both hands and a flashlight............

Certainly not the person I married.    Certainly not and adjusted adult............

I have only one explanation................. MLC

[barbiedoll]

My husband dropped the bomb in may 2013 . He wanted out, was not happy, sick of looking after everyone, needed to find where he belonged etc. Shocking to the core. However, he also agreed to see a counsellor (WTH? ). He was postively done with the marriage , yet he wanted to see a counsellor was wacked to me. The counsellor told me ( in a private session ) that he was having an "identity crisis " and I was in for a very rough ride. I remember thinking " what the hell is an identity crisis ? So google and I found our way here. He had started an affair in march 2013 .. so he was very cocky, arrogant and nasty.. as we all know. So.. I guess it was about 6 weeks from bomb drop to knowing what was happening . A bad 6 weeks .

[MyBrainIsBroken]

It took me about a month to realize this wasn't normal and to realize she's going through an MLC. I've spent the six months since then questioning and reaffirming that it really is an MLC. Today I'm pretty sure of it, tomorrow I may not be. Although I have my doubts today. But then again, what else could it  be? Unless there was something I didn't notice. But I'm sure it's an identity crisis and she's 53 so that's the right age for an MLC. So yeah, I'm pretty sure it's an MLC. I think. Until I cycle tomorrow.

[blackice]

I actually figured it out about a month before bomb drop. He was being very weird. However I did not figure out how to handle myself until 3 months after bomb drop. Then I found this site and started reading and it all made even more sense.

[Howmanytimes]

I still do not know if it is MLC with my Husband.

He went strange about ten years ago and now I look back he was having an affair then although I never knew at the time and he did all the classic Monstering then so looking back I think he did have some type of MLC then.

I found out about this current OW in Oct 2012.  They had known each other ten years and had been in an affair for six years.  He told  me he had finished with her but over the next few weeks I learnt that this was not true.  He did finally finish with her and when he told me he wouldn't see her anymore he had tears in his eyes.   Eight months later he left me whilst I was away for a weekend.  He told me when I arrived home that he had packed all his things whilst I was away.  He said he loved her and if she and I were in a burning building he would save her first. He then went on to say that he would then risk his life to go in next and try and save me.  After a month he came home and he did finish with her.  She was sending irate text messages calling him a bastard amongst other choice words. 

We were getting on really well and he was very loving.  Although our love life  did not really take off again.  We were though very happy together and it was totally out of the blue that I found out he had visited her a few times and he then in October 2014 left me and moved in with her.  Within one week he had been to a Solicitor and was going to divorce me.  I filed because it was important that if we did divorce that it was on the grounds of his adultery as he would then have to pay all my fees.  Otherwise he was going to make up a load of lies to enable him to get a divorce on my unreasonable behaviour.  These are the only two reasons you can obtain a divorce other than waiting two years.  He has since admitted that the OW suggested him filing on my Unreasonable Behaviour.  I had to drag that information out of him.  Both times that he left me OW booked the Solicitors Appointment.

He visits every weekend for a couple of hours.  Unlike when he left me last time when he used to ring me every day, this is the only contact I have with him.  When I see him he is always really nice to me and has been very generous money wise and has been extremely generous with the settlement he has offered.  Far more than any court would give me.  None of these things seem to be MLC.

When he left me for OW he told me a few days before he left that he would be going at the weekend.  He left Friday night.   During those few days he kept saying "oh I do hope I am doing the right thing.  He was saying that as he walked out the door to leave.  He also had tears in his eyes a few times.

When he visits me he gives me a goodbye hug and is always helpful to me like taking me shopping.

He told me the reasons for leaving was that he didn't enjoy being intimate with me anymore and that he got bored at the weekends because we never do anything.  Not that he ever suggested anything to do.  Now these things are MLC behaviour.

Since he has been gone he has shown some doubts re OW.  First he was going to get married to her after we had been divorced a year.  Then it was 2-3 years and now he says he might not get married and just live with her.  He has gone from wanting the 17% share of our house that we have agreed to ASAP and so needing me to sell our house.  This was because once the divorce is over they are going to move from a 1 bed flat into a 3 bed house in the suburbs.  Now I can decide when I sell the house and he will be happy for me to carry on living here and if I ever move to then give him his share.  So in other words he will no longer be putting any of his money into the 3 bed house they plan on moving to.  It will be financed solely by OW selling her Flat.  This I see as him not wanting to be tied to her by jointly owning a property.

I asked him once what would he do if in a year or two he decided he had made a mistake and came to the decision that he would not be happy living with her long term.  He said he would ask me to take him back.  I said but we would be divorced and he said he would want us to get remarried.  This I see as possible MLC.

The risks he is putting himself in financially by allowing me to have most of the house value also strikes me as MLC. 

Sorry for rambling but I have wanted to put all this down for a long long time and am desperate for any opinions out there.

HMT

[cosette]

Well everyone else on here so far figured out a lot sooner than I.  My H's MLC was a gradual decent and I think he really worked at hiding it too.

I first noticed a problem in Summer 2013 but my BD wasn't until Dec. 2013.  I thought he or we were just going through a rough phase. Each month after BD gradually got worse. I didn't pin it down as MLC until around April 2014.  Soon after I found this website, thank goodness. I feel like I am just now really getting how to detach but H and I were very co-dependent before this. 

[trusting]

My husband started acting very uncharacteristically about six months before BD.  I knew something was wrong but had no idea what.  Midlife crisis didn't really even cross my mind since it wasn't in my scope of reference.  I went to see a counselor who recommended a book geared at saving my marriage.  There was one chapter in there on MLC.  As I was reading it, I cried the whole way through the chapter as I realized it was describing my husband to a T.  After that, I began researching.

That was in early 2009.  He is still in crisis.