[Velika]

One question that has interested me for awhile. I recently started to do a bit of online dating. I find it hard to connect to another man quickly especially since it seems it's just online interactions or brief one time coffee dates. My question is how do these MLCers attach so quickly to the OP? Is it they don't care about who it is? It's just a willing warm body? Or is it just a thrill to attach to someone new? Like buying a new car is more fun than driving around in the 10 year beater?

Based on what I have learned I think this is in fact unfortunately what we all are doing: imposing sane onto insane.

I think right hemisphere of frotonotemporal love is damaged. This affects a person's sense of social rules, empathy, consequences and destroys their inhibitions.

I think this is why seldom is the OP so off base as to alert others something is wrong. However, it is often someone they likely wouldn't be with if they had faculties of inhibition preserved.

You are trying to connect to someone on many levels with full facility of discernment, outcomes, critical thinking. Your former spouse does not have this. It must be like a kind of half dream where they are coasting along and things are happening, sometimes good, sometimes nightmarish, but always a sense of not quite in their control, not quite inhabited in their own body.

This is my own theory based on what I have read here and observe. It has nothing to do with you or your ability to connect. To the contrary! For me the bar is so high for any new person who could enter my life I'm just not even sure they could exist at this point. Be encouraged you have high standards!💛

[SavingMySanity]

It is so strange that they can function day to day at work or friends and no one knows anything is happening. 

[Medusa]

It is so strange that they can function day to day at work or friends and no one knows anything is happening.

Not really. MLCers are a master at wearing masks.

Shocked, it's infatuation. Those exciting, wonderful feeling that give us a rush in the beginning of a relationship. They are running from reality and anything that makes them not think about their craziness is going to be attractive. Plus, the OW feeds their needs, particularly their lack of self-esteem. Many OW present themselves as the damsel in distress. The MLCer feels he is the only possible person who can save her.

[SavingMySanity]

This may be dumb to ask, but what is the better MLCer to deal with a clinger or vanisher? And, is there any evidence on which one seems to get through their MLC trip any sooner?

[nah]

It is so strange that they can function day to day at work or friends and no one knows anything is happening.

Medusa is right.  Problem is, for them, they can't wear the mask forever.

The first year after BD, I was painted as "playing victim" who "couldn't get over it".  I guess after 28 years of marriage I was supposed to be happy that my husband bolted and bought a house for him and his 28 yr old gf.  Nothing wrong with him, I mean doesn't every guy fantasize about younger women?  His friend actually said those exact words to me.

That same friend of 30 years about a year and a half later pulled me into his office and said, "Mr. Nah acts like he hates me and I don't know why"

Well, well, well, welcome to the club.

Don't worry about him and if people can or cannot see him for what he is doing.

[nah]

This may be dumb to ask, but what is the better MLCer to deal with a clinger or vanisher? And, is there any evidence on which one seems to get through their MLC trip any sooner?

Not at all dumb.  It's too early to tell if your husband is a vanisher or clinger.  They often change especially in the early days.

Mine is close to a vanisher but we do have interactions.

Personally I prefer to have a vanisher although it has nothing to do rather or not he will get through his trip and sooner.  It's not about him, It's about me.  It was easier for me to detach and get on with my own life.  I don't know what he's doing day in and day out, so his antics do not get in the way with my own life.

It's very normal for you at this stage to try to hold on to the past.  Change is hard.  Letting go is hard.  The future might be different then the expectations that you had, which is scary.

I know it hurts.  This is by far the most painful experience I ever went through, painful, scary, the worst experience of my life.... and then the best.

For now, just get through each day.  It will get better, for you anyways. 

[heroIam]

So if these MLCers are masters at wearing masks, have depression and have self esteem issues, then what is it about us that attracts this kind of person and/or didn't see this MLC coming?  I am guessing they were sort of OK until the MLC hit due to some life event?  Surely, they had some kind of coping mechanisms in their 40-50 years of life to make it as far as now.  I do think MLC is real and there a definitely patterns, but I wonder just how much of their decision to run or cheat is really about conscious choice.
 
Things that make you go 'hmmmmm' 

[Slow Fade]

Surely, they had some kind of coping mechanisms in their 40-50 years of life to make it as far as now.  I do think MLC is real and there a definitely patterns, but I wonder just how much of their decision to run or cheat is really about conscious choice.

I think they do have coping mechanisms. Its how they got through life. I also think their decision to run or cheat are conscious choices made because of unconscious issues in their past coupled with mortality issues and hormone imbalances. A perfect storm if you will. I think of it as a disease that strikes without warning like cancer.........

[SavingMySanity]

I think they do have coping mechanisms. Its how they got through life. I also think their decision to run or cheat are conscious choices made because of unconscious issues in their past coupled with mortality issues and hormone imbalances. A perfect storm if you will. I think of it as a disease that strikes without warning like cancer.........

Mine was dealing with the mortality issues and a few "life events" coming up.  Twat just walked in one day according to him and the rest is history.  My H has always been the calm, cool collected one.  The one with all the confidence and now he is a mangled mess of worrying about what everyone thinks of him.  Twat makes him feel manly in some way, not sure what I was doing all these years to make him feel un-manly  , but wtf ever. 

[heroIam]

quote author=Slow Fade link=topic=8954.msg608779#msg608779 date=1502383142]

Surely, they had some kind of coping mechanisms in their 40-50 years of life to make it as far as now.  I do think MLC is real and there a definitely patterns, but I wonder just how much of their decision to run or cheat is really about conscious choice.

I think they do have coping mechanisms. Its how they got through life. I also think their decision to run or cheat are conscious choices made because of unconscious issues in their past coupled with mortality issues and hormone imbalances. A perfect storm if you will. I think of it as a disease that strikes without warning like cancer.........
[/quote]


So the ones that return home have somehow cured their disease? 
And how exactly does that happen I wonder?   I know it's not just black and white - it's all a mucky fog of smokey grey.  It's just all so bazaar.  And, it seems most don't really come back from this....