[Which LBS Stage do you think you are mostly at now? (pick main one)]

Which LBS Stage do you think you are mostly at now? (pick main one)

Denial (shock, confusion)

1 (1.7%)

Bargaining (trying to figure out why, planning, adjusting)

1 (1.7%)

Anger (fear, resentment)

3 (5.1%)

Depression (despair, exhaustion)

13 (22%)

Acceptance (detachment, calm, control)

33 (55.9%)

Renewal

8 (13.6%)

Total Members Voted: 59

Voting closed: October 27, 2017, 04:41:15 AM

[OldPilot]

But we can remove poll and make new one and people then could vote again ?

That is true - do you want to do that?

Personally I would just leave it the way it is for now.

[xyzcf]

Anjae:

Where is stage 6 Renewal (forgiveness, healing, new you)?

That is mine.

At a point, the spiral stops for good. But that point is years down the road and the years down the road are different for each LBS.

This is how the "stages" overlap each other. I too voted already for "acceptance" and I wouldn't change my vote. I see renewal as something that has been ongoing and happening for years, even prior to reaching "acceptance".

I wonder if the spiral will ever stop for "good" as Anjae suggests. This weekend will be our 40th wedding anniversary. My sister told me I need to stop counting my wedding anniversaries. But that date, especially a significant one like 40, is always going to be one that I will remember.

Certainly, I handle "triggers" better and even interact with him without the "panic" and intensity of feelings that once smacked me in the face.

How long it takes for the LBSer to get past each stage, for indeed it isn't linear, you go back and forth a great deal in the "early" years.....depends a great deal on the length of the marriage, how the relationship was throughout the marriage, the beliefs of the LBSer and the type of MLCer he/she is dealing with.

Ultimately though, the LBSer makes choices...I will forgive him, I will build a life without his love, I will accept that regardless of what caused this, he has chosen to live a different life, I will love him despite his rejection of my love.....these and acknowledgment of our feelings and love for ourselves require a great deal of time and work to get through.The stages cannot be rushed through and there is no right or wrong. It is important for the LBSer to recognize where they are at, and accept this process in themselves, of healing from loss.

[Treasur]

Leave it, I think, Old Pilot - ta!

[Anjae]

I wonder if the spiral will ever stop for "good" as Anjae suggests.

For me it did. And if there are six stages, then the 6th has to be different than the 5th.

I don't think remebering an anniversary an a trigger are the same thing. I know when I got married and that this year it would had been 20 years of marriage and 30 together, but it triggers nothing in me. It is just a fact, not a feeling.

Treasur,

Since I think until stage six was added only two people that would had voted on stage 6: OP and Thunder voted instead on stage 5, when the poll is over, you can subtract two votes from stage 5 and add then to stage 6. Not in the poll results, but on a post.

So, for example, if the poll would close now, you could do a post saying, Acceptance has in fact 15 votes and Renewal 4.

[Treasur]

Good idea, Anjae

[Treasur]

I wonder if thinking about our stages also helps us to 'feel' what the MLC stages are like. We seem to be saying that they aren't linear, more of a spiral, but there is progression over time. Maybe they are more phases than stages?

We also seem to be saying that you can see them best looking back and there aren't fixed timescales. Triggers can flip us back but that weakens over time. Also, there is a real emotional difference in how it feels to be in a phase rather than revisiting it when we are triggered. It all sounds a bit similar to the MLC description, a cycle where each stage pushes someone to feel and focus on given things and almost a sense of a 'door' to the next stage. As well as the cycling if there is 'unfinished business'.

Reading some of the reconnection/reconciliation stories, it sounds as if the LBS is almost forced to go back through the stages in a different way too. A struggle with anger or depression that pops up and takes people by surprise sometimes. I guess the message is that, just as with MLC, the LBS stages have a purpose and moving forward in our own recovery is about 'getting the job done' of each stage as honestly as we can.

[Treasur]

MLC seems to be a process of doing two things, put simply, healing unfinished childhood stuff and rebuilding an identity that is less about accommodating others' expectations and more about your individualising to who you really are/want to be.

Do you think as an LBS that the situation forces you to go through a mini-MLC of your own?

[Treasur]

BBHelp has some really powerful descriptions of the phases he went through as an LBS. Worth a read if you haven't seen it http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=8080.0

[Anjae]

Good idea, Anjae

Glad you liked it.

I wonder if thinking about our stages also helps us to 'feel' what the MLC stages are like. We seem to be saying that they aren't linear, more of a spiral, but there is progression over time. Maybe they are more phases than stages?

The MLCer stages also aren't linear. MLCer stages vary according to those writing about MLC. I like RCR ones, she only has four and includes stages that others have separed as sub-stages of hers. For example, RCR does not have depression as a separated stage. In fact, Replay is not a stage, it is a sub-set of RCR stage 1, Separation. Separation is divided in:
Rejection & Refusal
Resentment
Escape & Avoid (Covert Depression)
High-Energy: Replay
OR
Low-Energy: Wallow

Then, for RCR, there are:
2- Liminality or Liminal/Overt Depression
3 - Rebirth
4 - Reintegration

MLCers who come out of crisis had, of course, progressed. However many MLCers remain too many years on Stage one sub-set Escape & Avoid, without any visible progress. For the LBS the progress is much more obvious. And our jumps from stage to stage, even if we may still have things from the previous stage, are much more solid and obvious.

Come on, Mr J has been in Escape & Avoid for 11 years. There has been none, or minimal, progress. In 11 years a LBS will more than be on LBS stage 6.

Yes, at least using RCR system, there are phases, or sub-sets inside the stages. Especially inside her stage one for the MLCer. Her other three stages of MLC tend, as can be seen above, to be much more linear. Even if the articles say - and we have often seen it here on HS with MLCers that are reconnecting that on stage 2 - Liminality or Liminal/Overt Depression the MLcer can regress to Escape & Avoid.

Once on the path of rebirth, it will be very difficult to go back to the previous two stages, and on stage four, Rebirth, there is really no going back to any of the previous stages.

MLC does not end when Replay ends. We all pay Replay a lot of attention because it is the longes and most damaging of the stages, and tend to think once Escape & Avoid is left behing, MLC is over. It isn't. There are still more three stages to go through.

MLC seems to be a process of doing two things, put simply, healing unfinished childhood stuff ...

For those of us that believe MLC involves unfinished childhood issue, maybe. Personally I don't believe MLC involves unfinished childhood. But even if I did, I never understood how repeating what has caused you pain and hurt in childhood is going to solve whatever problem and make you a better person. Even because, while you are doing what MCLers do for whatever reason they do it, they are just causing a huge new amount of issues and pilling a gigantic amout of pain, hurt, desloyalty, you name it, to deal with.

... and rebuilding an identity that is less about accommodating others' expectations and more about your individualising to who you really are/want to be.

I don't know. Speaking for myself, I am far more accommodating after my crisis than before. Not really of people's expectations, but of people themselves. Even if, only to a degree.

And Mr J also wasn't exactly good at accomodating people's expectations. If he was, he would had stydied what FIL wanted him to study, he didn't, etc. None of us was very accomodating of other's expectations and we were very individualistc. Intellectual and artistic people tend to be that way.

We also were doing exactly what we wanted to do since we meet, so, none of us was bound to things we didn't want. After BD I had to stuck to tons of stuff that doesn't have much of an interest to me, and has nothing to do with what I was, or, in some cases, who I am.

Do you think as an LBS that the situation forces you to go through a mini-MLC of your own?

For some of us, myself included, yes. I am not capable of say if the seeds were already there and it only come to the forefront with BD. I do not recall anything upsetting happening before BD. My there were several afterwards, including my dad's death days after Mr J had left.

[Treasur]

First of alll, Anjae, I am so sorry that your lost your Dad too a few days after. I can't imagine how hard that must have been. You are truly made of strong woman stuff to have survived both.

I hadn't looked at RCRs stages but I will now.

I guess whether MLC or LBS, our experience is both 'scripted' and individual. I'd never had anything really this bad in my life and I struggled to 'get' to a point of accepting that my H could be so cold and cruel to me. A friend who survived childhood abuse said she finds it easier to accept that people you love can also hurt you, so it was my blindspot. Each LBS probably finds their own way through, things that are easier or harder depending on their own personality and experience.

I am sorry Mr J is still lost. I think it is quite likely, based on my knowledge of him, that my H will keep running for years. Even well, my H was not as brave as me and I can see why it would be easier. My assumption is that I'll never see him again so I won't know.

I guess part of the LBS stages - bargaining maybe, IDK - is hunting for the answer to 'why'. Some people got here quickly; others like me took well over a year. Then we all ask, and return, to a few questions...Is it me? Is it really MLC? If it is, when will it get better? Or worse? Will my M be one of the 'lucky' ones?

I don't know the answers. I found that for my H, what I knew about him and his history made him look pretty textbook for an MLC candidate. It helped maybe because he was formally diagnosed with severe depression. Some of his behaviour and words were right on script. As a vanisher (pretty much) I got less Monster spew because there was less contact, although I suspect he was thinking it if not saying it! (And with the RCR description, he started as a low-energy wallower for about 6 months, I think, before starting the High-Energy WTF stuff). Maybe for me, MLC is a 'good enough' explanation of what I also have to accept I can't know for sure?

I don't know if it is the same for you, but I've found deciding it's probably MLC even if I can't know helped me in a couple of ways. First it helped me see it really wasn't about me, probably not even our M. It helped me answer the 'How did this person I know so well turn into a crazy alien who is 90% the opposite of who they were?' question.

And above all, it helped me limp my way towards acceptance - that something extraordinary had happened to my H (and my life), that I couldn't fix it and it wasn't going away anytime soon so I needed a Plan B. I think it has also helped me hold on to loving my beloved and my own reality of those 18 years which mattered to me. I think it is easier because I don't see him to not get pulled into watching for MLC signs or stages or timescales in him. I haven't seen him for 11 months. I have no idea how he is or what he's doing or what he thinks now.

Someone who knew us both well recently asked me WTF happened...I could only say "I don't know. H had a breakdown, ran away and decided that he would be better with a new life without my face in it."