Mid Life Crisis, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Spouseship Leftbehind. Our 2-5 year mission; to maintain sanity in the face of alien posession of our spouses. And to boldly go where we've never gone before!
Remember the Prime directive; No interference with the developement of alien races (our spouses). We must let them find their own way.
Funny stuff, Sleeper. Boy did I need that laugh!
David
The fires of true love can never be quenched, because the source of its flame is God Himself! - Shulamith
Back to your post, Mr. Yamashii. Your're no longer on Hava Drinki 5, you're on the Leftbehind, mister!
Captain's log, spousedate 367: A long patrol along the fogzone has left the crew..............................restless. I fear if they don't get some soon, anything could happen.........
"The answers are within you" (can't remember who). Unfortunately, so is the bullshit.
Sleeper...0410am? Ditto on needing the laugh. Because last evening...my gawd. Straight out of the MLC textbook.
My little Klingon comes home from work. I have just finished working out and making a nice dinner. I try to engage the Klingon in harmless, non-confrontational small talk. She brushes the small talk aside, and for the rest of the evening, it was attack-attack-attack, one photon torpedo after another.
I did not raise my shields. I did not return fire. Instead, I nodded my head, listened intently, told her "I hear what you're saying", "I understand why you might feel that way", etc., etc.
The Klingon's frustration builds. She reaches back deep into her arsenal and hurls small fireballs from 10, 15, 20 years ago. Still, I refuse to return fire.
Finally, she loads and fires her ultimate weapon...
"YOU JUST MARRIED ME FOR THE SEX!@#$"
Me: Honey, aren't you tired? You sound like you had a long day at work. I don't want you to go to bed all wound up and angry tonight. You need to get your rest.
Klingon: OH...SO NOW YOU DON'T WANT TO TALK ANYMORE! Well it's too late! I'm already angry!
Me: Well, I'm sorry you're angry. Goodnight
And then she went downstairs to chat with her fellow Klingon EA "friend", probably to tell him what a jerk I was all night and how nice it is to talk to someone who isn't so confrontational.
Maybe someday Scotty will beam me up to a nicer planet...
Me: 51 W: 50 M 24 yrs EA: since Apr 06 S22, S26, S28 ILYBNILWY:Nov 07
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." Tyler Durden
In true Klingon fashion, you faced death with honor, bombadier.
You recognized the no win situation you were in. You did not become angry or let yourself be sucked into her spew. You validated what she was saying to you. You've adjusted and gotten a grip on this quicker than anyone else I've seen on these boards. You are doing much better than I did. Must be your military experience in keeping your head under fire. I'm putting you up for a commendation in my next Spousefleet report.
Sounds like she's definately in the anger stage of alien posession. Mine also reached back to the beginning of our relationship for ammo. C told her there were three boxes of life (past, present, future) and she was choosing to live in the past. I wasn't so delicate, got angry early in seperation when I had had enough of listening to things from years ago and told her to bend over, grab her knees and pull her head out of her past. I think they call that a backslide. Mine was always the type to hold onto past hurts/disappointments. Was your W like that? Some say the more abused a person was in their life the more prone they are to a MLC. Holding onto past hurts kinda goes along with that.
Think about what has happened recently concerning your wife. She was "busted" by your son (no doubt with OM). She is very embarassed at herself on some level, but refuses to take responsibility for her actions. Instead, she spews at you accomplishing two goals; by turning her embarassment into anger and venting it at you she gets emotional relief AND justifies her actions at the same time because what she is doing is really your fault. Don't you love it? This is one of those aspects of MLC where their behavior is like that of an out of control teenager. How many teenagers take responsibility for their actions when busted? They usually respond with anger and justify what they did blaming it on you or someone else.
The bits and pieces of MLC info will start to fit together and make sense to you over time. You've probably read of the "reorganization of self" which has to take place before MLC will end. Mlcers even comment about "finding themselves". Mine actually said in the beginning, "I'm all messed up, I don't know who I am". When do individuals decide who they will be in normal psychological development? That's right, in adolesence, when they are teenagers. That's when they try on different identities, associate with different kinds of people as they decide who they are going to be. They also experiment sexually. Kinda makes sense that act like teenagers at this time as are having to re-discover who they are, who they are going to be. This also explains behaviors that are not "like them", associating with people they would have never associated with before, focusing on appearance and irresponsibly spending money. How many teenagers have you known that sometimes associate with people we don't approve of, are overly focused on appearance and can't be trusted with money?
As to the 0400 hrs thing, I wake up about that time when I'm depressed, sometimes fall back asleep, sometimes don't. The holidays have thrown me back into a mild state of depression. thinking about going back to Doc today. Been 1 yr since I've gone, probably need to go get a checkup anyway.
"Live long and prosper"
Last edited by sleeper; 01/04/0803:55 PM.
"The answers are within you" (can't remember who). Unfortunately, so is the bullshit.
Sleeper, Honestly, I do the same thing...wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning, but I just lie there in bed and think. I should probably get up and do something.
Thanks for the words of encouragement and support. When I was in the military flying biz, we had to learn fast. If the bad guys shot a heat seeking missile at ya, you had to do something. If that something didn't work...do something different. I learned pretty quick from all you smart people on this board that I needed to do something different, quick, or things would get worse in a hurry.
Actually, last night I felt sorry for her. It was soooo obvious what she was doing. And she was so obviously frustrated when I wouldn't play along. Your adolescent metaphor is probably a lot more on the money than you think. Here's some background on my Klingon:
Her dad died quickly of cancer when she was 16. Bad time...never really came to grips with it. Her dad was a doctor, made good money. Unfortunately, her mom went off the deep end, started drinking, blew all the money. At 19, spouse got married to an overcontroling jerk (father figure). Quickly pushed out a couple of kids, divorced the jerk at age 25. We found each other when she was 28.
In short, my theory is that she never experienced adolescence. She never had the opportunity to go wild, date lots of guys, fall in and out of love a number of times. So I guess now, I get to experience her teenage years. This will suck.
I think you're right, she's in the anger stage, but also has one foot in replay.
I feel myself rapidly growing distant from her, sort of my own natural reaction to protect myself. I don't know if she can sense that or not, and if she can sense it, I wonder if it scares her a little.
Sleeper, do you have an old thread somewhere where I can catch up on your story? How are things now?
Me: 51 W: 50 M 24 yrs EA: since Apr 06 S22, S26, S28 ILYBNILWY:Nov 07
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." Tyler Durden
I take it you've read 6 stages of MLC in the archives. Anger is first, replay is second, however I have read you can see elements of all six stages in any one stage, plus there is some overlapping in transition from one stage to the next and there is this cycling among the characteristics of MLC. Finally, depression is a constant underlying state during MLC.
My W pretty much is a classic, severe case. Anger has faded tremendously, but she is in full replay. I don't have a thread describing our sitch because it would be longer thanI think anyone would care to read, thanks for asking. I'll try to give a breif overview since you asked;
W had extremely chaotic childhood Sexual, mental and physical abuse Parents divorced, remarried Sexual abuse in 2nd home Ran away, bounced between foster homes Watched mother die, father abandoned her On her own at early age/ marries young Divorces 1st H Years later we marry 2nd marriage for both, no kids from 1st We have two kids Our daughter sexually assualted at age 3 I wanted/had chance to kill perpetrator, didn't at W's request (only whipped his a$$) 2 yr nasty trial (his parents had money to drag it out) I developed PTSD/shut down (have now "awakened") W's foster parents (top parent figures) die near simultaneously W experiences "breakdown" Says; "I'm all messed up","I don't know who I am" MLC begins
This is only a brief overview as there were other things that happened during the 9 yrs we were together. She is my soulmate, I am hers. I am waiting for her.
Last edited by sleeper; 01/04/0805:24 PM.
"The answers are within you" (can't remember who). Unfortunately, so is the bullshit.
Bombadier I read over your last post and may have made an observation. You say your W's mother began drinking when her husband died, blew all her money. Could your W's mom have experience a MLC of her own, triggered by H's death? I don't believe hereditary mlc is a given, but I have seen some generational patterns on theseboards.
Both of my W's birth parents had an mlc in my opinion (see above reference to their divorce). I have no idea if its a genetic disposition or behavioral but I really believe there are patterns repeated from one generation to the next on these boards. Even the age posters have mentioned behaviors occuring you can sometimes see a pattern between parents and children. My wife is the same age her mother was when her parents split up.
Doesn't really affect what we're going through (it doesn't matter why that photon torpedo was fired at you, just that its coming and gonna really put a crimp in your flight when it hits).
Maybe one day medical researches will study this and come up with a treatment for it. There's a pill for almost everything now, seems they don't have much left to work on.
Last edited by sleeper; 01/04/0806:19 PM.
"The answers are within you" (can't remember who). Unfortunately, so is the bullshit.
Sleep, I'm floored by what you have experienced in your life. The fact that you have come here to help others like me is a testament to some pretty unbelievable strength. You deserve the Medal of Honor.
Re: your observation on genetic predisposition. I'd bet you're probably right. My hunch is that an MLC is a "stew" cooked up with a blend of life experience and genes.
Oh well. As Vonnegut said: "And so it goes..."
Frankly, for me, and I'm sure for a lot of other people experiencing an MLC spouse, one of the worst things is the lack of nookie. Good grief. One of the best things about our marriage was that we were both pretty "high-drive" people. It WAS great, up until a little over a year ago when this whole thing started. The last time we had sex was last February. I'm about ready to spend my savings on a trip to Nevada. I'm getting pretty good at distancing, GAL, and everything else. But the one thing I haven't been able to calm is the old testosterone. Don't get the wrong idea, I'm not looking for trouble. I know that she's just looking for me to do something like that, so I have no desire to horse around (unlike her). But when you were talking about pills, I wish there was one that would temporarily kill my sex drive.
Me: 51 W: 50 M 24 yrs EA: since Apr 06 S22, S26, S28 ILYBNILWY:Nov 07
"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." Tyler Durden
