In May of this year, t^2 figures his W's MLC may be in year 3 or possibly 4. My W's would be about the same. IIRC, T^2 is still living with his W. Of course, using the preferred reference of "IF our W's are MLC", in this forum. Again, since the work is the same (for ourselves), does it really matter the label? Yet it is good to recognize MLC as sometimes any changes we make appear to have no impact on the spouse. Because MLC must be worked through by the MLCer.
The phrase is based on the "pursuit/distance" dance. And how an observation was made that a person in MLC might be sniffing around like a feral cat to some food in one's hand. Wanting the food, but very jittery and apt to run at the slightest breeze or blink.
Good to read the whole thread and the new one. T^2 is doing a great job and it does appear to be working for his sitch.
I am doing well, yes. I had a period of time Sunday / Monday where I went through a lot of my M and once again it hit me. I can not stand for my M. It was horrible. Both how I changed negatively and also what I put up with. Especially into the last few years of walking on egg shells, yet no longer jumping like the beck and call boy I had become, and being constantly criticized for never being good enough.
Wow... Who the heck was I to let myself go there. It hit me like a wall, yet I felt very little. Just a dull pressure of missing something, yet knowing I am so much better now.
Anyhow, yeah... I'm doing really good. Thanks for asking.
(((KD))) - everyone needs one, once in a while - even tough ole you
thanks - i'll go read.
so what would be the criteria for figuring out when the mlc started- this is just curiosity - i really get it that the work is the same.
my h told me that he "gave up" a couple of years before the bomb. if that could be a qualifying marker - then he's approaching the end of year 3??
oh well, got some time on my hands - to make my life my own, to be whatever i'm going to be....my gratitude list gets longer everyday... and my smile gets broader.
also Wow... Who the heck was I to let myself go there.
well what do you think? just a person who was trying to do the best they could and love the best they could at the time. hope you've forgiven yourself for that, eh? otherwise all is wasted....
glad you got through that and are doing well now
thanks again it's wonderful that you stop by so often:) zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
Knowledge only becomes wisdom when we apply and experience it.
I knew better and had tools, and yet I still slipped. And yes, that's OK. Going into it, I thought I would be OK to handle what I understood I committed to. So yes, I did the best I could. It's all good.
Warning, long post...
This is the type of stuff that would be observable by you or anyone, not necessarily by the person in MLC. Just because your H said he had "given up" a couple years prior to bomb drop, does not necessarily make that the beginning of his possible MLC. It just is a point in time when he believes that he began to make his choice to leave the M. Maybe a point in time that he's referencing as "the last straw" so that it sounds reasonable and rational.
Rather...
Often there's a trigger or number of triggers (some life events) that set the MLCer up to begin their "journey". Because each person and their experiences is unique, there's no real hard and fast time frame and appears that stages might be skipped or blend with others...
Using one of the more commonly followed MLC stage list, MLC begins with a "Denial" stage. This stage may not be recognized externally. It sometimes has to do with a person who faces their own mortality or their expectations of what they have achieved to this point in their life. They begin to deny their own short comings or mortality. Perhaps 6 months to a year on this.
Anger is considered the next stage and again can last maybe around 6 months to a year on this. This may appear as outbursts over apparently the littlest thing. This stage is probably recognizable, although most stages are really recognized after the fact or once the stage has been ongoing for some time. The anger this stage really refers to is their anger at themselves and where they are or are not in their life. It's an internal anger, and it can overflow as outbursts. Beginning of blaming and projecting. And anger can show through much of the first stages and then some.
I can certainly recognize a point where my W was very angry and of course I reciprocated. Then she started "doing her own thing" and the anger continued to show as being directed at me when I questioned her motives or activities. I still see replay behaviour, but get pretty much no feedback so have not seen anger for a number of months in anything that remotely resembled what I first witnessed.
While not called a stage, there comes a confusion or fog. That might be obvious or not so much and begin at denial or may show up prior to replay. My W became quite confused and forgetful at about the same time the anger began to really show. For a number of reasons, including possible pre-menopause and a condition she was diagnosed to have which included nausea, light headedness, forgetfulness, headaches, etc... Well, my W could just as easily have some form of biological condition, or maybe it's the medication... then again, my W had an episode only a couple weeks ago and I thought to myself, these are the same types of physical symptoms that could show up in someone who was in extreme stress and / or duress. She had indicated she was off the medication when this episode was revealed to me...
So the first two stages might take a year, to a year and a half or even two years to pass in total.
Then comes replay. This may or may not be obvious, depending on the personality and what they were like prior to the MLC. In some cases, maybe it's not MLC but just some exaggeration of existing, chronic PDs, for what ever reason. More often than not, it should be obvious. Sometimes as complete opposites of who the person was. Sometimes large exaggerations of portions of their personalities. Classic things like partying all the time, working out, OPs, new cars, clothes, body image, even language, hanging out with people much younger than themselves.
Or as said, it might be more subtle. Things they MIGHT have done, but done at more frequency or with less safety concern and precautions. Like the person may be a hiker and outdoors type, but take to sky diving and rock climbing with a young crowd of people and then camping out with them for the weekend. Or perhaps making a drastic career change to something they have never done or trained for, even though it might seem reasonable because they are making significantly more money. But it disrupts their family life and is done without apparent regard for the family unit.
It is suggested that avoiding and escaping is more an indicator of MLC. If the activities appear to be avoiding and escaping "reality", especially when coupled with anger and projection and confusion or conflicting message and may not be age appropriate, these things together certainly point to possible MLC.
Replay as indicated above, does appear to be one of the longer stages and can last 2 or more years. Although replay is a stage they can revert to if they "aren't done", yet. Or get scared of their new reality as they move towards the introspection of the later stages and want to go back to avoiding and escaping.
Once a person can sort of establish when replay began, then a possible time count could be from that time plus a year or so for the first stages and what ever far they are into replay, for.
After replay, it can be another 2 or three years before they're "out" or at least closer to being "out".
That's the brief on time frames, anyhow. It certainly can vary with the source. 2 to 7 years is the best catch all that seems to be used.
Some people who are A type might go through all the stages, but the obvious MLC aspect that is really noticeable might be depression / seclusion / avoidance of their "normal" crowd.
How are you today. I like your three, sorry four, new friends :-)
I liked your question about facing a lot of resistance- how to proceed when they are fighting so hard you cant even give a little bit. I find myself in that situation.
Glad your babe test worked...gosh I have used a term of endearment with H for so long!
You sound good zig. A happy for you.
Have a great day!
((( )))
TPS Me: 44 H: 42 M14 T17 S10 D7 10/10 H moves out after death of his father-same month 21/04/12 H is 'DONE' 04/05/12 OW/PA confirmed (rumors from 2010) July '14 H ends affair May '15 H moves back home
oh, it just brought up all this stuff within me, that i know deep down i've been resisting and fighting against.
the pull of india and going back there to try and "find" myself a bit. Jaipur is one of my favorite cities - and it brought up a lot of memories of wonderful times travelling there and that feeling of freedom and utter ease - where life seemed just fine and there was so much to look forward to. i couldn't help remembering a beautiful trip with ex-h .
and then realizing how i sort of denied india to myself after i moved to the states. i could see something in h that made me feel that he couldn't live in a culture apart from his own and i just repressed my feelings about going there. that's what i thought - but in reality it was my own fears of taking a young child back there, and i refused to go until s was 5 - i'd grown up hearing so many stories of kids that got really sick and almost died from stuff they picked up there, because their immune systems were so unused to the tropical bugs. my cousins s's almost died a few years before.
sadly i was so overprotective of s, that i stopped us from going. then when we did finally go - h absolutely loved it and spent the next couple of years wanting to move there. i just shot him down and refused to even consider it.
and then there was of course the story about all these people whose lives had changed and how they had to accept the change and thrive - and once again, i was faced with my own resistance to that. the idea of moving forward without any idea of what was to happen, with the reality that i MUST thrive no matter what, and how i'm still working towards that.
i've been torn between the picture of me staying here or going very far away (India?) and i realized how much i am pushing that aside - knowing that i'm not ready for those kinds of changes. struggling between the belief that i should stay here because of s and family, and then part of me just wanting to run away, very far. i know the pull of me wanting to leave, is the running away because somehow it feels as if that would be easier than facing things here.
but i've grown enough to realize that that running away is just symbolic of not wanting to finish the journey that i have chosen to take
if i'm really honest - i've plateaued out this past couple of weeks - and am stuck somewhere deep inside, not quite ready to take the plunge into the next depth within myself. there is something too big inside for me to handle right now, and so thoughts of running away are coming up.
it's comical in a way how transparent we are , when we choose to look
so i came away from there feeling quite sad and emotional - and am still working through it. otoh even though i write all these things there is no doubt in my mind that i am standing, that i am facing everything and that i am growing and thriving more and more day by day. i'd like to see that movie again in a few months and observe what my reaction is then:)
i actually thought of you quite a bit, bug, while watching it - you're the one that i heard about it from:)
thanks for being here
zig
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
h called a bit ago to say that he was going to join a bunch of our friends - the ones i hang out with - to watch the cracker show.
didn't ask for me to come along - just repeated several times - i'm just calling to tell you that's what we're doing.
i'm taking it as he'd like me to be there, just can't ask!!
casually tried to say that parking would be a bitch, hoping he'd offer to pick me up, but he wasn't biting - went on about how i could park far away and would have to walk - i said no problem
i asked what he was doing for dinner (s is with friends who are bringing him downtown) and he quickly replied that he was cooking for grandparents. good - i'm glad to hear that - he's been staying there while parents are on their trip and spending a lot of time with them - in fact, i think cooking dinner for them almost every night. he had withdrawn completely from them from aug. to about march, and i think they are so pleased that he's "back" again. they are the people that he wasn't able to face the most after the bomb drop - couldn't even speak to them, and since they don't know anything, they were devastated.
so i'm going to go down there with my little whiskey flask and hang out with friends and kids - first time after the accident that i can handle the crackers - noise and light - so am pretty excited - always loved the cracker show before and loved taking s
i'm not so sad now - feeling a lot better - i think just posting here and letting it out a bit helped a lot - not to mention 2 one hour sessions of meditation
I am where I am , and it's okay...
zig
ps. heck it's more than okay - i'm good!
me 46 H 38 M10yrs T 11 S10 BD ow 8/11 h filed 9/25/12
"if i could define enlightenment briefly, i would say it is the quiet acceptance of what is"
