My husband seems to be suffering from the MLC as Michele describes it...however he is still affectionate and has been very sexual lately. The past few nights, things have been more passionate between us than usual....I'm afraid that this is going to hurt myself in the end, but I cannot push him away if he is expressing this interest.
When my x dropped the bomb and I went to see an IC the first thing I wanted to do was discuss my W behavior, was it mlc?
One of the questions the IC asked was "has she been hypersexual?"
I was not comfortable being totally honest, but she had been trying new things and became more aggressive. I think I diverted the IC from defining the xw as mlc. Doesn't matter now anyway. But there are several references to this in books I began to gather.
Part of the mlc is the desire to be desired. There is the quest to relive their perceived lost youth. That may include those sexual escapades they think they missed out on.
Your question has two sides. On one is the question of your ability to handle the emotional fallout later. Will you blame yourself for pleasing someone who then says it is over. You have to decide. I will say that men feel they are making some kind of emotional connection through sex. This may lead you to be open to his advances as long as you are comfortable with it.
We often discuss cake eating. You may already know this one. The MLCer lies. They lie early about having an EA or PA with someone. It is part of what pulls them away from the M.
The LBS is also notorious for denying the PA if they can. They want to believe their beloved alien. Assume your H is not in a PA, but pretending he was, cake eating is him having his way at home and away. It makes him a sexual superman, gives him a connection with two people at the same time, and leads to confusion. How can he choose? Who will he hurt? Neither if he can get away with it. Our advice in cake eating is usually still do what you believe is right and you can handle. It does maintain a connection to his old life even whether or not there is a PA outside the house.
Sometimes we see someone take the Dobson tough love angle and say either they are in the M or not, and there are no gray areas or cake eating.
The other part of this question does become important when there is a PA. MLCers lie. They lie to themselves about the need for safe practices, and to you. You don't know anything about the person they may have met. You don't need to. You only need to take care of yourself. When your own health and safety may be at risk, cake eating may be something that you can not afford to allow.
The rules are squiggly lines, like so much of life. Take care of yourself and be wary of changes in your H that you want to ignore but know you can't.
