The thread I've been posting in is here, but I figured I need some MLC advice too and decide to start a thread over here.
Talk to my wife twice this morning, she called me both times and started talking about "how f'ed up everything is" and what a mess it is. She said she knows she is in a MLC and feels she has real mental illness in her words and says I have no idea what she is going thru and I agreed. She also said she has no idea "who she is" anymore, she looks in the mirror and doesn't know.
She is talking thru some of our options, my previous thread has all the details, but the big issue right now is she lives in one state and me and our two sons (13 and 15) have lived with me since June '06. She wanted to move out of state, we moved everything, the kids finished school for 7 months in our old town while living at my mother house with my wife. Then the kids move to the new town with me and are attending school here. My wife was waiting for my new job/career to quit her job and/or when she found a job similar to her current one in the new town.
Now she has been sitting in an apartment by herself now for 9 months, she calls it her "padded cell", and she can't let go of her job. She can get a job here in our new town tomorrow, not the same as she has and not for the same money, but she can get a job no problem. She is a workaholic and defines herself by her job, plus she "needs" her job to take care of herself after she divorces me in her way of thinking. She might even have an OM at work, maybe just good friends, maybe more. She also has a new BF in a women 20 yrs younger than her (hanging out with young people makes her feel young in her own words) that is having marriage problem and the two of them have been leaning on each other for emotional support. My wife took up snowboarding with her new BF this winter, she also just went to Hawaii with her BF and her son and our sons and my wife's brother/sil and their son.
Anyhow I'm carryin' on, my other thread is very verbose and covers the details, I'm looking for MLC related advice. I feel it is very positive that my wife has recognized that she is in an MLC, before she just thought she was a new person and had discovered her true-self and couldn't understand why everyone wasn't happy for her that she'd decided she didn't want to be married anymore and didn't want to raise the kids anymore. She seems to know she is in a "crisis" and that she has screwed things up for the family. Now she is searching for solutions and even tho' many are still based on what she feels/wants she is considering the rest of the family.
I know there are stages to the MLC and I think she has actually been going thru this or it has been coming on since she was 45, about 6 yrs ago. She had been wanting to make radical changes to her life (move to an island in the middle of nowhere) and I think she distracted herself with work and religion and hid from all of this until she was sitting alone in her apartment and couldn't hid from herself anymore. Based on what she is telling me, what stage is she at, where do we go from here, what else can I do to be here for her and not make this any harder on her, me or the kids than it already is. Early on when she came to me (over Christmas) and said she didn't want to be married I paniced and drove her further and faster from me than she already was, I've been better in the past month with DBin' and LRT and no pursuing, etc.
Where are we, what's next, what can I do? Thanks for your help.
