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.
I know I can't "fix" her. I'm looking for insight into where she might be, whether the MLC fog is thinning or lifting, or how I'll know when it is. If there are various stages to MLC, how can I figure out where she is so I can have a general roadmap of what to expect or deal with.
The truth is that for the most part she is just as lost as she was in the beginning. Many publications hint that the life stage transition in crisis can last from two to five years and sometimes up to eight. Now sit down and breath.
The good news (if there is such a thing) is that for some time now she has been busily eliminating options to become "happy" ... as they have not worked. The MLCer lives in a different time zone than us and their life moves at a different speed. They don't know how long they have been struggling.
As the MLCer confronts their second adulthood they explore their mortality and spiritual center. Sounds like she has included that in her interests. If they have originally isolated themselves and cut off the kids, they begin to reconnect. Sounds like she is working to keep a bond with the kids.
You however are the one thing that has been with her the longest, and you are most likely to get credit for her life long bought of low self esteem and depression. The ones that attributed the most to this in her youth, they aren't even at the epicenter of the storm to get the blame they deserve. You will have to carry the blame for them. You will carry the blame for not having healed her pains in the past. You will be the thing she fears the most, her primary link to her painful past. Coming back to you will be viewed as terribly risky, on her best day. How can you ever forgive her indiscretions? How can you ever forgive the pain she has caused you? How can she come back to that? They often rationalize a D just to set you free from your painful waiting.
There is little or nothing you can do for her other than take care of yourself as if she is not coming back. Live your life for you. If you can do this, and STAND for your M without taking on an OW it will be wonderful. You just have to do this with no guarantee that things will get better, and may go totally south.
There are now several books out there getting mentioned by T who are seeing MLCers. Most of them written to the female reader show MLC as a cocoon. They give different analogies and approaches that all lead to the one unavoidable ending, the MLCer will exit the cocoon when ready, as a new person with a new life. Understand that many of the MLCers feel they can only be this new complete person by abandoning all that held them back and the H is the first dead weight to be shed.
Welcome to MLC. Keep reading all you can. Being informed is powerful when you struggle with the goal of Standing in the face of MLC.
Thanks for the the help. I've been reading the MLC resources like JazzGtr recommended. You comments where very useful as well.
I think this has been coming on for awhile, don't know if that means we're any closer to the end of the crisis tho'. I'm so shocked that the person that has done more for them in their lives and loves them unconditionally is the one that they dump on and want nothing to do with.
She loves her father and he has done little for her all her life, yet I'm the problem and need to be kicked to the ground and run over repeatedly.
I'll stand here with my hand out for her to grab when she needs a break from the storm, maybe one day she'll grab it and won't let go.
yet I'm the problem and need to be kicked to the ground and run over repeatedly.
Although to say it sounds horrible, the answer to this is it's because you love her. In the core of her soul she knows that but she is not consciously aware of why she is mean to you in particular. Sure some "reasons" she may state have a ring of legitimacy I am sure, but she can only fleetingly acknowledge to herself the fact that her anger is disproportionate to her treatment of you since the MLC began. She can't dig deeper right now than to MAYBE acknowledge THAT and then, only to herself. I'd bet she thinks about it sometimes when she's alone. That's the first step towards coming out of MLC however there is a long, dark tunnel still ahead for her, in my opinion.
Much of the anger in a MLCer really can't be explained until they're coming OUT of the MLC. Maybe not until they are ALL the way out. When the pieces of the puzzle start fitting in her mind and she reflects on the recent hellish past with new eyes she might find that for the most part you weren't the problem at all. It was her. And that will probably cause her to look at her childhood, where she will have an opportunity to make peace.
She acknowledges she's a mess now and that has to be a good sign. Unfortunately, I don't think it speeds up the process. And you don't want it to because that will retard her healing process which is vital to YOUR future as well as hers and the children's.
I'm not sure that didn't just confuse the hell out of you but if it did I apologize.
I'll look back in on you tomorrow.
OOPS! Almost forgot. The weekend. Take the family to see a funny movie. It might be a little uncomfortable when she arrives but I'm thinking if you go see a movie you don't have to really interact directly and laughter can break through ANY awkward atmosphere in a second!
Thanks so much AmyC. I want so much for her to heal inside, my fear is that she'll be long gone by then or will have driven me off entirely. If you have time to look at my thread in newcomers (link is in my sig below), now I'm dealing with more of her trying to fix her "outside" instead of her "insides" and need some perspective on my mental retardation.
It is so confusing that she is hurting and needs help and to heal inside and to face her childhood, etc., yet I'm the one that gets screwed over in the process. Not her friends, not her family, not strangers, but me. I'm supportive of her dealing with her childhood and I want her to be happy and healthy, but cna't figure out why instead of leaning on the person that has been there for her and that wants to help her, she kicks me in the crouch.
Thanks for the movie idea, I was thinking of going with her to a more dramatic movie, but something funny would be better. I've taken the kids to see Blades of Glory, but maybe we'll all go again and take her. I asked her today what she wanted to do while she was her and she said maybe bowling, but that she just wanted to relax around the house and not run around town.
Remember: NO EXPECTATIONS. I would also suggest no relationship talk unless she brings it up and then to be on the safe side, listen more than you speak.
My wife has been bring up some R talk this week, it is in my other threads (good luck reading my verbose posts, I thank you in advance ).
She is recognizing more and more that she is in an MLC, that is in menopause, she is having hot flashes, she feels like she is in a storm in her head. I just hope she can control her feelings and not continue to let her feelings control her. She is getting a "boob job" now and that was a big blow to my heart this week, but I think I handled it ok. She also talked about how this was her "last hurrah" and she just needs to "go sow her wild oats" and that was hard to hear, but I think I did ok with the listen, validate and not telling her what to feel or that she is wrong, etc. Anyhow lots more detail in my other thread(s).
Have a great weekend, I plan to myself, hopefully my wife will as well.
There is little or nothing you can do for her other than take care of yourself as if she is not coming back. Live your life for you. If you can do this, and STAND for your M without taking on an OW it will be wonderful.
What if you do take another woman? How does this complicate things for the female MLC'er who has already taken OM?
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