Anyone have an MLC'er Living At Home?

[ThinkingItThru]

MrsJ,

I wish I could give you advice, but I may be taking it from you in six months time. Currently my kids, freshmen in HS, are totally oblivious to the situation. We've been very good at keeping it from them and they think that dad going out with his friend is completely normal.

I talked to my C about this yesterday, because I am concerned about being the bad guy down the road. To fill you in, basically my H just started ignoring me. We are still together in the same house and in the same bed, but if he could get farther away in the bed without falling off he would. Kind of amusing actually. So, he doesn't want me, but he's too comfortable in his situation to ditch me either. So I was concerned when I take action down the road (because I can't live like this forever) that I will wreck my relationship with the kids. My C assured me that as long as we handle things well and evenly, if that time comes, the kids will realize how its come to this. They will think back on all the times dad spent with his friend in a different light and as long as I don't run down their dad to them, they will be good with me.

As far as them being good with him...only he can control that. If he is a nice guy, doesn't run me down to them, etc...they will get over it, but they will remember. My C says she does a lot of work with kids and teens and even in abusive or neglectful situations, kids get over it. They want to love their parents.

So, if you want to believe my C, as long as you and your H are good to the kids and don't run each other down during this time, the kids will recover. Of course your son is mad at the situation. I'm sure you are too. I would just keep reminding them of their dad's good points and reminding them that they are loved and that this situation is between you and H. Not with them (even if H is ignoring them as well). Maybe you can just say, "dad has some problems right now" or something like that.

Wish I could help more. You have all my positive thoughts and wishes.

[Mach1]

Hey Thinkin,

No matter what, and how bad it gets, always try to keep them in a positive light for the children. In time, they will see for themselves. Help them direct their anger and release it. Focus on them and help them deal with their feelings in this. Trust me....they know something is wrong. If it bothers them too much, they will come to you and ask, but also look for the unspoken signs. grades, outbursts, etc....

This is a good time to teach them some of the techniques that you have learned here, without actually letting them read for themselves. Teach them about healing and forgiveness, and most important.......to love with your whole heart. Those are things that they will carry with them the rest of their lives.

Be the memory today, that you want them to have in the future......

[fisherman]

Please, I hope there's someone out there to talk me off the ledge. I'm not really THAT upset, just sick to my stomach. Something just happened to add one more thing...

My daughter uses my hubby's laptop sometimes and she was having some problems with pop-ups tonight. So I took over and started running some spybot software to clean things up. You can guess what if found. I found some fairly digusting sites in the history files.

I had to wake him to ask permission to delete his history files and he acted surprised as to 'why'. When I was done, I woke him again to tell him I set up Firefox and Navigator to delete the history when the application is closed, "if you're going to look at those sites, please use those browsers so the kids don't see them". A fair request, but he was first acted very surprised (What was I talking about?) and then was very defensive. Then he rolled over to go back to sleep (in a huff if that's possible).

This really shouldn't surprise me and I'm really not that upset. It just adds another thing to the pile. But now I know why he has absolutely NO interest in me anymore. If there's any guys out there that can comment, I'm interested.

The standing on the ledge feeling or punched in the stomach feeling is the worst. I'm so sorry your going through this.

You did excellent confronting him in a calm manner.

He looks at you as an authoritive figure and the cause of his unhappiness. He is a teenager right now. Running, withdrawing and rebelling all over again. His feelings for you are still there, but they are burried deep. Way too many powerful emotions that he doesn't understand are in play. He can barely handle the way he is feeling and is not capable of dealing with yours.


Porn is a fantasy. I'm sure low self esteem and control are big players as well. Just as they are in MLC. Remember He is a teenager right now.

[fisherman]

The hanging from the edge of the bed is freakin hillarious. My wife was a pro at that. Some nights I would lay there hoping she would fall, just once.(sorry, I'm not trying to make light, just laughs, they help sometimes.)

Mach is very wise when it comes to this. He has been living with it for quite some time.

[Dawn of Hope]

Yep, been there, done that on the "clinging to the edge of the mattress" thing. H and I slept in the same bed without touching (which NEVER happened before the bomb) for nearly a year before he finally left in November. I had times I would intentionally take up a bit more than my fair share of the bed to see what he'd do, and he never touched me (not on purpose). Sometimes I was tempted to just lie smack in the middle of the bed just to press the issue, but I never quite worked up the guts for that.

Thinking, I'm sorry you are having to go through this. Every time you find out something new, it's a punch to the gut, but as the things you find get worse, at least the lesser things don't bother you nearly as much. For example, my H maintained (until I stopped asking, which was pretty quick) that there was no sex involved with OW (whom he met on the computer game Second Life first, and then later in person). After the bomb (when he came back from their first time meeting in RL and I confronted him), first I found erotic videos he had taken of himself (and never mentioned to me) between the time they met online and their first in-person meeting. That was rough. Then I found screen shots of their avatars (computer characters representing them) in SL making the beast with two backs, and I was just about destroyed (although you gotta wonder...what physical gratification is there in sex between two computer characters? Maybe it's a guy thing?). Then later on I found proof that their EA had also become a full-blown PA in RL as well as SL, and I just fell apart. One of the things I was thinking was how minor an issue the screen shots I had seen seemed now, compared with his having cheated on me in every sense of the word in RL.

Soooo...I don't know if that helps or not. I guess I'm just trying to say that these punches in the gut are going to happen when you deal with an MLCer, from everything I've seen. They have a real talent for doing the things that will hurt us the most and then pouring on entire cartons of salt. It really bites, but you just need to cry, scream, vent here, whatever you need to do (away from him) to help you get through it, and then move forward. And it nearly always gets worse before it gets better, so there is no question you are going to be tested to your very limits.

Gosh, the more I write, the less I feel I'm helping, which is not what I intended! If nothing else I've said is helpful, just remember that I and others are thinking of you and praying for you, and you can always come here and get help. Be kind to yourself.

Peace and blessings,
Dawn

[ThinkingItThru]

Thanks so much for all your input. It is all very valuable. I had a crappy couple of days and now I'm back on keel.

It seems like it would be so much easier if we could just talk about it. I think that's what you would do in a healthy relationship. A partner can't control what their partner is doing, but they can have some understanding of it. Since we don't talk, everything just sits out there.

That is my goal for a healthy relationship, to have a partner that tells me when I'm doing something that bothers them so I have a chance to correct it AND to be able to ask my partner why they're doing something that bothers me so that they can correct it (or at least I can understand why they won't).

[ThinkingItThru]

The hanging from the edge of the bed is freakin hillarious. My wife was a pro at that. Some nights I would lay there hoping she would fall, just once.(sorry, I'm not trying to make light, just laughs, they help sometimes.)

LOVE THIS! What an image.

[WCW]

Thinking, in the past when you talked about problems were you able to make solutions and act on them to resolve the problems? That was one of our problems all along, talk talk talk and no fix.

For right now I think you have to just let those things just sit out there and pile up. Keep on doing those things that boost your PMA so you can smile. Try whistling. I think it is impossible to be crabby while you whistle!

[ThinkingItThru]

Actually communication has always been an issue in our marriage but it didn't bother me because there were no issues or the good was better than the bad. But what a lack of communication has done to us has caused a couple of problems:

First, I'm sure that I do things that make him crazy in the past. Some of the first things pointed out by my C months ago was my controlling nature and the fact that I try to help with "advice" all the time. I know after reading about MLC that we would be going through this regardless, but I would have liked to have known that my natural personality traits bothered him for 20 years. Since I've started seeing the C and haven't been as managerial at home things have been much calmer.

Second, if this R were in a healthy state, I should be able to tell him when something bothers me. Like, "your relationship with x makes me feel jealous". Doesn't mean he will end the relationship, but now I feel like I can't even say what's on my mind without pushing him away. And there's a lot of stuff like that. I should be able to tell him that I would like his help with getting out of debt without worrying about whether its going to have some evil consequence.

That's what I mean about being in a healthy relationship and I know that's not what's going on with us right now. Maybe someday but I do think once our relationship recovers (and it will) we will need help to get to this point because in 20 years we've never really been commnicators.

Peace to you

[WCW]

communication has always been an issue in our marriage but it didn't bother me because there were no issues

Huh? isn't that a contradiction?

As you said, IF this R were in a healthy state. If that was the case you could go back to the communication issue that isn't an issue and work on that.

I think your C is getting you on track. That's nice.