You know, one day you will laugh about it, but it does take a long time. Just hang onto your sense of humour, because you'll be needing it to get through!
One of my fears when I got to the point I was sure my H and I were finished was, what if I just ended up with ANOTHER guy who was about to have a MLC, but was a bit more of a late-bloomer? I mean, did I need to come up with some kind of a checklist for the types of traumas he'd undergone, whether his parents were still alive/about to die and whether he was honest with himself about their relationship, probing questions about whether the formative years had actually been formative, what the likelihood of him becoming depressed was, etc--and I felt really scared, because from a lot of the stories you read, signs of the upcoming MLC storm are not always obvious! And even if the guy had done the MLC thing, what if he hadn't completed that task fully?
I agree that you'd think the medical community would have reached more of a consensus, especially considering how many people in MLC are being treated. I believe my H was not unusual in that, during his MLC, he was in constant pain, feared the pains were signs of serious medical problems, and had his doctor run a number of expensive tests.
Meanwhile, as my H came out of the tunnel, he was really irritated by the way our culture treats MLCs, reducing them to jokes about overweight balding guys who trade in their families for 20-year old girls and sportscars. He wondered why nobody is ever warned that this might be upcoming if/when they face certain issues, and the pain and depression the MLCer experiences are ignored, and even doctors aren't equipped to help out. He felt marginalized as well as all alone....
From what I've learned, it's difficult for the victims of sexual abuse to make friends. Being betrayed by a male figure would make it that much harder for guys, I would think. I can remember, a few years back, feeling a desperate need for close female friendship. I recognize now that what I wanted was an over-the-top Hollywood vision of friendship; what I really needed was to come to terms with myself. I guess your H thought he would be happy "if only" he changed certain variables in his life, but being single demands a certain amount of introspection...making it easier to live with OW.
How is your H's relationship with his S, do you know? Is his confusion extending to their time together? Though I guess his S has his own life by now. How did your caretaking tendancies mesh with having this child in your life (from about the age of 6)?
Have you thought about what a non-mothering relationship would look like? It's good that you know what you'd like to change.
Can you actually FEEL a 4-degree improvement in temperature when it's still that cold? Brrrrrrrr.
I don't think anyone feels you're bad luck! Posters still at the beginning of their MLC bombings, desperate to find a way to save their marriages, are in a somewhat different boat than you, though, and it's easiest to connect with people whose stories seem the most similar. Also, those who post on a lot of other people's threads are the ones who get the most responses. People are obviously reading along, though, so I'm sure they'll chime in if anything strikes a chord, or if they want to suggest a new direction.
