My Wifes MLC

[Dawn of Hope]

I am also starting to think about my life

Oddly enough, having a spouse in MLC means that even though our spouses are the ones in crisis, we are the ones who are faced with the pop quiz (maybe more like the pop final exam worth 80% of our grade!). We are the ones who are forced to learn and grow and change for the better. We become better people, even if we are dragged into it kicking and screaming. Some of the MLCers _never_ grow into better people...but we LBS's do.

All she seems interested in is talking & acting like a teenager or even younger.

We cross-posted, and I had to laugh when I read this, because just about the time you posted this, I had been typing my comments about the MLCer regressing and becoming like a teenager! I know, going through it isn't funny at all, and I wasn't laughing at you...more like laughing at the synchronicity of the universe.

I now have to change my thinking - how do I deal with my wife now, what do I want, whats good for the kids.

Yes, you do have to change your thinking. She is "checked out" and you can't trust her to be responsible about anything. You will have to adjust to the idea of flying solo for a while, even if she is still living in the house with you. The trouble is that even though she is behaving like a teenager, it is not in your best interests to try to establish a parent-child type of R with her. This is one of the reasons MLC is so difficult--there is no precedent for a R between two people who are supposed to be adults and equal, when one is acting like a child but without the disadvantage of mental or physical illness that causes a temporary emergency sitch where it is appropriate for you to take control entirely (although some people think of MLC as a mental illness, it isn't quite the same thing). It's a minefield you have to navigate.

I think I've always been pretty strong & independent - for the last 2 months I have really struggled because I have been trying to deal with a problem that is outside my control.

This is one of those things that we all have to face, and for some it is harder than for others. We would all like to believe that if we just tried hard enough, we could fix anything and everything. For some of us, having a spouse in MLC is the first time we have had to face the fact that there are some things that are simply not going to change due to our efforts, no matter how hard we try. THIS IS NOT WITHIN YOUR CONTROL. The sooner you truly accept this and adjust yourself to it, the easier it will be for you (not to say easy--but easier than it would be otherwise). If you continue to fight and deny the fact that it is out of your hands, it will make it that much more difficult for you.

Accept. Accept that this is not your journey, it is hers. Accept that all you can control is YOU. Then figure out how you can improve yourself and your life, with those things that you CAN control. I think you are already starting to do this, but it is a long and hard process to accept that no matter how much you love someone and want to help them, in some cases, there is absolutely nothing you can do for them. I hear this is a common theme of parenting, especially in the teenage years.

I don't know who has been through this but I haven't been sleeping, eating, going out to participate in my sport or been focussed at work - I have been stressed out of my mind.

Brother, I'm pretty sure everyone on this board has been through this. I quit sleeping for more than about half an hour a day for two weeks after the bomb, and because of that I developed a tremor that I thought might be permanent. Before I started sleeping again and realized that the tremor was caused by the lack of sleep, I thought I was going to have to close down my business and change careers entirely if I lived through this (I am a professional calligrapher, so steadiness of hand is vitally important in my work).

I haven't been able to complete a project by its originally scheduled time in over two years, and have lost good clients because of that. I still have to kick myself pretty hard, even now, to get myself out of the house for anything short of firm appointments with someone else, so I often don't make it to gatherings, events, or even church; I even have trouble getting to the grocery store before I'm totally out of food. Procrastination was always one of my issues, but it went completely off the charts at the bomb, and I haven't been able to rein it in yet. My depression doesn't help; I often go four or five days when I don't go any farther than the mailbox or even get dressed. If it weren't for my cats, I'd probably have days when I didn't even get out of bed.

I lost over 20 pounds in six weeks at the time of the bomb (and that was over 15% of my total body weight), because I developed a sudden, raging case of both anorexia _and_ bulimia. I went from thin in the normal/healthy range to almost emaciated--people were telling me I was too thin, for, I think, the first time in my life.

I am not telling you all this to make it all about me. I'm telling you because my experience is an example of what is NORMAL here on this board--most people here have dealt with things like this when they got the bomb, and some of them have had to deal with a lot more than I have.

As best I can tell, women usually lose about 20 pounds and men usually lose 30 pounds or more on what we fondly call the "MLC diet"--which is, oddly enough, not followed by the MLCer, but by their spouse. This is not a healthy way to get thin, and the weight will all come back again, but with a higher percentage of fat, when you start to feel less stressed, if you don't make some changes NOW to be healthier. Try to take better care of yourself. Try to do for yourself what you would want a friend to do if they were going through something like this. You would encourage your friend to eat right, keep up their exercise and other forms of self-care, to get meds to help them sleep if necessary, to see their doctor if it seemed appropriate. Be your own friend and treat yourself kindly.

I now seem to be coming out of this and getting to a better place.

Good. It's hard work, but keep at it.

I don't think though that my wife is going to come out of this anytime soon.

It helps to accept that and move forward (which is not the same as giving up on your W or your M; it just means that you are emotionally detaching from her madness so that it doesn't keep throwing you off balance, and you are concentrating on becoming a better person, like we talked about before). This is, sad to say, an excruciatingly long process...no matter how long it takes in real time, it feels decades longer. Make it your goal to use this time wisely, and take this opportunity to really work on yourself and become the best person you can.

Peace,
Dawn