Thanks, I have been following your thread, having an MLCer at home means there is never a dull moment for sure!
I only got a good handle on where we were in the stages when we hit Withdrawal and I could work backwards. I think Cat04 has you in about the right spot. When I say H was in a stage, I would class that as the dominant phase if you were to discribe the month, so maybe around 60% of activity that type. Other stages were always around in smaller quantities.
The end of Replay and Anger I found was a big U turn in the MCL journey for us. Anger and Reply was H looking away from us and relationship, looking towards fun. The horse bolting from the stable if you like. He needed to burn up all the held in anger. With the spending, spending (large for us) was done as a sense of entitlement. Our net bank balance pretty much reflected the end of replay. It probably took a further month for the habit of spending to stop.
When the Depression stage kicks in, the bottom or major depression is pretty obvious. Look for a room as a cave (spare room?), not wanting to to anything even Replay actions, days not sleeping etc. For us Depression gradually increased, peaked, then decreased. Depression is like the bottom of the U, H seemed to be home more as he was so exhusted he needed to stay in one place. This was the horse run out of energy!
Withdrawal for us was when H actually started to do things again. He started by cleaning his car out, then cleaning out the garage (a cave), then trying to reduce spending (eg noticing kids were wasting food), then working on his spending and other habits. He seemed to be processing, rather than confused, and activity increased during this stage. We are still getting the selfish stuff, but this drops off more further into withdrawal. Its selfish with awareness, not entitlement. Withdrawal onwards is looking back home to see if he wants to return. I think he is working out how to replace the old bad habits with new, better ones. Withdrawal we have had no R talks at all. This was the horse hungry with night falling, maybe the stable had some good points???
Look at the trends if you were to say month by month, or quarter by quarter what stage is increasing or decreasing. I found triggers would move him between smaller stages. Old large bills from Replay coming in during Withdrawal would trigger off a few days of Depression or Replay. By letting him deal with them the old H with appear a few days later a bit better each time, more at ease if that made sense. I would let the bills etc through to the keeper if he seemed to be trying to sort it.
The main help I got from looking at this was the sense that progress was being made through the tunnel in a general way.
