If you want to understand MLC....read the posts on here. After reviewing a few hundred of them you will get a taste of what is going on. If you feel the need to discuss it with your counselor...don't center it around your wife. That is highly unproductive use of your time. Keep the conversation like you would see a classroom conversation about the subject. If you bring your wife into the discussion it will turn into the counselor trying to diagnose your wife...it doesn't work well and is truly a waste of your time. Nobody can fix her other than herself...you can only prepare yourself a very small amount for the ride....a very very small amount.
A better way of using your counselor is discuss your relationship with your kids, at work, and stress that you may feel. A good counselor will gentle lead you in a direction where you see what needs to be improved.
How was lunch with the kids? Hopefully you got the afternoon off and I won't know until later tonight
I saw your post on another page about "sacrificing". In my opinion that is the wrong mentality. By sacrificing you are giving up for the better good. Being a sacrifice is also a sign of weakness and lack of confidence to the fairer sex.
Your mentality is better suited to be..."I am strong and I am standing up for the commitments I have made, for the welfare of my family, and for myself". Be strong...not a sacrifice. Think about it for a few...there is a huge difference.
Sacrifices jump off the cliff in hopes that their actions will bring good. Strong people face the pain of climbing down the cliff to put the pieces back together again.
LFW's, my way of sacrificing, it not being needy, being strong and there for my children and giving my wife the time she needs for herself and taking the time I need to fix or work on things for me.
I am climbing up a cliff, that I would have never thought in my entire life I would have to climb.
I was KISS, everyone has their own definition of "sacrifice."
My MLC'er, she sacrificed a lot over the years, her mental quirk she turned herself into a Matyr.
I am not a Matyr, this struggle is for more than myself and My Children know and are going to continue to know the strength and perserverance and love their dad has.
I saw that post and i have the book Art of War, read it years ago.
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
I was going about things wrong without having all the facts of an MLC'er. In my mind I already know the outcome, it's just now staying out of the way for someone else to come to me.
Funny you used this quote, I was using this and the poem Battle of the Light Brigade when all this started in June for me.
July wife dropped bomb, asked me to leave home. She has the children and the responsibilities of the home.
I have the children certain nights of the wk and wkend.
I have not fought yet, but as I have lightened up on trying to control some things, MLC has opened up time with kids.
I could have been the LBS spouse,she wanted OUT! Had looked at apartments and I said "I am not leaving you, I am giving you the space you need, the children need their mother."
Because of that I immediately became reactionary to everything, because I handed control to a MLC'er.
I have seen some on this board who have viewed their trip as "sacrificing". I wanted to make sure you weren't falling into that trap, because none of them lasted very long.
I like to say look at it as though we are climbing down a cliff. If you have ever climbed down a cliff, you realize it is actually harder than going up. The reason being is that going up you see what is in front of you. Going down you are blind and have to make small move at a time!
