Well-intentioned Former Army Buddy sends from Gator State: Let me know if you'd be interested in coming down with the kids for the VFW's Divorced Dads Day at Annoying Mouseworld.
Which is clearly some informal thing -- I mean, Annoying MouseCo doesn't do this kind of thing -- and he means well, and he's looking out for a brother warrior, and yeah... but what...the...funk...? This is my life? Jayzus H. Tap-Dancing Kee-rist. Everything I thought I was; everything I thought I was going to be. Stroke of a funkin' pen.
@Kettricken: My inner feminist is screeching "wtf?????" Double standard much?
Waaaaayyyyy much! I suspect it's really just a coping mechanism.
But I did have a pretty serious talk with a buddy who is still married to a woman who had 3 1-year-long affairs -- simultaneously -- 3 years ago (i.e., 3 men, all at the same time, in the year 2006-2007), and once properly motivated (i.e., several tumblers of Lagavulin 16-year-old with splashes of water) he dropped his defenses and 'fessed up to the fact that he still finds it very, very difficult to be completely present during sex with her. He still finds himself, in the midst of a long run or while fly-fishing or in the midst of a traffic jam, suddenly worried that she closes her eyes and sees one of "them" or compares him to "them" and so forth. According to Bud, his therapist advises him that "this is a life sentence, so get used to it."
So all else being equal -- and that's so much All Else -- that EVEN IF it were not the case that the probability is infinitesimally low-approaching-zero that STBXMRSSP would de-fog and de-MLC and de-beeyotch and SP would be marginally interested in revisiting the question of discussing the discussions necessary to open the discussion of the conditions under which there would be a discussion of the possibility of discussing reconciliation and piecing, even if that were not the case, I would still be extraordinarily reluctant even to open that can of worms given the fact that, on top of everything else, I'm just not certain I could cope with that "life sentence."
@Jack_Three_Beans posted this on the MLC boards in a threaded debate over how to differentiate a Walkaway and an MLC'er, responding to the idea that there is also a mixed-type:
MLC WAS – Is emotional all over, is irrational, is confused about everything. They don’t know what they want, but they want it all.
That notion resonated with me. It's sort of like a Divorce Combo Meal: you get fried -- sorry, fries -- with that.
Since @hoosiermama pitched the MLC idea, I've been thinking more on this. I had lunch with a cousin the other day who I haven't seen...ever. She just found me on the Internets Tubes and happened to be in the area. We told our life stories, and I wasn't 90-seconds into describing what has been going on since Feb 2009 when she practically shouted, "Mid-life Crisis!" Apparently she has a couple girlfriends who both dumped 20+-year marriages and are behaving more-or-less just as STBXMRSSP is. And Miss Someone went through a 2-year MLC+D and has said the same thing.
Historically, along with my Counseling-Phobia, I never gave much credence to the idea of MLC.
But a couple things have changed my POV. Cousin and Miss Someone and @hoosiermama were the first -- that's too coincidental, when you think about it, that someone I haven't ever spoken to and someone who has gone through it and someone who only "exists" as 0's and 1's, would all arrive at the same conclusion.
Second was a review of her behavior, much of which comports with things described by @Jack_3 and others on the MLC board -- the "youth obsession;" the changes in clothes, body, style; the lying; and the lack-of-determined-WAS-like certainty. Recall that, by the end of summer 2009, STBXMRSSP's story had morphed into, "Well I was never sure about it...."
Third was a conversation I had with my mother just the other day. She was relating a conversation she'd had with STBXMRSSP at some point in the past few years. Recall that STBXMRSSP more-or-less had kids for my sake; I wanted them, she didn't, and she didn't want (her words) to "take that away" from me. STBXMRSSP apparently told Mother Person that her mother had told her that the only reason she had STBXMRSSP and Sister was because their father wanted kids. And STBXMRSSP, about 18 months ago, turned the same age her mother was when her mother was diagnosed with the cancer that took her life.
So okay -- you don't have to hit me with a big fish. Perhaps it's just post-hoc rationalization, but it sorta screams MLC, don't you think?
Not that the MLC vs. WAW dichotomy changes anything. It's just that, on the verge of D -- had a false alarm the other day, when her lawyer balked at the last minute over some triviality that will cost another Kajillion Bucks in legal fees -- I like knowing what I was up against and what beat me (there's another court date on the 27th, so that'll probably close the Saga out). And, as part of my DB Failure review, I wonder what I might have done differently, had I known MLC vs. WAS, if anything.
Still. Good reason, I guess, to start looking for 20-something girlfriends. I'll be dead by the time they get to their MLCs....
I'm just not certain I could cope with that "life sentence."
But is that not what Dbing is about as well. Learning coping mechanisms, how to forgive. Understanding. But never have I ever read that you need to forget.
Hmmmm i believe SP that the temptation to try will be stronger than those doubts.
re:MLC-- I suppose it was more helpful to me in the beginning to have a label for what happened. Ironically, I'm not at all sure the label fits my sitch for a variety of reasons which I won't belabor here. Either that or it's MLC overlaid on an exacerbation of chronic narcissistic personality disorder (just as I think yours is a combination of MLC and borderline). And in the end, it doesn't matter a hill o' beans what the name of the "disorder" is. We and our Themselves will spend the next several years putting ourselves back together after whatever-it-was sucked the souls out of the people we married and thought we knew better than anyone else on the planet. Might as well be schizoaffective disorder, fugue state, or something else that does have a formal DSM-IV code, or full-tilt-crazy or f'in' nuts (ER diagnoses). Doesn't really change a thing. Having a label gives us something to hang onto and perhaps even something to help predict how the next few years will play out in dealing with the aliens we married. But it doesn't change anything. It just sucks, and it sucks worse than anything I've ever experienced. And I imagine you concur--with the possible exception of that stint in a war zone seeing body parts flying.
Never discount the importance of this:
Quote:
And STBXMRSSP, about 18 months ago, turned the same age her mother was when her mother was diagnosed with the cancer that took her life.
it's huge. again, not that you can do anything about it. but it's like a time bomb ticking away in their brains, now having exploded; one can anticipate it and "do the work" if one chooses. She didn't choose to.
Quote:
someone I haven't ever spoken to and someone who has gone through it and someone who only "exists" as 0's and 1's, would all arrive at the same conclusion.
hmmmm...I'm guessing I'm the 0's and 1's. that would explain a few things....
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
I suppose it was more helpful to me in the beginning to have a label for what happened. Ironically, I'm not at all sure the label fits my sitch for a variety of reasons which I won't belabor here. Either that or it's MLC overlaid on an exacerbation of chronic narcissistic personality disorder (just as I think yours is a combination of MLC and borderline). And in the end, it doesn't matter a hill o' beans what the name of the "disorder" is. We and our Themselves will spend the next several years putting ourselves back together after whatever-it-was sucked the souls out of the people we married and thought we knew better than anyone else on the planet. Might as well be schizoaffective disorder, fugue state, or something else that does have a formal DSM-IV code, or full-tilt-crazy or f'in' nuts (ER diagnoses). Doesn't really change a thing. Having a label gives us something to hang onto and perhaps even something to help predict how the next few years will play out in dealing with the aliens we married. But it doesn't change anything. It just sucks, and it sucks worse than anything I've ever experienced.
That's as right as the mail.
"Always go straight forward, and if you meet the devil, cut him in two and go between the pieces." - William Sturgis, clipper ship captain, 1830's.
We and our Themselves will spend the next several years putting ourselves back together after whatever-it-was sucked the souls out of the people we married and thought we knew better than anyone else on the planet... It just sucks, and it sucks worse than anything I've ever experienced.
Summed up, perhaps, more powerfully than anything I've read on these boards.
Gardener
"My soul, be satisfied with flowers, With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them In the one garden you may call your own." Cyrano deBergerac
