@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....
