imLin..it would be really cool if your H could come on this site and post what happened to him..his thoughts thru it all, etc. I have found a few threads from men who have gone thru or are going thru MLC and it's very interesting to hear what they have thought about while in it. I realize that everyone is different, but the similarities between people going thru MLC are such that maybe they could give us LBSers some insight. In a general way.
It is like a mental illness. Depression, MLC, major life transition, manopause..many terms for the same thing. IMO.
My H would not be open to this forum...infact he doesn't even know about it and for many reasons I wish to keep it that way...knowing him as I do he would/does not want to talk about what happened...it is all too painful to him and due to his ongoing battle with depression he avoids those things that trigger it...
That being said, I also disagree that Depression and MLC are the same thing...although they are hand-in-hand at times. My sister suffered from depression but she was not a MLC'er...I have suffered from depression but am far from being a MLC'er...however, MLC'ers do suffer from depression...and possibly depression leads to MLC...but then you get into the chicken or the egg being first...
My H still deals with depression, takes meds, and takes care of himself emotionally...so while he may be depressed at times he is no longer in MLC.
I hope this helps clear it up...and then again, you may have just meant that all of them are terms for various types of depressions...they type not being so much the issue as the title it brings.
imLin is absolutely right. It would stop being a communacative, helpful forum and become a Jerry Springer episode. I don't believe an MLC'r can tell you what they feel or are going through because they don't know, and what they do know is false, for the most part.
As I've imparted, my husband and I first went through this 8 years ago. When he left in March, he said something that has stuck in my brain and heart, and cuts me very deeply. He said "You're not doing to me what you did before . . . " What did I do? Stand for the marriage? Wait it out. Be there for him when he crashed, and then wait faithfully for 18 months while he was deployed overseas?
IF my husband and I come through this intact - big IF at this point- the one thing I want him to explain to me is that comment.
Having those bad dreams again. Wake up reaching for my husband across the bed. Wish those would stop.
When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I've got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.
Suddenly I didn't know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly.
She didn't seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?
I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn't talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn't love her anymore. I just pitied her!
With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company.
She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.
The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn't have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane.
When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.
In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn't want anything from me, but needed a month's notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month's time and she didn't want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.
This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day.
She requested that every day for the month's duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.
I told Jane about my wife's divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.
My wife and I hadn't had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don't tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.
On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn't looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.
On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me.
On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn't tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.
She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.
Suddenly it hit me... she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.
Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it's time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.
But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn't noticed that our life lacked intimacy.
I drove to office.... jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind...I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.
She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won't divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn't value the details of our lives, not because we didn't love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart.
Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away.
At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I'll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.
That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed - dead. My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push thru with the divorce.-- At least, in the eyes of our son--- I'm a loving husband....
The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse's friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage!
If you don't share this, nothing will happen to you.
If you do, you just might save a marriage. Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
In thinking about it, you're right. The thoughts of an MLCer are so confusing it would probably be like being in the middle of a hurricane to be privy to their reasonings. And in the end, we wouldn't really know anything anyway, cuz they change their minds from one day to the next..heck..from one minute to the next. I'm still stuck on the fact that MLC is so prevalent..and why no one really knows about it and the depth of it until they have to go thru it with someone. That's just weird to me. It should really be a major topic for these news shows..20/20, Nightline, etc. Even if only to give the LBSs a heads up and what NOT to do if they see it starting. Seems like all of us LBSs didn't know what hit us and all did the wrong things until we found info about it..and that was like digging for a needle in a haystack. It's absolutely SHOCKING to me how devastating this whole thing is to everyone connected with the MLCer. Just Shocking. My H thinks that he is just finally maturing..and that is the reason for his sudden personality flip flop. He says he's been feeling this way about me and about his life for years. BullSh!t is all I have to say about that. You can tell when someone isn't happy with you and that was not the case until the triggers snapped him into the twilight zone. I think most of the LBS behavior is linked to that Shock..you just stand there with your mouth hanging open, looking at this weird person who isn't remotely like the loveable, sweet person you used to know. WTH? I've said that in my mind so many times..it's permanently burned into one of the lobes..WTH???
Okay. I'm pissed. H called this a.m. to say he was coming down tomorrow with papers, could I read and sign them as his closing was on Thursday. I told him to mail them to me, I was at work. He then emailed me that he was coming to Mena anyway and that as long as he was here . . . .I notified my lawyer, who said this was the strangest thing he had ever heard of. Also, H asked about the all important trunk under the house and file.
I practically broke my back dragging this huge black military trunk out from under the house, opened it and it was full of . . .
Thousands of cards & letters that I sent him while he was in Iraq. That's all. No uniforms. No military records.
It's too heavy for me to load into the truck, so I told him he would have to come out here and pick it up himself.
WTH??? How can he have a closing scheduled when I haven't even SEEN these so called papers. I asked him what he used for a down payment. No answer as of yet.
ME: 54 Him: 51 M: 20 years T: 21 years OW/New wife: 36 Sons & Daughters: 7 (ages 24-36) Bomb: March 4, 2010 He Filed: April 28, 2010 I Contested: May 1, 2010 Standing Down: 11/24/10 Divorced : 05/04/2011
