That sounded like a truly horrendous meeting--yet your strength in picking yourself up afterwards is always impressive.
I remember well how trying to talk to H until he reached his "Awakening" was an exercise in futility. It was like beating my head against a rubber wall--absolutely nothing got through. Although his excuses were far-fetched and ludicrous, they seemed to buoy him up.
As long as you are unable to get through to him, make sure you're working on a Plan B of your own, since your young teenage business partner is not going to be able to help you until he gets his ability to reason like an adult back. Many MLCers do end up bankrupt. Is there any way you can save something of the business for yourself?
Happy Birthday, by the way! It sounds as though your friend organized a really lovely celebration for the 4 of you.
Hey Mila. Read your latest posts. Happy belated birthday?
Don't beat yourself up about the conversation you had with H. It was real and how you feel. It is business. Don't dwell, right?
I think Cyrena is correct - what is your plan b?
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" MLK Put the glass down... "Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."
SCH- very well said....I think that your assessment of H's existential strugle is spot on.
Golf girl - I will protect myself....more and more I see that this will have to go all the way.....he is nowhere near the end of his replay....I'm on my own.
Lance & SA - today the mask came off - H's depression is still very much there...going on strong, but he's been masking it quite well...medicating with "love" for OW. I will try to describe the state he is in when I recap my today's meeting with H - maybe after work....I'll have more time to do that.
Punkin - thanks...I'm not sorry for anything I said yesterday....he had it coming....and I don't mean it in a bad way....just that he needed shaking up...business wise.
Golfgirl - ice cream and meditation are both good remedies
CW - thanks for the good vibes
GAG -
Quote:
Just curious.........does H have something to fall back on if (God forbid) your business accounts dipped for awhile?
No - only on OW (I guess that answer has a bit of a double meaning lol)
cyrena -
Quote:
Many MLCers do end up bankrupt
I know that and it will break my heart if it happens to our business....:(
AJM - I was very upset after yesterday's meeting, but I actually didn't regret saying the things I said. Working on plan B & C....
M53 H54 D17 M33Y T38Y Bomb OW 09/09 OUT 10/09 BACK 11/09 OUT 01/10 WANTS TO R 04/10 BACK with OW 05/10 Wants to Reconcile 05/11 I said NO
Seeking Answers--if that last wasn't a rhetorical question, the answer is that their sense of entitlement is in direct proportion to the damage done in their childhoods, when their basic emotional needs were not met. Of course, the MLCers are misdirecting the anger which they couldn't express as children. They are acting out and reasoning like children, which is why they are so self-centred.
Looking at them, we think, "But they were able to keep it together and behave like adults for the last 20 years--why are they choosing to do this now?" But it's really not a choice, it's a compulsion to finally deal with the hurt they were dealt as children. Once they are in the grip of depression, they can't shake it off unless they can make it to the other side of their MLC.
.........the MLCers are misdirecting the anger which they couldn't express as children. They are acting out and reasoning like children, which is why they are so self-centred.................... it's really not a choice, it's a compulsion to finally deal with the hurt they were dealt as children. Once they are in the grip of depression, they can't shake it off unless they can make it to the other side of their MLC.
Cyrena, I like the way you phrased this. It's interesting that you describe this as a compulsion. My H/XH has always been very irritable about being asked to do anything to help with meal preparation, including flipping meat on a grill and rinsing salad greens. I never understood this but didn't question it. It was part of the package I got with him, but on about 6 occasions during the 5 years we were together I had to ask H/XH to do one of these things or the food would have been burned........When XH was deep in replay, in one of our convos he said to me "My first wife was the only person who never asked me to so much as rinse salad greens." (He offered this as partial justification for why he was leaving the M.) ...........Fast forward to 2 weeks ago, I was talking to XH's sister and asked her why XH has such an aversion to helping with meals. I asked "Was it because your mother was drunk at dinnertime and he associates negative feelings with meal preparation because of that?" X-SIL said "Mom never cooked", so it seems that XH was trying to recreate his childhood dinnertime situation in all of his adult Rs with women. .......we always ate our meals by candlelight with music H/XH put on the mp3 player. We decompressed from the day and reconnected, so mealtime for us was happy, but H/XH still carried this childhood aversion re: meal preparation.
Mila, sorry to hijack and put this here. Cyrena's post reminded me of this "unsolved mystery". Kinda wondering if anyone else has experienced unexplained compulsions in their WASs?
Mila, hope your meeting today went better. Will be watching for your post.
I can see now looking back that my H was leading up to the MLC. What makes them suddenly snap and lose reality? My H left everything I thought he held near and dear and had worked for all his life, not to mention his children. We were a tight family unit and he threw it all away.
Do they ever wake up as suddenly as they seemed to have snapped? I'm not saying back to normal but asking themselves what they were thinking?
Looking at them, we think, "But they were able to keep it together and behave like adults for the last 20 years--why are they choosing to do this now?" But it's really not a choice, it's a compulsion to finally deal with the hurt they were dealt as children. Once they are in the grip of depression, they can't shake it off unless they can make it to the other side of their MLC.
Yep. Exactly. It's a slow roast, not a pan seared kind of thing. And nobody likes their meat undercooked, right?
We will serve no MLC'r until their time. Or something like that
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" MLK Put the glass down... "Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."
Interesting discussion....I believe that many things come into play to create the "perfect storm"....the childhood issues were likely buried deep inside and never dealt with....I know that H certainly had them....His dad left when his mom was pregnant with H and she was keeping a diary throughout her pregnancy and after H was born....this diary came to H's possession when she passed away....that's 10 years ago....to this day he didn't have the courage to read that diary....always saying "I'm not ready for it yet"...."I'll read it one day".....like he is afraid of what's in it.
Now to my yesterday's meeting. H didn't want to meet at Starbucks (he said that he was really cold there day before yesterday ???), but wanted to come to the house....I said that that's probably not a good idea, because my house is full of people and we wouldn't have any privacy. I suggested to go to his place....there was a long pause...hesitation and finally he said "OK....I guess that I'll have to clean up". I answered that he doesn't have to on my account.
Anyway we had our meeting there. This is the first time that I was in his apartment in months...last time was when he wanted to come back in April... I think. Nothing much changed there....no new furniture....just the same office furniture that he took from here, sad bachelor pad...he still has moving boxes in the living room lined up against the wall. No visible traces of OW. His bedroom door was open, he is still sleeping on the inflatable mattress. He actually brought it up saying that he has to do something about the bed because his back really hurts from it. Prescription pill boxes in the bathroom...probably his antidepressants...couldn't read the labels without my reading glasses. Battery of empty (expensive) beer bottles in the kitchen....he never used to drink so much beer....
H started the meeting on defensive....saying "First of all I wanted to clear up something, You keep accusing me that I'm gone for 2 weeks every month and it's not true, last time I was gone was in June" (HUH???) So the 2 weeks in July apparently don't count because that was his holiday and the 2 weeks in August he is just ignoring...and the months since January to June don't even count?....Anyway this is something that he is fighting in his mind trying to convince himself and me....seems to be very important to him to believe that he is not gone this much.
The other issue he is fighting "You don't think that I'm working when I'm gone, but I'm, it's not that I'm having fun all the time". I told him that I'm trying to separate private issues from business and that he is free to do what he wants on his own time, but that I'm concerned about business. When he is out of town there is very little communication from him, we don't work as a team and I don't see any results of this hard work he keeps talking about. "Show me the money" as Jerry McGuire would say.....
The discussion got heated....he was fighting every point that I made. I told him what I was working on in the past 2 weeks and asked him to recap to me what he'd done to get any new business and he didn't have anything to tell me and instead got defensive saying that I'm interrogating him. Eventually it turned into a fight....
I was crying by this time and just wanted to defuse it. So I said "Look at us, in 37 years we've never fought like this, we worked great together, we could overcome anything, we had love and respect for each other...and then this affair happened and look at us now" His reply "So it's all my fault".....
That's when he broke down, started sobbing so hard and couldn't stop....I felt such a rush of tenderness and pity I walked over and hugged him, he was sitting down, so the hug was kind of awkward, he got up and hugged me too, crying on my shoulder...I felt the connection....it's still there. When he calmed down a bit, he thanked me for the hug and started talking....
Few things that he acknowledged for the first time.
Before he always said that he left ME not D and our family...he fought hard to believe that, this time he admitted that he left the family.
Admitted also that his mental state last year contributed to drop in business, he worked but but only on things that he could mentally handle, was so down that he couldn't make himself be upbeat and talk to clients, so he would keep himself busy doing other stuff but not able to go "out there" getting jobs.
Said that talking to me about business brings him down so much that it takes him couple of days to recover, that he wants to be nice to me as he was before, but he has a wall up to protect himself, otherwise he would brake down.
Can't sleep, feels incredible guilt, thinks that I think that he is a looser that can't do anything right, liar and a horrible person with no values and integrity....but he can't believe that about himself, otherwise there would be no point going on living....he is the same person as before.....
He paused and waited for my reply....I was quiet thinking what to reply.....he asked almost desperately "don't you have anything to say to that?"
I chose my words carefully and said that I've always loved him for who he was, his values, his honesty and and integrity, for always trying to do the right thing. In the past year he's has made mistakes that he probably regrets, and that he didn't behave like the person that I knew all these years. But I've never though of him as a looser or a horrible person, I know that the person that I loved, respected and cherished is still there somwhere...
He broke down again, thanking me....I felt so sorry for him he looked so broken and in so much pain.....
So no not everything is good and happy in his world....despite him continuing with OW.
The rest of the meeting took on a completely different tone. I agreed to give it a last push and suggested a plan of action...which he was happy for...seems like he is looking to me to drive this...now lets see if he comes through.
M53 H54 D17 M33Y T38Y Bomb OW 09/09 OUT 10/09 BACK 11/09 OUT 01/10 WANTS TO R 04/10 BACK with OW 05/10 Wants to Reconcile 05/11 I said NO
