just some thoughts from B

[seeking answers]

Sounds all to familiar. H could recall very little from his childhood. I've always thought maybe he just didn't want to remember.

Another piece fits now, thank you all. I always wondered why with a not so wonderful childhood myself that I did not have my own MLC. I realized even while going through it that this wasn't the way a 'regular' family should function.

B,

Did you recognize that too while growing up?

It sounds like you strived to make sure you didn't raise your son as you were raised.

[cat04]

I'm not B (no where near as kind or gentle ), but I would like to chime in...

Much of what has been said here is so common among MLCer's and ourselves.

My H told me "it is time for me to be selfish" about his crisis. He has always been somewhat selfish and selfcentered. That one actually made me laugh.

Personally, I am the one who is missing childhood memories...

My childhood, like many, was not the best...

Seeking,

Why didn't you have the MLC? Why didn't I? Truth...

I had a crisis. I ran from everything, destroyed much in my life and I did it in high speed. For about a year and a half, when I was 20. I said much of what we hear from our beloved MLCer's. I acted much in the way that they do. And I was miserable. Not only was I NOT fixing my problems, I was hurting people and creating more problems. I knew things were getting worse instead of better and I missed my friends, my family, my BF.

I woke up one day, with people who were abusing drugs and drinking (which I had done very little of, this was not a period of drug addiction for me) and were way beneath the way I wanted my life to be, I looked in the mirror and asked myself "what the fcuk are you doing?"

I made changes. I went back and asked for forgivness. I did what I could to repair the damage. It took a long time and it was scary. I still didn't look as far in the mirror as I should have, but I was young and didn't really know that I needed to. I changed things, but I didn't do much about the underlying causes.

I didn't recognize this as an emotional crisis until much later. For a long time, I wrote it off to my youth. When I saw it for what it was, it gave me the insight to understand what my H, and all of our spouses here, are experiencing to a degree. It also allowed me to finally deal with and put to rest for a last time, many of my demons.

Exorcising my demons, allowed me to also release my anger at my H. The anger I had for his actions before and during his MLC. To see him with the compassionate heart that Brooklyn talks about. To still hold love for him in my heart.

So Seeking, are you so sure you didn't have a crisis or a transition? I think we all go through stuff at different points in our life...

The abuse list is great, I am not going to say that it isn't, however, we have to be careful to NOT see every action as abusive. That allows us to step into the victim role too easily.

No one here says to "excuse" the behavior of our spouses, or ourselves. On the contrary, the key is to learn to understand it for what it really is, change anything that you don't like about yourself so that you don't have to try to "excuse" anything, and be able to have compassion for those we deal with that are not yet able or ready to deal with their own demons.

I can promise you all something...when you really kill your demons, I mean really really kill them, they don't come back to haunt you...

So if something keeps popping up every now and then, it is time to dig deeper...eventually, you will find the bottom

[Truegritter]

I too do not remember a lot of my childhood.

My sister is my memory keeper of those years.

She remembers every detail. Mostly the bad stuff is what she holds for me.

I did have a crisis looking back. It was triggered by my D. I guess.

I just ran away. To another town. Then another business.

Not sure if I could put it into the MLC stages.

I think maybe I was still in it when I met W.

It was a good six + year long one.

[seeking answers]

Cat,

I am not saying I didn't have transitions. I've had many. I had begun to realize why I had done the things I had done. While taking full responsibility for my actions I could make the connections for why I made the choices I made. I started thinking along these lines long ago.

Since H's MLC it has become even clearer to me. That came from looking in the mirror. Still doing the work and expect to till I'm six foot under.

I did not have a crisis that caused me to turn my back on family and friends at any time through out my life, at least not yet anyways.

No, I don't see all actions as abusive. I don't believe that my husband went through intentional abuse in the least. He lost his father at 9 and his mother was devastated and didn't ever get past it. That much he could remember.

I believe where the MLC comes in, at least in part, is that he does not correlate the pain that was not dealt with or expressed from that, to what he is going through now.

[punkin]

Me? I actually had a wonderful childhood for many years. I was a late life child, and spoiled crazy, until my mother became ill with cancer when I 10, and died when I was 14. Those years are pretty blurry, but not completely. I like to think they made me a stronger, more resilient person.

My husband was never abused. He might have been embarrassed, as his father was mistakenly diagnosed as schitzophrenic when he was 12 or 13 ( it was bipolar ) and locked away for awhile. Up until then he had been the typical Air Force Brat.

I don't see these as adequate excuses for their actions now. Suck it up and drive on.

[handlingplanb]

In the beginning of all this my H justified his need to leave because he viewed our marriage as "C" level - which by most standards is average. Hard to not try to point out that that meant there had to be some "A" stuff mixed in-----and I tried. Did no good.

When pointing out all that he felt that he had given and what he had given up he said he would find it hard to beleive that I felt like I gave up anything. I did. I gave up a lot. I gave and gave and gave - for him, for our marriage and our family. What it left me was a 40 something year old woman who didn't know she was supposed to make HERSELF happy (or how to do it). Now I know and am working it out.

My H is moving on. Becoming more distant from me (only). He bought his own house (+40 acres) in October. He learned last week that if you leave for 4 days in the winter the pipes will freeze. He seems to have more anger towards me, for no apparent reason. I think he's finding that even with the $.5 million house he's not happy, but I might be making that up. Could be that, and could be that his anger is building because I still have not filed for divorce like he wants me to do.

MLC? I don't know anymore. ALIEN invasion? I think so. I've been at this for 3 years now. 30 years together. I'm finally getting to the point that I think I can admit that my M is dead. I don't know that I know him anymore.

Rambling - and sorry, B. I just had to add some of my own wacky wasband-isms.