Bea, I'll share my thoughts w/you. I've spoken to quite a few divorced individuals (non-mlcers) about the prospects of remarriage and they have told me that they are very cautious to the second time around as they did not want to have the same thing happen again. They put a lot of thought into their divorces and worked to separate property, etc., w/the lbs. True, some got ugly, but for the most part, they didn't act out like ours did. In fact, several of the men told me that they had never seen anything like what happened.
Some may have invested in the marriage, but I bet it wasn't like the investments that we made...mlc is just the craziest thing and until you've walked our path, no one will ever understand it completely and why we have such a difficult time w/separation/divorce.
BTW, Frank Pittman is right on the money. I've read his books and he's very good.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
My lawyer - a very experienced divorce lawyer in her late 50s, said she had never come across a divorce like mine before.
On the issue of investment in the marriage. I honestly do not know. If you asked me I would say I really believed that the marriage meant everything to my xh. I am not sure if I simply do not want to accept the idea that my xh always lacked commitment, or my xh was unusual, and was committed and then flipped.
The therapist that we saw briefly together, and I went on seeing, said that he thought my xh was in huge conflict, and loved me deeply.
In one sense it does not matter. The future is what matters, and how have handled the the situation up until is part of that. In another sense the truth of the past is important. Were my memories faulty or inaccurate?
Interestingly there have been several good novels published recently about the way in which memory forms an important part of our identity. My father died of Alzheimer's and I have see at first hand how the person is somewhat lost in their loss or distortion of memories.
Bea, Your memories were not faulty or inaccurate. We lived w/these men every day and to be perfectly honest w/you, I do think that they loved us, but their idea of love was not the same as how we thought it was. Your h may have been totally committed to the marriage and then at mid-life just flipped.
Most of the mlcers kept a part of themselves from us, hidden away for fear of us actually getting too close to really see just how vulnerable they were. They were damaged long ago and they didn't want us to see that. Most have never talked extensively about their pasts.
You are absolutely corret in stating that it really doesn't matter now, but in is very important that the truth from the past be out in the open. The way that we have handled our situations have made us better people and we have learned and continue to learn how to cope w/the day-to-day situations. Our futures are now what is important and our focus will have to move towards it.
Bea, please do not doubt yourself. You know what your marriage was like and believe me when I say this...had it been a bad or uncomfortable one, you would have known. You wouldn't have stayed in it as long as you did until he flipped.
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
That makes sense. I think there was always a part of him hidden, and if I am honest, I think there still is, and may always be. Maybe that is how they manage to live two lives. The one they had with us, and their new one.
We see over and over again here on these boards, the conflict that happens when they try and mix the two lives, or try and return to their partner. Somehow they cannot fuse or make sense of these two parts of themselves.
It is as if they have a sheet of glass around them. We can see them and speak to them but there is no real communication any more. That is sealed off. They may be angry and hateful or calm and cold, but they aren't 'there'.
At the beginning of my ex's mid life crisis he said something to me I will never forget. He said "you really don't know who I am". I really did know my ex inside and out. I new his strengths and weaknesses, I knew all his family baggage. It got to the point that he did not like that I knew all of this and ran. He chose the denial over his family.
Me: 46 H:44 Together: 25 years Married: 20 years Separated: 11-30-06 Divorced 12-21-07 OW: EA began 2005 PA began end of 2006 3 children,20, 16, 6 ex asked for forgiveness 01/16/11
Trusting you said this..."At the beginning of my ex's mid life crisis he said something to me I will never forget. He said "you really don't know who I am".
I can't remember where I read it, but I read somewhere reputable that the reason that MLCers say this is that only they know who they "really" are deep inside, and they have never allowed this person to authentically come out 100%. You can't even say the MLC personality is that authentic person, because often the MLC persona is an extreme reaction that is FIGHTING the inner person. So for this reason, when they claim we don't know them entirely, there is truth to this on some level. There is the truth that they let us see, and there is the truth they know.
When I met my XH he said he had a rough childhood. He also would say things like "oh I'm not like other people...but you can handle me." Then he was darn near perfect for 2 decades...but there were TIMES I saw that troubled side come out, and I downplayed it. In retrospect, he had a temper that he would turn on himself, not on me. He was depressed from time to time, but I could bring him out of it by suggesting a trip or something. He had serious insecurity issues, which he masked by saying things like "well he just wanted to be with me all the time." I turned all evidence of his problems or issues into benefits. I rationalized HIS behavior all the time. But the thing is, what I say here as negative behavior was something I might see only 4 times a YEAR. It was never enough to see a pattern. 95% of the time, we had a highly functioning marriage that made me very happy and secure, and even knowing what I know now, I still wouldn't have thought he was harboring this person he eventually became. NO way.
When he had his MLC trigger, he said "I've been pretending to be ok with things when I haven't been. I am tired of pretending." He sometimes said that the pretending went on a year or two and other times he said the entire relationship. This of course threatened me, and so I became very angry and very controlling. THEN he went total opposite, and he sort of went into this whole "well if I wasnt' happy doing XYZ for you, I'll do the opposite. I'll do everything in the moment. I will live by the seat of my pants. And if that includes jumping ship for OW, so be it. This is who I am."
I don't think it's really "who he is." I don't know who he is, and I don't know if he knows who he is because he's not in my life. I think at the core, the MLCer has serious issues of identity that he/she feels are so tough to face that either a section of their life or the ENTIRETY of their life is a series of roles they play to cope.
I'm not saying we don't all play roles. We do. But I think the difference between the MLCer and the non-MLCer is that the non-MLCer acknowledges the roles out loud, where the MLCer adopts the role, becomes it, insists to everyone around them that this is who they are and says they have NO confusion about it, when the truth is that confusion about who we are is a part of life.
When I had issues of identity during the time we were married, I talked about them. A lot. Maybe too much. He did not. Issues of identity are normal, but they become larger than life, I think, if you keep them in hiding.
Beatrice I don't know if this gives you any insight or not...my divorce lawyer told me outright that after 36 years in the practice, she had never seen a cheating husband treat me with the dignity in the divorce process that my XH did. In fact, she said that she thought he would never go through with the divorce because of the way he acted with the separation agreement. I got more than 50% in a state where a 50/50 split is dictated by law. My XH has also never said anything negative about me to others. With the number of mutual friends and acquaintances and the fact that we both are teachers in a VERY small state, I'd know if he had. And then, well, you all know the story of him helping me bury our cat. I think my XH loves me on a very deep level, but I think he's also decided that what he did was so unforgivable (and the OW is good enough for him and flatters his ego) that he is taking the past of least resistance and staying put with his choice, and I think many of these MLCers do the same.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
Antonia, I so deeply relate to the post you wrote. So much of it is broadly similar to my own experience that it is hard to pick out specific things that ring true. But wearing the masks is something that the therapist picked up on straight away.
My xh handled the whole divorce thing very differently - I think I have commented before on at least a couple of patterns they exhibit - one is to be 'nice' to varying degrees [if you discount the little matter of abandonment and infidelity!] In this case want desperately to think well of themselves. Your xh seems an extreme form of this. My xh displayed the opposite, of being really hateful to me and the children. [There are lots of spewers!] During the divorce process he lied, delayed, refused to answer questions he was obliged to do so until my lawyer had to get tough, and generally did all he could to give me as little as he possibly could. It was really spiteful. I refused to allow it to hurt me or see it as personal.
My therapist said he had seldom encountered anyone as deeply guarded as my xh, as out of touch with his real self. He is, and remains in deep denial, and it causes him huge conflict.
My xh also said he had been pretending to be happy, that he always felt like an outsider looking in and not able to join in. There was a pre-MLC family joke that xh was happiest in another room, knowing that his family was nearby and he could join in at any time. So yes, always a little detached.
I think many of us know that oftentimes if the MCer could put the clock back and not have done this,they would not now do it, but having done it, as you say, the path of least resistance is the one they take.
Antonia and Bea, I too find a bit of "opposite" behaviour in my W.
There is no real sign of boomerang... or any clinging... she has been venom and spew, pretty much all the way...
YET... in a recent dialog regarding the kids, she added thoughts about how the past year had been an emotional roller coaster for her, from anger to grieving to not caring to complete devastation...
When I validated and offered to be open and available if she wanted to further share her thoughts and feelings, she immediately went back into "guard mode" and retorted that she had NO intention nor desire to share her thoughts and feelings.
WTH? She had just done so... ???
And then, there's her offer of what she believes is very generous and gracious and giving of herself. Yet the moment I question it and not sign, it's spew and venom all the way and being blamed for making her (which she said she would never do; and I said I wouldn't agree to, before she even went to her L) get the SA drawn up...
I suppose that is an artifact of what are sometimes called the "off and on" and "vanishers". Why they do that, who knows... Self protection, I guess...
This is such a great thread. I love that the perspective is broad and objective and largely not focused in on the details of each person's situation. As has been said before, each MLCer and situation is slightly different, but then there's the script.
I see my H in a lot of what's been written here, the hiding, the roles that are assumed in order to cope, the depression, the fear, and my sense that he truly does love me very deeply there's just something in the way...
I vote for sticky!
me 45 H 46 T 5 M 2.5 BD Sept 6 2011 OW Sept 8 2011 Threw him out Sept 8 2011
???