Great discussions here! This may have been stated elsewhere above, but I really think that for at least some of the MLCers, this drama reminds them of a familiar family of origin dynamic (i.e. XH's mother was a recovering alcoholic) and may also release happy brain chemicals (e.g. dopamine) in the same way that scary movies, gambling, and adventure sports do. (My apologies to the literary folks out there for that long, run-on sentence above. :-P )
After the bomb, one of my wise neighbors (older woman) told me that she had observed in life that people from alcoholic families, who don't choose to change this dynamic, seem to seek chaos. 3 1/2 years post-bomb I see this pattern more clearly for XH. His 1st W had OCD and was anorexic. She was in and out of treatment for the last 5 years of their M. When I met H/XH I thought that was an indication of his level of commitment to M, but in retrospect I'm not so sure........XH's BMF has 2 illegitimate children and is a serial dater (lots of drama there). Once H/XH and I neared the end of our home remodeling project (this lasted 3 years) and life settled down, H/XH started getting really antsy. I WAS working too much but I didn't realize what a dangerous period this was for our M. H/XH has a need to socialize all the time that I think for him is a mood elevator. At that point in time I wasn't supplying his drug of choice so he made our R exciting again by dropping the bomb.
