We transition from a newborn, to a toddler, to a youth, to a pre-teen, to a teenager, to our College years, to our child-rearing years, to our late child-rearing years (for lack of a better definitive word), to the big 4 0 , to our midlife, to our retirement, to our golden years on the rocking chair fairy tale....
You get the point...
Most people can transition through those phases with very little trouble. Transition is easier when we are taught HOW to transition, or we have emotional support through those times.
When one or more of those "transitional" phases gets interrupted, or becomes non-existent through emotional turmoil in our younger years, they tend to "stack up" , and restrict the flow of healthy emotional behavior.
What is normal for most, becomes the ultimate struggle for those that have un-resolved transitional problems.
Most will reach a point in their lives when they can no longer function as a person inside of their own skin. The turmoil can fester for YEARS, until they reach a breaking point (what we call the bomb).
The majority of people (in MLC), are quite unaware, and usually combined with the lack of self-reflection. They feel as though they are victims of their circumstance. They FEEL as though they are in touch with them self, and all rational thought ceases. It HAS to be someone else's fault here. It simply cannot be them...
When they lash out, and they simply cannot function, they attack the very thing that is the closest thing to them.....the spouse. The MLCer will run on pure emotion, and act out on "feelings" rather than reality. They are entitled to the things that they have missed, and they are a victim of every one's actions except their own.
They become "runners" from the inner demons that haunt them, as they try to put distance between them self and the things that they feel, hurt them the most.
The reason that it is called "replay" , is that they are trying to re-live the things that they have been cheated out of in this life (or so they feel). Trying to capture all that was missed within those transitional periods...
Revisiting them, can come in many different forms. and while a lot of what you wrote (and most here could write) is the catalyst for the MLC, there are certain "triggers" throughout that will start the train into motion...
