With MLC everything is longer. With MLC your goal is to outlast their crisis, and your hope is that their crisis doesn't last long.
^^ That is a good advice. It should come with a caveat that "there is no guarantee" that the MLCer will come out of the crisis, if ever.
This is a tricky tightrope for the LBS with a MLCer spouse. How long do they "wait out" the MLC? At their own expense? Frittering away their life just waiting out the MLC if those MLCers are truly stuck with Bea's and Job's XHs come to mind when there are other healthy people out there who ARE INTERESTED in you.
At what point does one say, "it ain't working for me any more. I have too much self-worth to fritter away any more time."
I sense that it is where GoatGal is at the present moment. What I am seeing happen more and more is that GoatGal has truly taken off her rose-colored glasses and seeing things much more clearer that will inform her decisions going forward.
Why do I say those things? It is because I know this family friend of ours who I've known for most of my life and she was one of my late father's closest friends. She was married to a man who was alcoholic. She did/tried everything to outlast it with the hope that he would overcome this dreadful disease.
Then one day, she just had enough. So they got a divorce (they have two adult daughters). Not too long after her divorce, she met a wonderful man and married him years later. They're now very happy together and she's experiencing new adventures with him by taking sailing trips around Florida and the Caribbean.
Contrast that new lifestyle with the "stuck in a place" alongside her alcoholic former husband who she loved dearly. At some point, we all have to say, "Eh, this isn't working for me any longer. I am outta here!"
I guess the issue is that there's no real "yardstick" on how long a spouses stands with their MLCer.
