My H's father had a brutal MLC. Lots of time in replay. Lots of cake eating.
My H has been talking about his dad more frequently. H still has tremendous anger/disgust toward his dad but I know now that he is going through his own MLC my H understands, deep down, what his father was going through. I imagine it must be scary for him as his father is the last person with whom he would want to identify.
As for my MIL-H's childhood home was rife with dysfunction. Early on he told me he coped by hiding in his closet. Now, when home he stays in downstairs bedroom except at dinner time or to come out for water, etc. When H got old enough he stayed out of his childhood house 24/7-trigger his replay! Same "coping" patterns re-surfacing.
Of course I should have seen the red flags, which begs the question: I assume these individuals with traumatic childhoods and poor coping skills either consciously and/or unconsciously seek out a spouse that ignores the early signs of dysfunction due to her own childhood issues?
Me 41, H 47, M 15 yrs, S11, S13 BD 1: 11/4/14 we work on it; really I pretzel myself BD 2: 3/31/15 H goes down to "dorm room" 8/15: H back to MBR 10/15: H back in dorm room 1/18: H files, now divorced
