My wife's midlife crisis

[kiro]

Hi FaceMan, I just read your thread from the beginning. I could copy paste your introduction post exactly for my story as well as most of your other posts. Yes, it is the exact same script I heard as well.

Before I read the post where you said your W left, I wanted to warn you not to expect anything and that she could leave any day. My W too exhibited very contradictory behaviors and mixed messages the last few months before leaving. Very common signs for MLC.

You are lucky your W is still a good mother. But expect anything to happen. My W is one of the MLCers who checked out from her kids almost entirely. I like what Gerda said that her kid doesn't remember what her old H was before BD. I don't think my W realizes that. She thinks that she has done enough for her kids and it's ok now to neglect them. She thinks they will continue to remember how she was before.

About the script, my W even told me before leaving that she knows she could be happy in our marriage if she tried to work on it, but that she consciously decides not to do that because she has changed and this is not what she wants.

FM, you are asking very good questions about MLC. Why do they behave like this? Is it all them or is it us? What is the end game?

I like what Ciluzen had to say about that. Like all LBSs here, I have read everything there is to read about MLC from the point of view of the LBSs. But I have avoided to read anything from the other point of view. And I think this is part of what is missing. Every time I open an article about MLC that encourages independence, leaving your bad relationships and starting over, I disregard what I am reading as BS. There are plenty of books, articles, forums, videos for people in MLC, but the topics are not very encouraging. So I avoid them.

My point is that people in MLC have their own resources that they read and they have their own support groups. They are in pain and in crisis. They encourage each other to move on. And the world is filled with people who do not believe in marriages or in long term relationships.

I also like what AndreP had to say "Is the apparent change in personality and behaviour part of something that is changing them or is it the them that they always were at their core?”

So what is the end game? I have now accepted that my old marriage is gone forever and that my kids will never live the same family life again. I am still hopeful of a future reconciliation, but I don't expect anything. And I know that my W will not be the same woman anymore regardless of the outcome.