MGoBlue - as always an interestig post, but not one I fully agree with!
My h said something veryinteresting a couple of months ago - he said I feel as if someone else has been living my life for the last 16 months, and I don't like it, it isn't the real me. The person he was for 16 months was unrecognizable to everyone who knew him.
I believe that there is a verifiable external reality. Our reality corresonds to this to a greater or lesser extent. When our internal reality is seriously out of kilter with external reality we are in crisis. {I am not talkig about societal norms, by the way here, but a deeper, spiritual reality]
However I also believe for more damaged people there is a pattern of repeated suffering, [and there is an interesting book called 'Healing in the Family chain']. I do know MLCers that have worked through their crisis, and got back together, and are several years on, and very happy. Nothing about them suggests that they are putting on any kind of show.
Is marriage changing - well, marriage fulfills a variety of needs, but I see a surprisingly stable pattern of ideas about marriage in writings across the ages.
At its best it is a physical and spiritual bond between two people who have large areas of compatibility, but enough individuality to interest each other. There needs to be all kinds of equalities 'Be not unevenly yoked together', as the Bible has it. It is a source of comfort, joy, solace, security.
Just as healthy people are robust, so healthy marriages will survive a lot of abuse.
I continue to believe that MLC is a spiritual/emotional sickness, which has to be resolved, and which causes teh MLCer to reject what they previously loved. yes, their view of marriage is their current reality, but it is a shifting one.
My h tells a different story every time he opens his mouth. The children's view, and mine, is curiously stable. We don't need to go back and reinterpret past events to suit the current situation. We don't need to rewrite hisotry, deny that we uttered words we didn't mean, made plans we had no intention of honouring.
I do believe that what had happened to us can be positive, but if my h doesn't learn from it, then he will fail to develop to his fullest potential.
I truly do not know and recognise the person he was in full-blown MLC. Neither does anyone else. Now we get intermittent glimpses of the person we knew and loved, and he gradually becomes happier, but he is still in a lot of pain.
So yes, I think MLC had to happen to my h, and I think he CAN work through it, and resolve a lot of issues from his childhood, and rebuild his relationships. He doesn't have to, and we will all be fine. Diminished by the loss of the person he was, unless the person he can be emerges fully. Just MO - I am still going through this, and in general, feeling good about what is going on, in an odd sort of way. I do see it as a pilgrimage, that I ddin't want to undertake, but that has led me to a better place. If my h wants to join me there, I think we could be happy together, but I will be fine.
