I have been reading some of AmyC's posts and have found some of them quite good. I joined the forum after she stopped posting so I guess I never had the pleasure to MEET her. I know some of the older posters speak very highly of her.
For the Newbies she did have her own MLC and she speaks of it in some of these POSTS.
Unfortunately one of the threads that really described it has been purged from the archives.
However I think this may help some people and I will post it in this and two more posts.
Discussion is then welcomed.
Amy C 6/16/06
As an exWAS, I have to say, I think I EXPECTED that my husband knew the things that pissed me off...so I never really even tried to talk about it. I guess I was under that stupid impression that if he loved me, he'd change (God, was I THAT ignorant!? UGH!) So it really did just snowball and instead of trying to talk about it reasonably like an adult, I got derailed by MLC and then couldn't even manage to form a coherent friggin sentence that would begin to explain the garbage in my head. BUT, while IN the MLC, I told my husband that he'd had plenty of time to turn things around. It's just too bad he didn't have a crystal ball.
So don't sweat it Lissett. You either, Hope. Until I started reading this thread, I had really forgotten all about telling my husband that nonsense. Just goes to prove that an MLCer, for the most part, is not in his or her right mind.
Now I just wonder what else I have forgotten....
Amy
6/22/06 There are a few things you have yet to grasp about MLC.
1) We (the MLCer) will comb through every aspect of the past to get a handful of "reasons" we will tell YOU that it is over and should have been back then.
2) Whatever the MLCer says, he or she really means it WHEN THEY ARE SAYING IT.
3) Neither of the above will apply on the other side of the tunnel. Half of it won't even be remembered at all.
But as long as your husband is in MLC (and I really believe he is) he's not reliable, his memory is not reliable, his entire view of the future is not reliable. Nothing he says, feels or does while in MLC will be the same once he is out. The only thing that will be the same are the bruises and scars YOU carry because of all he has done.
There's a wall going up around your heart now. It's going to get higher. That is not necessarily a bad thing under these circumstances. The layers will peel away when the time comes to rebuild, if YOU choose to do so.
The only question now is what will he do when he comes out of the tunnel and deals with life on life's terms?
Will he continue on puffed up by foolish pride and afraid to let anyone see his real feelings over the horror he has caused?
Or will he turn around, learn, grow and try to make up for it all?
Only time will tell.
As you know, you can't stop living your life.
But you also don't have to rewrite your memories of the past to agree with his temporarily warped perception of things.
Just read something on the web about a fellow (John Folk-Williams) who went through depression and describes the experience, especially in regards to how it affects their thoughts of their spouse:
(re-posted for educational purposes) "The longing to leave one’s intimate partner brings out something that isn’t much discussed in descriptions of depression. It is the active face of the illness. We often focus on the passive symptoms, the inactivity, the isolation, sense of worthlessness, disruption of focused thought, lack of will to do anything. But paradoxically the inner loss and need can drive depressed people to frenzied action to fill the great emptiness in the center of their lives. They may long to replace that inadequate self with an imagined new one that makes up for every loss. "
The reason I post that here is to perhaps point to how depression, as what is believed the underlying condition throughout MLC, may be a factor in the MLCer's drive to fill the void they feel within themselves. Even desperately so, at an aggressive pace. Can anyone say "OP" and "replay"?
