Hello, I have been on newcomers board since early July, but find myself associating and relating with more of the information I read on this side of the tracks. Threads are still up on newcomer if you would like my back story. I have done a great deal of reading on the female MLC experience in a variety of locations. I would like to talk in this forum a bit and see if my suspicions as to an MLC being what I face with my W are more legitimate here. If not, feel free to take me out.
Really brief - W is in an active PA for 9 months. In house S for 1, sold house and been physically S since march. As you see in my sig, we have a 4 year old son. I am at the point where I feel detached, lost my fear, but do not want D because that is not what I want, because I still believe. Still want to fight, but am no longer doing so out of fear, loss or rejection.
So here is the short list of why I think my W is in MLC. Itemization just seems to make sense on the intro, its not meant to be a checklist, timeline, or diagnosis. Just what happened that make me curious about the MLC possibility, and I do believe an MLC was triggered in me or perhaps I had one and helped trigger hers:
- Broken family background w/ both of us. Abuse was physical, emotional, and sexual on both of us. - W had an alcoholic mother. I had an food addicted mother. Both our fathers checked out and stayed at work constantly while we were at home with monsters. - Both of us had parents who separated and got back together, in both cases the fathers left the mothers: W's for 3 years, mine for 5. - W's mother died at 48yrs old 15 years ago from drinking. - Both of us struggled with drugs, alcohol, and promiscuity in life. I did hide a pharma drug addiction from W for two years and the S led to me getting clean (over 6 months now). - W told me that we should have never gotten married, but she does not regret it. She said she wished we would have just stayed together w/ no marriage (she wanted M, I was reluctant). - W said marriage is a broken institution and does not work. - W said monogamy is a broken idea and is not real. - W said she does not deserve me or my love. - W said she began w/ her A as a way to punish herself, to reinforce that she is not a good person, but also that it is her body and she can do what she wants with it. - W has told me many times that she cares nothing for OM, that she is using him, that she does not know what he is, that he has no future w/ her, that he is bullsht, that he is entertainment, that he is dumb, that he lacks wherewithal, lacks drive, and lacks initiative, and that he is unable to show any kind of leadership in life (he was a co-worker). - W said she does not love OM - OM is 9 years younger than W, less attractive than her, significantly less income, and less social status. - W said she not longer feels beautiful and made many statements about fear of aging and losing her looks. - W has recently invested in thousands of dollars in glamor photos, dermatology items, botox, and other things. - W expressed she struggles w/ fear, anger, regret, and worthlessness. Said she has lost her own self-respect and dignity. - W said she uses OM because it helps distract her from confronting and thinking about the past or the future, only lives in the now. - W in M complained of feeling a loss of control, that she wanted space, wanted things of her own, said she never lived her own life by her own choices and that she wants to be free. - W said "wants to be alone to be an individual" - W said that she could not live in the expectations of mother/wife/homemaker or she would turn "into her mother" - W did not used to show me emotional support at start of A, but began to again over the summer - W lies about A and hides it from me, despite me having called her out on it three times. She could be open about it, but still chooses to pretend like it is a secret. - W is and always has been a bit of a control freak and goes insane with rage when she loses control. - W quit communication w/ a large portion of her family and some friends. - W has hidden A from all family and w/ exception of 1 old friend, all of her old friends. Told them all we are S b/c she was not built for marriage and gave no other reasons. - W has gotten a small group of new friends, all from work, and all know OM. I have never met them and before S, W stated she intentionally did not want me to meet them, but they know I exist. - W said when EA w/ OM, she told him that she was already D, but her and I lived in the same house to save money. - W said her M life was mundane and boring and she craved excitement and wanted new things she could have for herself. - W built a fake life on social media, including fake hobbies and fake education for things she always wanted to do, but never did. - W is a highly successful in corporate business w/ a high salary, reputation, and in a position of power. - W is extremely attractive and always has been (not a biased opinion, she is by anyone's standards.) - W has expressed that she still loves me, is in love with me, and would consider us being together again in a few years, but we damaged each other. Lat time said was less than a week ago. - W has hidden from OM that she has asked me on dates, wanted me to go on trips, asked me over for dinner, would cook meals and deliver them to me, and would clean my apartment all after S. Most of this stopped in July when I put an end to it, but she just asked me out a few days ago. - W has been upset around me, but only at me once when I told her I did not want s4 meeting OM and she did anyway. Just found out she did it again today. - W contacts me daily, I never initiate. Did three weeks of NC dim in late July/August.
That's it I guess, brain dump. See what you think please. Would love some input from this forum.
"There is no more important fight than the one for ourselves. Keep on winning." Ginger1, Read her newbies. BD: Feb '16 D: Mar '17 Piecing: Putting the self back together was my piecing. S6
Keep this to yourself. DO NOT share this book or this site at all with your spouse. It is your playbook and not to be shared with the "opposing" team.
It is important to clear the search/browsing history from your computer on a daily basis to prevent the possibility for your WAS to stumble on the DB site and discover your posts here on DB. Erasing the search history will protect your posts and you as well.
Sorry you are here but you will meet some wonderful people here and get some great advice.
You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts (for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support)
I have read a good deal of books on the subject and can give you some suggestions when you are ready.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
I will give you a bunch of homework assignments to read. This POST is under reconstruction and we will be working on this as time goes by, this is the most current version.
Now you have all the tools to read. Let us know how your doing and if you have any questions.
I suggest that you read the entire thread in the resources. You can also pick out some people and read their whole story.
Depression is the key to the whole thing and it is always present!
Believe none of what he/she says and 50% of what he/she does.
I would not ask him/her anything unless you can have no expectations. Sometimes asking them questions will be thought of as pressure. You do not want to do anything that can be thought of by your H/W as controlling or pressure.
Lets not worry about him/her. Lets work on you! Start your homework assignments. Something to DO while you are on moderation. GAL. Eat, sleep, exercise and take a deep breath. In general take care of your self first. Detach the single most important thing to DO.
Your H/W has given you a gift THE GIFT OF TIME use it wisely
None of us are professionals here and MLC isn't supported by roughly half of all mental health professionals...however.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
Your examples hit a lot of the text book markers that we here consider MLC.
With that being said. Welcome aboard. This is the best worst place you'll ever be.
You should have alot of support here if you continue to post. And while having vets offer you advice and guidance is like totally awesome...
What is ACTUALLY REALLY awesome is finding some poor soul a little ahead of you or a little behind you on this similar path and helping to support each other. Some of my best friends in the world came from the support here.
Take some time to go through the links that Cadet posted.
Feel free to ask questions and please start checking out other posters to get a feel for what is going on, see the advice they are getting as well.
Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn. - C.S. Lewis
Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B. - Jack3Beans
Listen without defending; Speak without offending - FaithinAK
CT1118 - I thought you might follow me over here. There's a lot of great people here who have a ton of experience and advice. I'm very grateful for what they've already offered on my own thread.
Lots of reading for you to do, not as well organized as either of us would like being the organized researcher sorts but there are gems and nuggets buried everywhere. My current reading is looking for references to "scared squirrels" and "touch and go".
I was thinking about my own list in my introductory post and looking through yours. One thing I think that both of us need to be careful of as we search for answers is like the hypochondriac we may be listing the symptoms that fit the disease we want to have. On the other hand the doctor can't do anything if we just sit there and say "it hurts". I'm not saying that either of us are wrong about thinking we may be dealing with a MLC but we also need to be open to the possibility that we might not be completely right.
With that said - welcome to you my friend and please be as patient and as friendly and open as I know you have been on Newcomers.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
Thank you all. Yeah, short list...I realized I left off that she had two of her BF's die of brain cancer in the past year and half - one 8 months before S or any sign/symptom of A and one about 3 months into S.
I found the 'musings of Amy C' a very helpful post in furthering my understanding. It seems like there is little to no hope in gaining any ground in explaining pain to her. Has anyone had any success with telling the W how she is affecting their children. W has introduced OM to my s4 twice now. I have expressed 3 times in the past how against this I am for the mental health of our son.
Last night my son told me that the OM came by mommys for a sleep over. He was asking questions I just did not know how to deal with. This is a parenting question. I have not spoken to her yet. He is confused, I have him in therapy now. I have read tons of data on the damage this can cause. I know this is addiction to an A, latent pain, MLC, etc. I am not asking this question to save my M or recover - it is about my son. Any advice?
"There is no more important fight than the one for ourselves. Keep on winning." Ginger1, Read her newbies. BD: Feb '16 D: Mar '17 Piecing: Putting the self back together was my piecing. S6
Thank you. I've been on a long road thus far and know it is longer yet. I did tell my son I thought he was very brave to share things with me, but also felt he was reaching out. She gave him a dramamine to knock him out so she could do this, which I find horrifying. I don't think that is abuse, but it is certainly not coloring in the lines either.
I did not think there would be anyway to explain it to her. I could just say it I guess, but to what end. Same end as everything else I have said. Chaos kid.
"There is no more important fight than the one for ourselves. Keep on winning." Ginger1, Read her newbies. BD: Feb '16 D: Mar '17 Piecing: Putting the self back together was my piecing. S6
Wow Cadet. Ordinal sequence. Yeah, well, the dog does live with me now for what its worth. He's not m dog, he is her dog. I tried to get rid of him but kid loves him so much I couldn't do it. I actually did get rid of him, but went and got him back. The one part of this that is like the movies - me and this dog, unlikely partners who just sit with each other for lack of sitting alone.
But I digress, thank you sir. I had not come across this before. It does not help with me understanding what a dick she is being to our son, but it does for the sitch.
"There is no more important fight than the one for ourselves. Keep on winning." Ginger1, Read her newbies. BD: Feb '16 D: Mar '17 Piecing: Putting the self back together was my piecing. S6
kidding they are pretty smart. Do your best.