My wife's midlife crisis

[ciluzen]

I'm sorry Face-man...and sorry to those I might offend with what I'm going to say, even though I am guilty of doing just that same behavior that I'm going to mention.

I feel that it is incorrect and not really all that helpful to say that someone is "not rational", "broken", "fractured", "crazy", "a narcissist", etc. We need to remember; we have been hurt by our partner's behavior, so our view of their behavior is biased and only from our perspective of a left-behind partner. Portraying their behavior as if it is wrong and ours is right is actually going to be very unhelpful in the long run. Hey, I've done it. I have tried to read my XH's mind and tried to analyze his behavior alone as the issue. I made no progress, though until I stopped trying to always see him as various types of confused and broken and started to look at why my behavior might trigger certain behaviors in him.

Instead of trying to soothe yourself with, "It's they who have the problem, not me" or even "it's mostly not me", there is actually another way of looking at it which requires more work on your part, but yields more longer lasting results.

That is to see that the problem is between you. The problem is with your relationship; meaning, how you are relating to each other and communicating. If you can actually listen or pay attention to clues, know what it was like growing up and how their life shaped their views, sometimes you can take a deep look at how they are actually viewing your actions...you might be surprised at how their percepton of what you feel are your fairly innocent reactions can be read as threatening or dismissive.

Example: My XH always did things with his family; he always had a brother with him and his parents were involved in everything he did, even going to boy scout events with him as volunteers. They were inseperable, too, and seldom did anything apart. His only trip alone with the scouts was described as "traumatic" because no one from his family was with him. I, on the other hand, was often alone as my siblings were over ten years older. My parents, too, did a lot of activities separately, and encouraged me to be independent.

So guess what? Everytime I would try to do something on my own, XH would see it as me not liking him or not loving him. If I allowed our children to go to summer camp or to spend the night at a friend's house, he felt that I was being selfish and cruel. Not mind-reading; he would actually say that.

So was he confused or broken? Was I? Or was it just that we could not at the time realize that our views were shaped differently in the way we were raised and discussion and understanding needed to happen to create a solution that we both felt safe and secure with. A compromise.

You are actually lucky, Face-man. When your wife is talking, you can actually ask her questions to better understand how she is interpreting the things that she is sharing with you; those parts of her day she speaks about. What does that mean to you? "Tell me more about that"."How would your family handle that, because mine would have done x,y,z and I wonder how another family would have handled it?" And lots and lots of validation.

Think of a problem between you as a ball. Each of you can only see about half of the sphere, but opposite sides. Talking to get info allows you to see her side more clearly and see the problem more thoroughly. She may not see your side, but if just one of you can see it in its entirety, that's more helpful. Its worth a try and what else have you got? Viewing her as broken with no real vision of how to fix her?

[FaceMan]

There are contradictions and confusion in her behaviour. It doesnt seem rational, but she says this is the new her.

My wife wants to live alone and has said so for a while, but has done nothing to find anywhere else to live, research what she could afford, discuss where everyone is going to live. She is in no rush, buts wants a divorce to find her happiness. She still does stuff around the house for me and the kids.

citizen - I understand what you are saying - it is the communicating style between two people raised from different backgrounds......but after 25yrs for it all to go wrong? I have analysed my behaviour; what I say, how I say it; volume, tone etc....I can only be me....I am still human. She takes offence at the slightest thing; the slightest challenge to anything; she was never like that before; she has a very negative mindset towards me and its not like her. we always used to discuss the kids; if I challenge anything she sees it as an attack against her.

My wife has said she doesnt want to be married and in a relationship and its not my fault; she has just changed; she is doing what is right for her, at the expense of me and the kids. she clearly feels trapped in this life and the escape is to divorce and leave. There is nothing I can do about that; if she wants to leave, all I can do is wish her well and leave the door open for her to return for as long as I can. For me, I need to try and detach, but its hard.

Today, I sat and just looked at her; she is a shadow of her former self. She looks older and stressed. Her face and forehead is scrunched up and she looks harassed and full of tension; she makes little effort to engage but when she does, we have meaningful engaging conversations about our day and what is going on in our lives. It doesnt strike me as someone who genuinely wants to divorce her husband of 25yrs.

In someways I feel a victim - the wife has had a change of heart - in other ways I'm not a victim; I must have contributed to the current situation. I just don't know how. If I'm just being myself and the self Ive been for the last 20+yrs, how else can I interpret her behaviour other than someone going through an internal battle with herself and I'm just collateral damage.

[Gerda]

Ciluzen, I think what you have written here is really wonderful for a normal marriage in crisis. But MLC is something different. Faceman is not making something up when he says that this person is nothing like his W. My H may have had little twinges of selfishness or poor money management, some intimacy issues etc, but he was a wonderful man with astonishingly sound morals, an amazing father, a hard worker and very loving to me. He experienced a very clear break and EVERYTHING about him and thus about our lives and family changed. This has been going on for five years and the only way I can remember my old H is to read his old letters. My kids don't even remember what he was like before, as they are 9 and 13, though my S13 remembers a little.

The conversations you describe sound wonderful but with someone in MLC, those talks are almost always misconstrued and head south and turn into something horrible, no matter how kind or open I am.

I think it would be like trying to offer a delicious wonderful favorite meal to a person who was sick from chemo treatments. No matter how delicious the meal was, they would feel like it was disgusting and they would wonder how you could possibly offer it to them and see it as almost cruel!

It took me a long time to realize that I had to let my H go completely. If he comes to me to talk about things, I try to listen, and sometimes it goes well and sometimes it turns into something borderline verbally abusive against me. It rarely seems to be something I can predict. And I say that as a woman who many on these boards see as a doormat! I am always advocating patience, forgiveness, kindness, unconditional love. I just think that with MLC that unconditional love may include giving total space to them and accepting that the person we knew before is temporarily gone. As Faceman is facing life just after BD and is struggling a lot with accepting that his W is not herself, I don't see how he can do anything very active right now except step back and let her go, but be as kind as possible to her.

Just my two (loving) cents!

[FaceMan]

Thanks for your insight Gerda;

The 2016 version of my wife was a warm, loving, sensual, affectionate and incredibly family orientated woman, who publicly acknowledged via friends and social media what a great husband she had.

The 2018 version cares about nobody but herself; is withdrawn on every level and is seeking separation and divorce to be by herself, destroying her family in the process. She rewrites the history of the marriage to justify her actions.

I am the sole cause of her unhappiness. In her mind she has to leave.

I understand what ciluzen is getting at, but my wife is not the person I married.

[MarvinF]

I want to second what Gerda wrote. I can tell you my wife IS fractured. This is not a judgment nor a put down of her. It is psychological observation, she is in great pain, searching, split between two different states of existence. She will cycle between them and sometimes they both coexist in a strange way. In one she is the person I have always known, normal conflicts and caring, two adults who have shared a life. The other is one of a person in pain, and I have seen her in what I would say is anywhere from an eight-year-old to a 16-year-old so far.

So to try to approach her as if this is a normal relationship issue is a fatal mistake. Took me a long time to fully understand MLC, and even many discussions with my sister who is a therapist before even she could start wrapping her head around it, and she has known my wife for the entire relationship.

So beware normal rules do not apply. Detach, accept this crises is long and requires you to NOTbe involved. Not in helping, not in fighting, not in guiding. Only thing is protect yourself, do not be mean, do not attack, always be kind, validate whatever she says she feels without agreeing or disagreeing, and leave her alone.

[ciluzen]

I'm sorry...again. If you had read my posts from 2015 (has it really been that long?) you would see that I was right where you all are at this point. My husband and I had been married for 25 years and were the "perfect couple". He was loving and kind, fun and very well thought of by most everyone who knew him. His behavior then started to change...drastically. There was another woman involved, too. He hit replay...hard.He had all of the signs of MLC.

This was all written about extensively over the time that I've been here. I don't post nearly as much now...I've "gotten a life" as we say. But I'm still considering myself a stander. I still have contact with my XH. And I'm going into a field where I am blessed to be able to learn more and more about these types of issues and work with couples that are going through this very thing every day...AND have to confront my own beliefs and issues in ery dramatic ways. Although I learned a lot from these forums since my XH left, I've learned 10 times as much since.

I was not speaking of just "a normal marriage in crisis". MLC is
about a PERSON who is in crisis, but a person in crisis who feels they are unable to either communicate, trust, or be safely heard becomes one half of a relationship in crisis. Those factors listed above are often what causes the MLCer to give up, fight, or leave...to appear to "fracture" as has been said.

MarvinF, you are right. Leaving them alone is the right thing to do...unless they reach out to you. Validating their feelings is mentioned often by MWD and is necessary for the person in crisis.

Gerda, I did not mention having R talks with an MLCer. I was merely saying that since Faceman's wife feels comfortable speaking to him, it is a form of "active listening" to show you are listening by asking clarifying questions having to do with what they are speaking of and helping them to feel more comfortable and welcome to express themselves more. I'm sorry if your H is often borderline abusive; it is fine to put up boundaries if that is happenning but as hard as it is, not giving a reaction of anger and maybe even validating that you hear they are angry is often a way of diffusing the situation. Sometimes labeling something that is obvious to you will make someone realize what they don't totally see in themselves. Often the MLCer feels unheard for whatever reason and a lot of the time, the "wierd" behavior is just contempt born of giving up. It is something that often has to build up over years, often with depression added in to the mix along with feeling unappreciated whether we believe it is justified or not.

Faceman, no; you're wife is not the woman you married. She's older, the relationship is not as shiny and there is everyday stress and the thought of a future and what that might look like if there is no change from what she perceives is intolerable. Saying she has changed and its not you is a way of trying to make herself feel less guilty about a selfish but desperate decision. Textbook MLC. My own children and people who have worked with XH have been astounded by his actions...which started with weght loss, new hair style, new younger wardrobe and music tastes, and an obsession with various supplements back as early as 2009. He became the "party guy" and my daughters' "hot dad". He has calmed down some now. He has started to reach out to me a bit, at which point I try to be welcoming, although I still give him his space. I don't wait around for him to call, now, but we have talked. Some of the things he has said point to him starting to really do some deep thinking and work on himself. Our D was final over 2 years ago and I know he's still "baking".

This is a process, I do understand. My point is that by labeling them as the broken one, they are right.They are not understood or heard. We are only seeing a small part of a problem that has two owners and will take two people to fix. We just have to work on us and leave them to work on them. But like a child that comes to you with a problem they want to solve on their own, we need to validate their feelings, help them to process their thoughts by listening and asking questions to deepen their thoughts, and let them come to their own conclusions and solutions.

It is a long process, and Faceman...there are so many resources to help out there. GAL helps to not only distract but help you find a purpose and some growth opportunities in this situation. They are there when you dig down and look.

[FaceMan]

I can safely say my wife is also fractured; The fracture is huge. She displays opposing personalities. On the one hand chatting away like old times and on the other having a desire to escape the life she has. Marvin perfectly describes the cycling between them. Its like watching someone with a split personality. She will sell herself outside the house as somebody she is not, which may explain why she has not even told her closet friends of such a huge life changing decision.

cilzuen - you make some very valid points that all make perfect sense. She is in crisis but doesn't know it; she is contradictory, lost and confused; a desire to escape but has done nothing to move out; finished with the marriage but wears her wedding ring; she is polite, kind, in some ways loving, but in other ways, rebellious and childlike with her interactions.

Her facial expressions describe which version of my wife I'm looking at. The adult wife has relaxed, peaceful facial features; the child version has tight, scrunched up features which makes her look old, tired and stressed. It all fits; I feel for her and what she doesn't know she is going through.

Some of the recommended reading articles, describe the situation perfectly. Its sobering to read them and see how it all pieces together; I'm not sure to what extent her childhood was traumatic but I do know she had issues in her teenage years.

I'm getting a life, travelling, meeting people, looking after my kids, enjoying my job which I thoroughly enjoy; I miss my wife, but she is not in a good place right now and I have to accept she is gone - at least for now. I know I'm going to be ok. Thanks everyone; your support is overwhelming.

[Gordie]

Faceman and Ciluzen

Thank you for this thoughtful dialogue of fellow journeyers

For me it is not either or it is both and

I do not want to hijack so will comment about what this means to me on my own thread

[MarvinF]

Ciluzen: amazing amount of insight and knowledge, hard earned I am sure. Thank you for sharing, and I suggest everyone read and re-read.

FaceMan: you are doing great for how early this is. Keep doing your thing. And DO NOT be discouraged when waves of doubt, sorrow and disbelief hit. They will, and for a long while. They just keep getting less and less powerful. Your job is to take care of yourself and your kids, and show the path to your wife by example in your life.

[FaceMan]

Thanks MarvinF for your kind words....my wife is gone.

Its something I need to try and accept one day at a time. I can't even see what a possible future relationship would look like now anyway.

I have lots of doubt, sorrow and disbelief that my wife gave up on us so easily.