I would like to make it clear I had not read Paul's post above, nor was it posted at the time I was busy responding. M Go Blue's post had some stats in it, I suggested a Google search in my post. In no manner should this be construed as a slight to Paul. It just so happened that I was drawing upon my own past notes, which took some time, and simultaniously, Paul was making a post.
Paul, Thanks afor your long and interesting post, and the trouble you have taken in replying. I have also read Goinbatty's post, and largely agree with what is said there.
The stats on marriage and divorce are interesting: currently around one third of divorces, as I understand it, occur within 7 years of marriage. With regard to second marriage, they are much more likely to succeed if each partner was unattached before starting the new relationship.
What is unusual about what I would call a true MLC is that the marriage was happy, prior to MLC, and the bolt came out of the blue for the LBS. [ I do not think that this is because LBS are stupid or complacent.] That theme of a 'bomb' comes over and over again through these boards, and elsewhere.
In additon to being extremely selfish, the MLCer rewrites history, to the extent that they say things that are demostrably false. Obviously one cannot argue with a perception 'I never loved you' even if the evidence in the form of gestures, letters, and other behaviours suggests that this isn't true. But they truly try and rewrite facts, which is frightening.
Part of MLC is midlife transition, but in MLC [IMO] it is compounded by issues arising from childhood emotional abandonment, and in some cases abuse. This is another common theme that runs through these boards. Of course not every abused person has a MLC. Some seek counselling, and help because they have enough emotional intelligence to know that they have problems. Others are simply more resilient.
I believe that two contributory factors as to whether people reconcile successfully, is the strength of the marriage prior to MLC - that is there is really something worth hanging on to, and not just a relationship of time and habit - and the depth/extent of the emotional damage. Clearly those that seek help will tend to move on more successfully, whether to reconciliation, or with their own lives. Seeking help is a recognition of a problem that lies within rather than continuing to blame everything on externalities, and seek solutions outside.
No, not all therapists believe that MLC exists. It took an Austrailian doctor to swallow a beaker full of ulcer creating bacteria to convince the bulk of the American medical profession that this was the main cause of ulcers, not stress, despite well conducted clinical trials. Just because a profession doen't recognise a pathology, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It may not, but if it doesn't I do wonder what on earth is going on all around me in my own and other people's lives.
What is important is to heal ourselves. Whatever my WAS does, I want to make good decisions, and live as truthful and fulfilling life as possible. I believe that we could reconcile, but that this is not inevitable. It depends largely on him at present, although I sense that I am moving on too. In six months time I may feel differently. So, in my case I am not sure he will return, nor am I clinging to that hope. Equally, I am not as pessimistic as you about a fairly good success rate overall - without wishing to encourage false hopes.
In my experience, and there was been some UK research, reconciliation is just as likely to fail because the LBS has not fully dealt with their issues, than becuase teh WAS does not wish to work on the r [and their problems]. Working on the r can take many forms, including personal therapy, couples counselling.
This is a good debate, and point to the need for some good empirical research on the subject.
Goinbatty - I did not construe your post as a slight to Paul, as i hope he did not, either, but an interesting gloss. Your experiences, conincidentally, largely exchoed my own.
My reply to Paul took on board what you had said. I don't fundamentally disagree with Paul, It is more a question of emphasis, I think.
You are never butting in and I always appreciate your insight.
My own perceptions don't always turn out to be true. There are times when I am WRONG and stand corrected.
See, a former MLC person can say that they sometimes are WRONG.
There may be a much higher percentage of people who do get back together than I'm aware of.
My mom went through a MLC and later on, so did my dad.
My dad moved in with the OW during his but eventually moved back home. My parents celebrated a 50th anniversary together before my moms eventual death.
Were they happy? Probably in their own way. My mom had many issues that she struggled with until the day she died. My dad has never really dealt with his issues, he keeps them to himself.
Maybe the biggest factor on whether couples get back together is whether the LBS is still available when the MLC spouse wants to give it another try.
My XW visited me at my office while we were in the process of divorce and said to me; "You don't even care anymore?" I simply shrugged my shoulders and did not give a verbal reply. She then said; "I might as well drive my truck into a tree." I didn't reply to that comment as well.
Why did I not comment? Out of fear. Fear that if I did say I still loved her, that she would reject me and hurt me all over again.
I believe her anger today is associated with my rejection of her when she attempted to re-connect. It is my belief that she feels while I went through my own MLC and affairs, she stayed with me. She has said she stayed because of our children, not because she loved me.
Now that the shoe was on the other foot, she feels I abandoned her. With her MLC, she moved out of the house.
In my MLC I did not leave the marriage physically in terms of moving out of the house, but I was detached emotionally.
My XW has a lot of resentment that I did not wait for her. At least this is my sense, and may be my own fantasy that she still is in love with me.
I do have a feeling inside of me that my XW and I will reconnect at some later point in life. Will it happen? I don't know. Could it happen? Absolutely. As long as both of us are still alive, anything is possible.
None of us know what the future will bring. My current wife may decide to divorce me, she may become ill and die. There is a good chance that at some time in the future I will be single again. There is also a chance that I may decide to divorce my current wife, or that I might drop dead from a heart attack and that will take away all possibilities of me getting back together with my XW.
I've looked back at my life and connected the dots. It is quite fascinating to see how people and experiences are connected. My current wife and I were in 1st and 5th grade together. We graduated from high school together.
In our senior year, she broke up with her boyfriend and I broke up with my girlfriend. Those two got together and began dating.
My current wife approached me with interest, and as she tells the story, I was to hung up about my Xgirlfriend and barely gave her the time of day.
My current wife lived about a 1/2 mile from where I grew up. She married my childhood friend who lived 3 doors away on the same street.
Her husband worked for the post office. I ran into him at the local lumber yard years ago and he said he was thinking about going into business. The same business that I was in, remodeling.
He wanted to know what I thought, whether he should do it or not. I told him, by all means go for it. Don't get to the end of life and have regrets that you didn't do what you wanted and had a passion for. Live life and take chances, and don't look back. Everything will work out.
In 1993 he was diagnosed with a blood cancer. He decided to close his business to lessen his stress, and came to work for me. Steve eventually died in 1997. He had taken the risk and lived life having avoided regret of never pursuing his dream of owning his own business as a remodeler and builder.
My wife and I crossed paths in the summer of 2000 at a little league baseball game that a friend of hers invited her to. Her friend told her that I'm usually there watching my nephew play. My nephew is the son of my XW's brother, who works for me, and has for over 20 years.
I was seperated from my XW and the divorce was in procees when I crossed paths with my current wife. As they say, when one door closes a new one opens.
What is interesting from my end of crossing paths with my current wife the evening of the baseball game. I was home laying on the couch trying to decide on whether to go watch the game or just stay home. I was tired and really didn't feel like going, but a voice inside of me said, go to the game, get your lazy self up off the couch and walk down to the ballpark.
Well I listened to that voice and the rest is history.
Had I not listened to or acted on that inner voice, I may very well have reconnected with my xw. But, I chose to move forward and let go of all expectations of my XW returning. I took a chance and decided to live life now, enjoy it while life was present, not wait for someday to appear.
Sorry for the long post. I'm not sure what point I was trying to make, other than life evolves, and you need to live it each and every day. We don't know how life will eventually play out, but we are in control of whether we are happy and living life on purpose.
Love, Paul As I have connected many dots in my life since childhood, understanding why things occured and what the lessons were for me, I sometimes want to know the "rest of the story" before it unvails itself. It's like reading a book about your life and wanting to go to the last chapter and see how it all turns out.
Thanks for the post Paul. Hope you did not take it I was implying you were wrong. That was not my intent, rather just "reporting" my observations and the kind people I have come across in my journeys that opened up enough to talk about this topic, how it turned out for them , or the works still in progress. I would not hold to my observed ratio of 15/24 because there are many I am sure I've conversed with that just didn't want to open up about it (or could not).
A few years back there was a nice lady I would have a casual conversation with when our paths infrequently crossed. I could tell something very deep was troubling her. That occurred over a year and half and we had maybe a dozen short conversations. One day she finally opened up describing her estranged husband and his actions/inactions, as I listened I realized he fit pretty well into the MLC pigeon hole, but a bit extreme. She had gotten a restraining order several months back.
Those pieces of paper don't help much when someone is intent on acting on their twisted views.
Two weeks after our conversation he shot her on her front porch.
He got life without perole.
I don't count her in the MLC "stats" I gather from face to face encounters.
But that sure effected me. I give a lot of space when I see my x anywhere near me.
Because as angelica pointed out in her well written post above, the history rewrites can be so far beyond literary license. Those that have felt obligated to "report back" on my former and her yarns, know better and quickly understand she's "remembering" some other (alien?) life, and certainly not the one we had in reality.
I am all for listening to our inner voice, but would sure run away from an inner voice of one in MLC.
I'm glad you took the time to read Silent Son's. I would suggest it to others who might feel their husband is a silent son, as it will help you to better understand why your husband is behaving the way he is.
It is troubling to see the impact parents have on their children and the issues they create for them to deal with in adulthood.
I realize my parents did the best they could. They simply acted out the roles they had seen their parents play. The MLC spouse is mirroring the experience he or she had as a child during midlife.
Life does repeat itself. I've witnessed my own life going in circles, spiraling, forward and backward, side to side, up and down and 100 million other directions.
Life is a journey, it is continually changing. Why is it we want life to remain the same? We want to go back to our old marriage, even though it was not working for our MLC spouse.
So many people believe that their spouse was happy prior to the "bomb." I'm sorry to say, they were not. They were wearing the "mask" of happiness.
Inside of the MLC spouse things were a stirring and brewing to the point where they were going to explode if they didn't do something.
Sometimes we choos "flight" to deal with our "fright." We try to run from the awful feelings and memories inside. We think that if we run fast enough and far enough from our inner pain, it will be left behind.
Truth is, this internal emotions that the MLC spouse struggles with can never be left behind with the LBS. It will follow the MLC spouse wherever they go.
They can not escape it by seeking comfort and security with the OW/OM. They can not drown it in alcohol. They can not smother it with food. They can not numb the pain with drugs. The sexual high will only mask this pain for a brief moment of time before returning to eat at their insides.
The MLC spouses core issues lie within themselves. Unfortunately, they believe that the issues are external and they start with the person they married.
If only they can get away from the person that is bring them so much pain. To the MLC spouse, they don't realize the pain is associated with their past. To them, the pain is in the present, and the person to blame is the one closest to them in the present. Their spouse, is the scapegoat for all that troubles them. It is their reality.
When you can come to understand this reality, it is time to "let go" and focus on yourself. The struggle with a MLC spouse is a long uphill battle. Their is no quick fix or simple solution.
If you listen to those who were successful in getting their spouse back, I would guess that they "detached with love" and moved forward with their life, by taking care of themselves first.
A MLC spouse is not an emotionally and spiritually healthy person. If the LBS remains emotionally and spiritually unhealthy as well, they will not appear to be a person the MLC spouse would care to return to.
The key to having the best chance to get your spouse to return to the relationship, is to focus on you, make yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually healthy. Without doing that, your MLC spouse will not be as attracted to you.
And if your MLC spouse chooses not to return to the relationship at this time, you will have improved your own self esteem and become more whole as a human being and will attract other human beings who seek a special person like the one you have become.
Do not do these things with the sole purpose of getting your spouse back. Do these things for you. Why? Because you will feel tremendously better and will begin to see the beauty of life and all the love that is around you.
My life could have remained in the black whole, but I found the courage to focus on myself, look at myself from the inside out, and work on healing myself.
I am still working on healing myself and probably will until the day I die. Someday's it's hard work. Someday's it's great to discover parts of myself that I didn't know existed.
Life is a journey and it should be filled with discovering the "lessons of life."
I really value your post, they have helped me so much. Just after my husband and i seperated and were trying to reconcile, he told me that one of the problems was that he just wanted to make me happy and he didn't think he could do it. I told him that it was not him and that i had just got myself in a bit of a rut since D2 was born. The reconcilliation only lasted 1 day, he seemed to have this wave of depression on his face the whole time, and then ended up running to OW.
By me acteing happy and upbeat infront of him, which is what i have been doing for a while now, will this not just justify that he was right in the beginning and that in his eyes i am much happier without him?.
I dont know if you have been following my thread, but it has been 6 months since the bomb which came out the blue. Lately my husband seems to be ill alot and quite down. He is still very pleasant to me and gives me hugs and kisses when he leaves etc, but no mention of missing me and D2. Is this normal in MLC?. I also wanted to add that i have been reading some of Silent Son and my husband definantely shows traits, he was always a conflict avoider keeping his feeling to himself. He still does this now.
Nicky
Me 34 H 33 D3 together 10 years married 2 years Bomb 22/8/06 (I feel empty) OW involved
No, I didn't take your post as saying I was WRONG. Much of what I speak to comes from my own personal observations.
What I see, hear and sense is processed by my own filters of life experiences whcih gives me a curretn understanding of what I am experiencing at the moment. It is what I know and believe at this moment. Each day I experience more and learn more, than my beliefs change.
To me, everything is perception. My observations and perceptions can be very different from yours. It is not a wrong thing, it "just is."
Sometimes we believe that if something is written, then it must be the truth. I've looked at some statistics on marriage and divorce and one could come up with a number of opinions explaining the statistics. Who would be right? I don't know.
I would like to share an article from Missouri Families Relationships website.
"What is the current divorce rate in the United States? Has the divorce rate changed much over the last 5 to 10 years?
The divorce rate in the United States has generally been going up throughout the 20th century until it's peak in the late 1970's. The rate of divorce has been slowly declining since that peak. In the most recent data, there were about 20 divorces for every 1,000 women over the age of 15. This number is down from about 23 divorces per 1,000 women in 1978, but it is still significantly greater than the rate of divorce during the 1950's. At that time, the rate of divorce was about 5 per 1,000 women.
The divorce rate has been climbing in every industrial country in the world. There are two significant factors affecting the rising divorce rate in the United States and elsewhere: (1) men and women are less in need of each other for economic survival, and (2) gains made in birth control allow men and women to seperate sexual activity from having children.
A variety of factors are producing the current leveling off of the divorce rate. We may be at the end of the effects produced by the emergence of reliable birth control in the 1960's, but there are also other factors. Our population is aging, and in general longer marriages are more likely to remain intact. Also, more young people are cohabitating rather than getting married. The breakup of this kind of relationship does not get recorded as a divorce."
I can definetly see that more people are choosing to cohabitate rather than marry. What was once considered taboo and sinful is now being accepted by society.
Many of the MLC spouses cohabitate with the OW/OM after the divorce. They live together in a marriage like relationship, yet it is not counted in the statistics as being married. When they breakup, they are not counted as having divorced.
My XW has been cohabitating with the OM for 6+ years. She has been engaged for over 3. They have built a house together and are on the mortgae jointly. Why don't they get married? Becuase the spousal support I pay to my XW ends if she gets re-married before 10 years after the divorce.
I don't buy into the belief that as we get older, longer term marriages are more likely to remain intact. Of the many people who come to this board, their marriages have lasted 20-30 years before seperation.
There are currently 76 million baby boomers between the ages of 42-60. This is prime midlife crisis territory. For statistical purposes the U.S. Census Bureau counts adults as anyone 15 years or older.
In the 2000 Census, here are some of the statistics;
Population 221,148,671 Men 107,027,405 women 114,121,266
The highest percentage of divorced men and women are between the ages of 35 and 64.
"The number of unmarried peole living together icreased tenfold from 1960-2000, the U.S. Census says; about 10 million people are living with a partner of the opposite sex. That's about 8% of U.S. coupled households. Data shows that most unmarried partners who live together are 25-34.
There are many reasons for the increase in cohabitation. People are getting married at an older age. "Many young peole are saying marriage is not on their mind. New data from the Census 2004 Current Population Survey reflect the trend toward waiting. Women's median age at first marriage ros from 20.8 in 1970 to 26 in 2004; men's rose from 23.2 to 27."
Many retired people cohabitate so they don't lose Social Security benefits from a deceased spouse. It is becoming accepted by society.
All of society is looking at marriage differently today than it did in the past. With our increase in life expectancy, some at midlife fear being married to the same person for another 20, 30, 40 years. Some change spouses like changing careers.
In the not to distant future, the average life expectancy will be reaching 100 years. I'm sure this will continue to have have an influence on marriage in the future.
What marriage is, or is not, may be being re-difined before our very eyes.
I need some advice. My H told my d7 a few weeks ago that he was planning to have her stay with him at Ow's apt on his weekend visits. I called him on it and told him that it was unacceptable to me that he have our d sleepover at Ow's -- 1. still married 2. poor example for our d 3. d barely knows Ow - puts d in uncomfortable situation 4. Advised by our d's C that it was too soon to introduce any new people into her life. 1 year POST divorce.
Found out that this past weekend - d slept over at Ow's place! H completely disregarded everything I said. Just Monday night he told d that she MISUNDERSTOOD what he told her and that she WOULDN'T be sleeping at Ow's just going over to visit sometimes. Then he goes ahead and does it anyway! Not sure what that was all about?
My question to you is this- Do I say anything to my H? Since you have been through a MLC or your own and also dealt with a MLC S, I would value your advice on this. I'm really confused and don't know what to do. I already told him how I felt about it and he went ahead and did what he wanted anyway. Should I just drop it?
I know MLCer's don't like being told they are wrong and that they are making a mistake, so I am unsure of how to handle this.
My ultimate goal is to still get my M back one day-- what should I do?
