Oh, wow, Kai, I'm really sorry you got a shock like that. Strangely enough, when I was typing yesterday how your H had started off with a good job, wife and house, I was thinking how badly he'd traded down for an OW & assisted housing, and wondering whether the job would be the next to go.... But I feel rather sorry for him too, even though he's created so much of his mess, because it's going to be another huge hit to his self-esteem. I'm voting on spinning awhile longer, if you're accepting votes. But the reality check should help to propel him a little further on the MLC journey.
Did you sleep all right? Those days of bombings/new revelations are the worst, with so many conflicting emotions churning through, and our minds racing. And what I hated most about them was they shoved the nebulous figure of the OW right in the forefront, when the last thing I wanted was to waste so much energy on her just because H was obsessed. And if your OW was interested in H's money, it looks like Karma is alive and well!
I'm also sorry to hear about your mom--how stressful for you and your siblings. Does she recognize you all still and remember the good times? My grandmother developed Alzheimer's and my mom used to visit her daily, and it took so much out of her, so I know what you mean that it would be better if her body released her before she gets a lot worse. 87 is pretty impressive, though--good genes in your family! By the sound of it, all/most of your siblings live close enough to spend time with her, so it's a blessing you can all share the burden.
So you've got today off; any plans? I hope Max is being particularly cute to cheer you up. Take care, Cyrena
Given h works in the financial industry and the economy, I am not surprised that he lost his job and that was the reason I pushed so hard for the separation agreement/settlement to get done. I was sure that if he was going to lose his job it would be in the first quarter. He was stalling but could only stall for so long or risk arbitration where he may have had to pay a lot more. Even so I was still shocked and feel badly for him. He must be very scared right now.
At the same time I am very grateful that I was able to convince him that a lump sum was the way to go rather than monthly support so that we could cut all ties immediately. If it was monthly support I would have received only one month and now he would be able to apply for support from me!
I think you are right that this is not going to be a wake up call in any way but I suppose there are no wake up calls in MLC but rather they need to work their way through it.
I slept until my usual 4:00 a.m. and this time, the thought of him in bed with someone else was not my first thought when I awoke, but rather his new situation. Maybe there will be a silver lining to this for me. You're right about the relevations. Since our split they have come monthly, almost like clockwork, so my mind has not stopped racing for a long long time now. As they say, this too shall pass.
Mom recognizes us almost all the time and if she doesn't, she just pretends she know who we are. She remembers less and less of the recent past but remembers her childhood like it was yesterday. She remembers the house us kids grew up in and that's where she is going when she leaves the retirement home. So far we've been lucky and found her fairly quickly. I actually caught her once when I was on my way home from work.
It was raining here all morning and now the temperature is dropping to below freezing so I am camped out in front of the TV.
Thanks, Kai, my weekend was nice (though too short). I tend not to post over the weekend, because I'm spending time with the family (plus I'd rather my H never know about this site). I hope you and the cats made out okay? And that you kept up the eating and looking after yourself....
Oh, that's wretched, waking up at 4. I remember so many months of that, feeling so wide awake (and "back in it") I couldn't even bear to lie in bed any longer. It does, as you say, get better over time, but then time seems to slow down, too, when our lives turn upside down. Perhaps the time change next week will mean you get an extra hour of sleep? Not that that theory ever really works for my kids!
Oh, your poor mom! Thank goodness you know where she's headed when she escapes, but how sad for her. Is your childhood home still standing, if she was to make it there? I guess it's a blessing she's spending most of her mental time back in happier eras, though that's scant comfort.
It's funny how the MLCer's issues first seem to manifest in his connection to his job. Things started to go wrong for us, too, when my H accepted a promotion that meant he'd have to travel/be at an office in another city regularly. I soon began to hate that job, because he became unable to put his family before it. His self-esteem became caught up in pleasing his (never satisfied) bosses. He couldn't say no to them, and he couldn't seem to hear my complaints that our family life was suffering.
Once the MLC began, he used work as an excuse to spend all his nights in the other city, going out drinking, meeting with the OW, and other Replay activities. He also hated work, complained a lot about it, and wasn't a very productive employee for a few years. Then, once he hit Depression and Withdrawal, he buried himself in work again. I think it saved him, by giving him a focus, a reason to get out of bed when he just wanted to smash his car into a tree, a sense that he was accomplishing something, and a distraction from his demons. Now, post MLC, he's reached the point I really wanted him to be at in the first place: he puts his family before his job, stands up to his bosses sometimes (and recognizes how manipulative they are), genuinely regrets any (infrequent) overnights away, and keeps up a dialogue with me about work.
All that to say, I feel bad for your ex, too, because he's lost his most valuable prop in getting through the time ahead. Many guys do seem to identify themselves through their jobs, so if he's never going to get such a good one again....
You sure handled dividing up the finances wisely--you're a natural for that Paralegal course! What a relief to be immune from his job loss. Was he relatively careful with money before he went alien? Also, was he able to be a typical teenager the first time round? You mentioned once him being like a 21-year old roommate; do you think that's the period in his life he's doing over?
Has the freezing weather ended over there? I hope the sun is shining and that your day is going well. Any nice plans for the week?
It's good that you don't post over the weekend and I totally agree about your h not knowing about it. He would likely either think it very silly or spend a lot of his time trying to figure out which poster you are.
My childhood home is still standing but it's about 30 miles from here. Mom usually just walks in one direction until she gets tired and then goes into a drug store and straight to the pharmacist for help. She wears a bracelet so the police have her "profile" as well as our contact info. The cold here is obviously a huge issue during the winter months.
My h's job has definitely caused our marriage nothing but trouble and while I don't think it was a trigger for his MLC, it certainly enabled his bad behaviour. He always played hockey a couple of times per week and I had no issue with him going out for beers afterwards but the old h never went to strip bars for lapdances. He always golfed whenever he could afford to but this job enabled him to buy a very expensive membership which he then had to justify by golfing every sat and sun, rain or sun.
When he started drinking again in 2006 and going out with clients and/or coworkers I could not really object. I remember telling the counsellor last Feb that the more he went out the more likely it was that he would cheat on me. Of course, fool that I am, he already was. Already setting the pattern of being out most nights during the week made it very easy to hide the affair. It also made it easy for him to tell me that he was bored with our life because I never wanted to go out. The fact that he was always out with other people, in situations where I could not join in, seemed to escape him.
I think he liked the job because it was in a high-profile area of the financial industry, although he was under a lot of stress. The stress was mostly, to my mind, self-induced because he had what my sister calls "imposter syndrome" in that he didn't think he really deserved it. He certainly liked the money and would not listen to me when I tried to tell him that his health and happiness were more important. It also seemed to make him a little arrogant and entitled and I was not happy about that.
I think he was a typical teenager in spite of his family circumstances. He appeared to have a lot of friends and was successful with the girls although initially shy.
He had a child when he was 21 and the marriage ended because he was unfaithful, although I am quite sure that it would have ended anyway because they did not love each other. That said, it is no excuse for his behaviour and he always expressed remorse that he did that. Funny because he has no remorse for cheating on me.
He took his son's mother to court for visitation knowing that it meant he would be paying child support for the next 18 years. She had never tried to get support and likely would not have because that meant a reduction in government assistance. As a result, h lived pretty much pay-to-pay through his twenties until he moved in with me at 27. At that time, I asked him to only pay half the rent and I covered the rest of our expenses. I think that his inability to really enjoy his twenties, as most young men do, might have been a problem. I certainly did my best, spending a lot of money going out for dinner/drinks most nights during the week as well as weekends that we didn't have his son, but I guess it's not the same as when you're a single guy.
So while he always appeared to be financially responsible and is actually a little cheap, maybe it was only because he had no money. Now he has no money again because this divorce and his bad choices have left him with a substantial debt. It's all very sad and unnecessary.
It is -28 Celius with the windchill here today. That's -18ish Fahrenheit. Russian fur hat, down-filled coat and sheepskin boots for me today!
You state that if my H knew about this site he'd spend a lot of time trying to figure out which poster I was--do you mean you don't think he'd recognize himself right away from my descriptions? LOL. In that way it's a good thing they all become pod people reading from a (lousy) script, huh?
So, if your H had a child by 21, he was married by the time he was 19 or 20? Did they just get married because of the pregnancy? It's good your H did take some responsibility for his S, and regretted his first affair, because it reveals his conscience. That suggests he will regret this period in his life as well, once he straightens out his head. On the other hand, ending 2 marriages with affairs does suggest where he tends to run when he's not happy. How was he different with you than in his first marriage--did he recognize the difference?
I read on these boards that the MLCer gets stuck in the stage/stages they weren't allowed to complete when younger. So it seems your H would have to deal with the pre-teen time of abuse as well as his 20's? My H channelled being a pre-schooler sometimes, and his C pegged him at 13/14 for the rest of it. So I'm familiar with the angry and irrational teenaged thinking & behaviour, but not sure how an MLCer redoing his 20s acts differently. Did you come up with any info on that during your reading?
If you moved in together at 27, did you have earlier relationships to compare yours to? Have you thought about what you'd like any future relationships to look like? For me, finally accepting my H was involved in an EA made me reconsider how I'd been in our M, and what I wanted to change in myself and in any future R (with H or not), and it was a transformative process. Have you identified things you'd like to change?
Oooh, minus 28C yesterday. I hope that wind has stopped today! It sounds like you've got the outdoor gear to handle it, but it's not like you'd be lingering outdoors for any reason. I hope the summers out there amply make up for the winters! And how much longer till spring comes to your area? Of course, I'm making assumptions because I'm not a winter person; I hate to be cold. I hate to shovel snow. And I love being able to go for walks regularly. But I know there are lots of people whose favourite season is winter.
Pod people is a great description and would be really funny if it wasn't so pathetic. As time goes on, I hope I am able to look back at this time and maybe laugh a little at how absurdly he has behaved. I've always had a dry sense of humour.
I don't know if I will ever get over how they read from the same script. It's shocking and even more shocking that the general medical community still doesn't believe in a MLC.
He married at 21 and the baby was born 6 months later so he was still 21. Yes, they only got married because of the pregnancy but the pregnancy was intentional, even though they had only been seeing each other for two months. She wanted to receive government assistance rather than work and having a baby is a good way to increase monthly assistance here in Canada. They were not in love with each other but both sets of parents insisted they marry. I guess h's father wanted to ensure he would have access to any children later.
We got married because we loved each other and were very very good together. We just fit so comfortably from the very beginning and I NEVER would have believed we would end up here. Of course, everyone thinks that when they are in a happy relationship.
I haven't found anything about how a MLCer might redo his/her twenties but I would imagine spending lots of time drinking with the boys and going to strip bars might be part of it. H didn't have any male friends throughout our marriage and I didn't really know why but he started almost desperately looking for guys to hang out with in the last couple of years. When we first moved into the last house in Sept 07, he was really disappointed that one of the neighbours, who was in our age range, wasn't friendlier towards him. I thought it odd at the time that is was bothering him as, really we hadn't had a chance to get to know them at all yet, but didn't really think too much about it.
He told me when I ended it that he was having a good time with his hockey buddies and having a good time with his golf buddies and wants to play hockey 4 times a week and golf guilt free, and go out drinking, etc. So he wanted to be single. That doesn't explain the quick leap into a live-in commitment with the OW but a lot does not make sense.
I had a few long term relationships (and lots of short term!!) before h and the common denominator is that I took care of all of them. That's what I am going to try to change if I ever meet someone else. I don't know why I behave this way; I knew from a fairly young age that I did not want children but somehow always played the motherly type in my romantic relationships. Never again.
It has warmed up to -24C today!
Thanks again for always taking the time to give me stuff to think about. I guess I am not getting any input from other posters because I am not "divorce busting" but rather "divorcing" and perhaps they believe I am bad luck.
You know, one day you will laugh about it, but it does take a long time. Just hang onto your sense of humour, because you'll be needing it to get through!
One of my fears when I got to the point I was sure my H and I were finished was, what if I just ended up with ANOTHER guy who was about to have a MLC, but was a bit more of a late-bloomer? I mean, did I need to come up with some kind of a checklist for the types of traumas he'd undergone, whether his parents were still alive/about to die and whether he was honest with himself about their relationship, probing questions about whether the formative years had actually been formative, what the likelihood of him becoming depressed was, etc--and I felt really scared, because from a lot of the stories you read, signs of the upcoming MLC storm are not always obvious! And even if the guy had done the MLC thing, what if he hadn't completed that task fully?
I agree that you'd think the medical community would have reached more of a consensus, especially considering how many people in MLC are being treated. I believe my H was not unusual in that, during his MLC, he was in constant pain, feared the pains were signs of serious medical problems, and had his doctor run a number of expensive tests.
Meanwhile, as my H came out of the tunnel, he was really irritated by the way our culture treats MLCs, reducing them to jokes about overweight balding guys who trade in their families for 20-year old girls and sportscars. He wondered why nobody is ever warned that this might be upcoming if/when they face certain issues, and the pain and depression the MLCer experiences are ignored, and even doctors aren't equipped to help out. He felt marginalized as well as all alone....
From what I've learned, it's difficult for the victims of sexual abuse to make friends. Being betrayed by a male figure would make it that much harder for guys, I would think. I can remember, a few years back, feeling a desperate need for close female friendship. I recognize now that what I wanted was an over-the-top Hollywood vision of friendship; what I really needed was to come to terms with myself. I guess your H thought he would be happy "if only" he changed certain variables in his life, but being single demands a certain amount of introspection...making it easier to live with OW.
How is your H's relationship with his S, do you know? Is his confusion extending to their time together? Though I guess his S has his own life by now. How did your caretaking tendancies mesh with having this child in your life (from about the age of 6)?
Have you thought about what a non-mothering relationship would look like? It's good that you know what you'd like to change.
Can you actually FEEL a 4-degree improvement in temperature when it's still that cold? Brrrrrrrr.
I don't think anyone feels you're bad luck! Posters still at the beginning of their MLC bombings, desperate to find a way to save their marriages, are in a somewhat different boat than you, though, and it's easiest to connect with people whose stories seem the most similar. Also, those who post on a lot of other people's threads are the ones who get the most responses. People are obviously reading along, though, so I'm sure they'll chime in if anything strikes a chord, or if they want to suggest a new direction.
I agree with the fears of meeting another man pre-MLC or in MLC. I am most afraid of getting involved with someone who has treated his x wife the way my h treated me. I am sure if anyone asks he says "we grew apart" and if anyone ever says that to me I am running.
Your h sounds like he is in a good place now and can really look back at what has happened and be honest about it. I would imagine a lot come back and make reparations but don't ever really try to understand a MLC and the effect it had on them mentally and physically as well as really understand the damage they have done.
We used to get h's s every other weekend from age 6 to about 13 or so. H did his best, I think, but didn't exactly look forward to it. He really likes to do what HE wants to do and always wanted to play sports. His s wanted to play video games and watch TV. They are very different, s being a lot like his mother.
I tried to stay out of their relationship because I didn't want s to resent me and my presence during the time he had with his father. I certainly didn't try to mother him. We did become closer as he got older as I find it easier to relate to teens.
H told me after we separated that he was reconnecting with his family. They are all somewhat distant from each other. I assume he means his s as well. I have read that a lot of men in MLC push their entire family away. In my h's case, because they were already away, I guess he is trying to get them back.
I have no idea how to not take care of a man I am involved with without coming across as uncaring. I didn't smother anyone, just did the housecleaning, laundry, took care of them when they were sick, helped pick out their clothes (I'm sorry I will miss h's wardrobe when he is left to his own choices), etc. I didn't tell them what to do as that's not really my style. I don't like being told what to do and don't do it to others. My sister says that was a mistake -- I gave h so much freedom that he created a life without me.
No, you can't tell the difference when it's that cold. Should be warmer tomorrow.
Whenever I think about h losing his job, my stomach flips a little. I should get over it though because I guarantee you he would not give me a second thought if our situation was reversed. He has made it perfectly clear that he has no thoughts of me at all.
being single demands a certain amount of introspection...making it easier to live with OW.
I think you have hit on exactly what H meant last Nov when I asked him how he could be living with someone already and he said "Everything was all f**ked up and I don't want to talk about it." He had initially moved into a small furnished condo while we waited for the house to close. I guess he couldn't handle his thoughts when he got into bed alone at night. Coward.
Coward indeed! I guess that's why he's in MLC, though--I understand that all men approaching middle age go through a process where they have to grieve the ways in which their lives didn't live up to their expectations, and come to terms with who they really are. After this they are wiser, gentler, changed. The men who are terrified to confront themselves are the ones who turn a period of mild depression into a crisis. But what a rotton reason to start a relationship!
I hear you on the "we grew apart" line. Just think what a position of power you're in, now that you know which lines are danger signals! Wouldn't it be nice to find a guy who could give you an honest assessment of his mistakes in his previous relationship? Though, this site does give you hope that such guys do exist.
I'm sure your H's wardrobe will suffer from not having your input! What you say about how you care for your guy is interesting; did you ever read "The 5 Love Languages?" This book posits that there are 5 ways of showing or receiving love. I'm guessing yours would be "Acts of Service." The trick is to find out what makes your partner feel loved, as well as to ensure that he gives you what you need. So theoretically, how to care for someone has to be tailored to the person. I'm guessing if your H wasn't good at giving his S the kind of attention he preferred, he wasn't so good at picking up on love language clues?
You say you gave your H a lot of freedom. Did you let him know when you would have preferred to spend time with him instead of him doing his own thing? How would you have preferred things to have been, instead of him creating a life without you? (Not that I think your sister is completely right, because I don't think there was anything I could have done or said to stop my H from doing the same thing, once he was on the MLC path--his urge to avoid us & change things around was just too strong. I just wish I could have been less angry when he kept drifting further away--for my own sake.)
So, what's the weather brought for you today--a balmy -15C or something?
