Sure, you are good at posting!:) It helps to hear from someone who is going through the same stuff.
It is hard to say how long he has been in MLC. I think probably going close to a year now, with the self doubts, etc. He didn't share much with me about it until about Thanksgiving. Then around the first of the year is when he started in with the anger, first directed at himself, everything around him, and then of course me. The bomb was about three months ago and he has been sleeping in the basement since. The crazy behavior started now looking back quite slowly maybe around Thanksgiving-ish with the dying of hair and starting to buy the new clothes.
He is around home today and the kids aren't home currently and he is a bear. I am ignoring him. HOWEVER, he is out back working in the yard for the second afternoon and he has done pretty much absolutely NOTHING around the house for months so I don't know if this is a good sign or not.
How are things between you and your H now?
I would love any advice people have - this is such a tough thing. It is harder to GAL with the kids. I am trying to get out more with them this summer but I work at home and have to do that, too. And I pretty much always have to do things with the kids which is fine. I have definitely found a newfound appreciation for them through all of this. They ground me now.
Mine had the self doubts and all of a sudden started screaming at me. He was never one to yell and we didn't argue much, then all of a sudden everything was an arguement which in turn would end up in a screaming match. I finally learned to just not scream and argue because if I said it was blue he would scream no it's green. Mine just let himself completely go. He was a big man to begin with but gained even more weight and wore the oldest clothes he owned. There for a while I was afraid he would quit showering but lucky he didn't go that far.
Even though it's hard that is the best to ignore them. Mine didn't do anything around the house either and last year let his two adult children move in with their SO and no one did anything as far as cleaning up. I had to learn when in Rome do as they do which bothered me to see the house such a wreck all the time. I am not a neat freak but I do expect people to pick up after themselves. No one noticed that I was trying to clean up after everyone until I just stopped. I would stop and eat dinner on my way home because I knew there wouldn't be any clean dishes. I was already in IC which helped me to deal with it and not feel guilty for not having dinner cooked.
He is much better and we are actually getting along better but have a long way to go. There are some days I still have my doubts but they are getting fewer and fewer.
You can always take your kids to the park for a picnic to spend time with them and also to get out of the house. Before I finally concentrated on GAL, I would drive around the interstate just to be gone from home.
Well, it certainly is easier for me to ignore him when he is in the mood he seems to be in today - petulant teenager. Yikes!
I had actually thought about the park thing with the kids but we have had lots of afternoon rain lately. One of these days! For months we were lucky if he came home for dinner even one time per week and the past couple of weeks he has been home I think three to four times. Amazing! I get no warning, of course, he will just show up or not. But once last week he actually called to say he wouldn't be home. I about fell out of my chair. But I thought if he was out and came home and we were GONE on a picnic, what would he do?:)
You are already further along that I was. I had a very hard time ignoring him because we had always talked about everything so I was busy trying to talk it out and now that I look back on it, it was one of the worst things I could have done. To this day I still don't ask about to much and sometimes he just blabs on and on while I sit there and listen.
We have had a lot of rain as well. After the kids moved out again and I would come home if he wasnt' there I just went about my evening and would only cook for myself. He didn't notice or care at the time that there wasn't anything made for him. To this day I don't know if or where he ate. Sometimes I want to know and other times I don't. What did you say when he called to say he wouldn't be home? When my SO started calling me I would say thanks for letting me know and sometimes he would say bye and sometimes just hang up on me. I hate to say this but he probably wouldn't do anything. If he asks where you were of course tell him the truth and if he wonders why you didn't ask him you can say. I wasn't sure if you wanted to go or you weren't here and I didn't know what time you were going to be here. When I would leave to go do something if he was there when I came home he never asked where I was.
That is one of the hardest things in all of this - that he doesn't seem to care much about what I do at all. He is kinda connected to the kids (they are still pretty young) and seems to be working to reconnect more after basically ignoring them for a few months. SOME progress is that he will sometimes ask about my day, or how I slept, or something along that lines but not all the time.
He has never been a huge talker but now is intentionally shutting me out. Painful! When he called to say he wasn't going to be home, I honestly don't remember what I said. I waited for him to tell me where he was going but he didn't, just said "that's it." I didnt' ask. Then I think he went on to ask something about the kids.
You have to learn to ignore them. They are like two year olds having a teething temper tantrum. The less you buy into their drama, the better. It's hard when you are look are the person you married to and they are acting out in a foreign behavior.
They are moody, they don't like anything or anyone and you can't please them no matter how hard you try. What do you do? Treat them as a roommate who is having a bad day and just go on about your business. When you do this, this allows them time to fume and get it out of their systems.
It's very difficult when they are at home acting like this, but you can do it, if you just remember, they are acting out and this is all part of the growing up stage that we all went through a while ago. Unfortuantely, they didn't complete that part of growing up and now they have to.
Good luck!
Sit quietly, the answers will reveal themselves when you least expect them to. The past is gone, the present is a gift and you need to focus on today, allow the future to reveal itself when it is ready.
Thanks for your input, snodderly. That's exactly what it was like around here yesterday - grumpy, moody, sullen, barely speaking, slamming doors!, etc. It was a relief when he went out. I did a good job of ignoring and concentrating on the kids and what I needed to get done and being as pleasant as possible but not really saying much of anything to him. If it was one of the kids I would have sent them to their rooms until they could come out and "act nice.":)
trusting, something that helps me is remembering that I am not necessarily the cause of their bad moods. Maybe I am, but maybe I am not. There's a big world out there that can set them off! I also notice that my H can turn on his charm and be sweet as pie (even to me) when other folks are around but when it's just me and him we can live in total silence. It used to be silence thick with tension. Now it's just silence. I try to look at it as 'at least he feels comfortable enough around me to be how he feels'.
Your hide will get thicker. Think of it as water rolling off a duck. You get to be the duck. Gliding smoothly across the water but paddling like mad under the surface.
Live your life while you are still living. Riding the trail less traveled.
WCW - good analogy about the duck.:) I am finding it easier and easier to detach, and to not be focused on where he is, what he is doing, trying to analyze his actions, etc.
Yesterday was another day (when he was around which wasn't a whole lot - HOWEVER was home for dinner for the third night in a row - record we haven't seen for months!!!) where he was moody and non-commmunicative, even with the kids. I ignored him for the most part, just pleasant when I did speak to him.
Other days recently he has seemed like "himself" again, more relaxed around me, actually doing stuff around the house, stepping in to deal with the kids (again, not something I have seen for awhile) and in some ways those days are harder because I have to keep reminding myself he thinks he doesn't love me anymore.
Then the alien takes over again . . .
I can say this week for the most part I have felt truly content and even happy - what a difference that makes! I am faking it til I am making it!
I used to post here under a different name but for personal suspected snooping reasons, I stopped posting and have just been lurking and learning and growing. Yes I have H at home in MLC. I believe this has been going on since early 2006, with a bomb drop in 2007, different crisis which sort of put the MLC on hold for a while, then bomb in 2008 with H moving into the other bedroom in September, which is where he still resides.
I read your thread over on Newcomers and yes I agree, this is a lonely place to be. Let me start by saying this, he is not there simply for financial reasons. Believe me, when they want out, they want out and nothing stops that. Although I do believe that they convince themselves that there are reasons/responsibilities that keep them from doing what they think they want, ie leaving.
I will tell you this is the hardest thing I have ever lived through and this is my second time around with it. H went through a partial QLC/MLC about ten years ago, and I lived through 2 years of hell then. He never finished and I don't believe that I learned the lessons I was supposed to learn so here we are again. This time, it has been much worse, as Snodderly so wisely reminds all of us. They need to finish this and if they don't, well.....Anyway, having H at home. Most days we pass in the night with little conversation. For a while he would blast me for not keeping him up to date on things with the house, son, etc because I was handling things myself because he didn't want me talking to him. So I started informing him of everything. Then I was talking to him too much. So I stopped. But I also stopped caring what his reaction is. Now, if I speak to him, which is almost always by his initiation, I may or may not mention to him what is going on. The electric bill was 400 this month, S got a job. When he comes home from work and asks where S is, I just chuckle to myself anymore because with the exception of going to church, s schedule has remained exactly the same for the last 7 years. So to ask where he is is really stupid.
Detatch. It is the only way. There are days you will feel like you don't like him let alone love him anymore and there are days you will wonder if you have lost your mind. Yes, it would be much easier in many ways to have them gone. Then the healing of the ending of the M could begin. In our situations, it starts and stops. There is no real healing in that regard for us. More like acceptance of a different way of life for now. However, you must remember that you choose to stay right now. And you always have the option to leave. That also makes it easier.
Yes they do notice what we are doing although they tend to keep it very quiet. At times I have wondered if H actually pays more attention to me now than when we were happy. When the replay behavior is bad, I don't think they notice as much, but then one day they look at you and realize you lost 30 pounds, but that didn't happen overnight. H has noticed when I sleep well and when I don't. He also has suddenly begun to recognize how much I do around here, for him, S, with my work. That is nothing new either, but I used to be lazy, so who knows...
The spending, well that is definately a "void filler". I have seen that with MIL. She is a depressed alcoholic who pays her bills, and then will spend every penny on junk, for herself and others, then cry poor and no money for gas to get to work until her next check to just turn around and repeat. My H has always been a bit of a spender. He learned that buying things is a way to show love, even if it is a pair of socks. But it got worse. Let's see, a new truck, plasma tv, two laptops, a gaming computer, 2 LCD tv's, really loud exhaust for the new truck. I can't complain too much as he works for the money for it and I too have benefited from his shopping sprees.
So I guess my best advice for you right now is to live your life. As if he was not there. Yes I too have house projects I was waiting to get finished. I've just started finishing them myself. He will like it or not. But I hate the way my laundry room looks. Take care of your kids. Know this will get harder before it gets easier. You will have good and bad days. And I will suggest to really enjoy the good ones, the ones that are good for you regardless of him because if he is still there as he starts to come out of it, unfortunately it gets harder.
I thought that would be the easiest part. I have begun to see the signs of a shift out of the replay/depression/withdrawl stages, although we have also done this twice before with him bouncing right back twice, to now mostly simply depression. I just sit here and watch for the most part and participate when I am approached. That is how I have survived so far.
Good luck.
"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it."--Michael J. Fox
