Angelica, I think you are courageous to stand. I really hope that I will be as strong as you at 17 months post bomb. I am only a year on, and the PA has only been 4 months even though EA has been much longer. I guess we all feel crazy to be standing from time to time, but I guess that is also what gives us the balance to cope !
Still think you are a very courageous woman !!!! Thanks for all your fantastic advice and insight !
Love Cinders xxx
"In the depths of my winter, I realized there is within me an invincible summer" Albert Camus
I also would like to say that you have seem to have been such a strong person, even though im sure behind closed doors etc you have been in tremendous pain. I truly hope that your husband finds his way home to you.
Nicky
Me 34 H 33 D3 together 10 years married 2 years Bomb 22/8/06 (I feel empty) OW involved
nickyf and cinderellaman - i think the pain that we all feel is almost unbearable at times, and completely NOT understood by anyone who has not gone through this.
Sometimes I wonder if I am just a masochist, and that a sane person would have walked away, and then I remember what an amazingly nice, kind, and good person my h used to be, how much I learned from him, and how I know he would have stood by me in bad times.
But to the world they are just another erring man. But as Christ told us, we should not conform to the world and its norms.
But please do not think that I do not fully sympathize and accept the decision of ANYONE here not to stand. it is entirely an individual decision, and some have to walk away to protect thesemselves and their kids. And while all MLCers are behaving badly, some are undoubtedly worse and more unfeeling than others.
This is such a great support system, thanks for your support.
Angelica how right you are, I agree about not being understood by anyone who hasn't been through this, I have often tried to tell people it's like having kids; people can tell you about it and show you and try to express the emotions that will come with it, but you DO NOT KNOW what it's like till you give birth and experience it yourself. It is THAT kind of experience I think, that's why people 'on the outside' have no clue and therefore often have 'useless' advice !
I am also EXTREMELY thankful for this support system, I think I would never have made it this far, if it wasn't for all of you here !!!!
Love Cinders xxx
"In the depths of my winter, I realized there is within me an invincible summer" Albert Camus
Tomorrow morning is my first court date to start H and my divorce. I am pretty nervous and sad that it has come to this.
Can you give me any pointers or advice about how I should act around my H? Should I wish him well, acknowledge his presence in the courthouse , ignore him?? It will basically be our 2 L's doing all the negociating while H and I sit in a room together. Uncomfortable , but my L says the room is large so if I don't want to speak to H I don't have to.
It is going to be a very sad day for me-- to H I think he is looking at it as the end of a chapter in his life and is looking forward to a new beginning with Ow. He believes his unhappiness was because he was married to me, we were a mistake.
Coming from a MLCer's perspective how do you think I should act? Do I show him my true feelings of disappointment and regrets or act strong and confident - looking forward to my new life without him??
What are intuition tells us and what we do are often two different things. We need to trust our intuition, or inner voice as it knows what is best.
In my readings I'm begining to understand that it's not a matter of me learning what to do, but actually remembering what to do. It may be such that all the information I need, in order to deal with my life experiences already exists within me.
Each of us have our own DNA imprint. Our physical body has all the tools and information it needs already programmed inside of me to function and do everything it does without having to give it thought and make choices. Our heart beats and pumps blood, our lungs take in oxygen and then distribute it to the rest of our body through our blood system. Our digestive system, nervous system, muscle system, respiratory system all function automatically and systematically.
It may be such that we also have a imprint with all the information to function mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
I believe that MLC is tied to ones past experiences as a child. It may also be connected to ones own emotional DNA that is passed from one generation to the next, just as our physical genes are passed along.
Maybe our spouses MLC is linked to their parents emotional issues and our grandparents emotional issues and have been passed on for generations.
I was talking to my counselor about this yesterday. We talked about putting together a family history chart to see how the connections play out.
I can look back to my parents and their emotional and mental issues, and also to their parents issues. The connection is very interesting as there does seem to be a pattern that keeps repeating itself.
I know there is some repeating of behaviors that are learned from the environment that you growup in. But is it such that there is some of what we "know" and "do" because it is a part of us internally and was given to us at birth?
I've talked to my son and his cousin about breaking the pattern of what has happened with their parents and grandparents before them. My thinking is that if they are consciously aware of the dysfuntional aspects of their parents and grandparents lives, maybe they can learn from that and make different choices in how they deal with lifes personal issues in the future.
Our reality is what we believe. Our MLC spouses are not wrong in their thinking. At least not in terms of, it is what they truly believe.
Their perception and your perception can be totally opposite. Each of us have had our own life experiences and have filters in how we process our experiences. What we experienced in the past has a huge impact on what we percieve in the present.
To each of us, what we experience today is influenced heavily in the past. For those of us who had a different childhood experience than our spouses, we see things far differently than they do.
I think all of us, at least I do, question what is reality. I question my own beliefs daily.
I ask myself; Is what I percieve reality or is it just my perception. My perception is so influenced by what I have experienced I often wonder if it has been tainted from seeing the truth.
In reading the postings by LBS you hear one reality based on what the LBS is percieving to be true. Reality is that what they share as their "truth" may not be reality at all.
It has been my understanding that what the LBS believes is happening in their marriage relationship with a MLC person, is not what is really happening.
To me, what is being experienced and why it's beeing experienced is far different than what a LBS believes.
I've come to believe that what a LBS things is happening "to them", is actually happening "for them."
The reason I believe this is my belief in that our life has experiences that are opportunities to learn the lesons each of us are suppose to learn.
The MLC experience is not a "mistake" but a great opportunity to learn many of our lessons in one experience.
A LBS believes that what is happening shouldn't be happening. This is not how my marriage was suppose to be. This is not what marriage is about. This goes against God's wishes. My spouses thinking and behaviors are all wrong and go against what I believe to be morally right.
All of us have beliefs about marriage. What it is and what it should be. Where did we get these beliefs? From our parents, friends and what has been handed down from generations.
My question is this. Is marriage changing? If you look at statistics on marriage, people are waiting longer to get married, more and more people are co-habitating. Divorce is on the rise in some countries. Are our beliefs on marriage changing?
For those who say they are "standing for their marriage" are they actually standing for their "beliefs about marriage?"
I've come to understand that beliefs are not facts. They are simply beliefs. They are neither right or wrong. Our beliefs are what is right for us, at this time. Over time, what we used to believe no longer holds true for us. Our beliefs are continually changing.
How many beliefs you had in the past are no longer what you believe today? I have many beliefs that I have slowly "let go" of. The more I experience, the more I know and understand, the faster my beliefs change.
I sense that some LBS's believe that by being married to their MLC spouse, that gives them the right ow "ownership" of their spouse.
Some LBS's want to control their MLC spouse by making them feel guilty or ashamed for what they are doing. They do this based on their beliefs. They believe that their spouse going through MLC is "wrong" for what they think and what they are doing.
I believe that a person who has a MLC would have it wether they are married to the person they are married to or any one of 6 billion other choices they could have made for a marriage partner.
MLC is not about the marriage. MLC is about the individual and their unresolved childhood issues. MLC is about human mental, emotional and spiritual development. You can't save the marriage without first fixing or healing the MLC person. It doesn't and won't work.
Yes, you might get the MLC and LBS back together. But the MLC's issues are still there and will resurface their ugly head again in the future.
There are many stories of spouses who have gotten back together while one of them was going through a MLC, and then seperated again in the future and eventually divorced.
The MLC person will say they tried to make it work but it just wasn't working out. They say, at least I tried. The truth is they never fully dealt with their issues that led to their MLC. They just supressed their emotional pain and tried to live life carrying this unfinished baggage within them.
I had my MLC behaviors in my 30's. I'm now 53 and I'm still working on my childhood issues and wounds trying to heal them. It's very hard work for a person who has experienced a MLC to discover what their true issues are and what is neccessary to "fix" themselves.
I do take issue with the belief that the marriage, where one spouse is going through MLC, can be saved by using DB principles alone. To me, the major issues are not about the marriage relationship. The major issues are what lie inside of the MLC person and the LBS person as well.
You need to get to the core of what the issues are, before you can truly have a healthy marriage relationship. Yes, you can get back togehter and on the surface seem happy. But inside, I can gurantee the MLC person is not truly happy. Just as they were not happy before they dropped the "bomb."
A MLC person struggles to share what they are really feeling inside. They learned in childhood to not share their feelings and if they did they would suffer the consequences. They also learned that by sharing their feelings and asking for their needs be met they often faced rejection or abandonment.
As an adult, a MLC person does not know how to ask for their needs from their spouse, and they also "fear" that if they did, they would be ridiculed or rejected. So from that fear, they don't ask. They believe they are not "good enough" to have their needs met.
There are two basic human emotions, LOVE and FEAR. You cannot experience both at the same time. A MLC person is acting out from the "fear" inside of them. A MLC person does not understand what unconditional love is, as they did not experience it as a child.
As I learn more about myself and my twisted thinking, that was developed during my childhood experiences, the more I understand how hard it is to erase the old tapes inside of my head and replace them with new ones.
It would be great if I could just go to my pshychiatrist and she would hook me up to a machine that would erase all the old memories and replace them with new information that would help me function better as an adult. At this time that is not possible, I have to do it mannualy.
And that is probably the way it is supposed to be. All the painful experiences I have had in my lifetime served a greater purpose. Each one was given to me to learn the lessons that I needed to learn. Things do happen for a reason.
MGoBlue - as always an interestig post, but not one I fully agree with!
My h said something veryinteresting a couple of months ago - he said I feel as if someone else has been living my life for the last 16 months, and I don't like it, it isn't the real me. The person he was for 16 months was unrecognizable to everyone who knew him.
I believe that there is a verifiable external reality. Our reality corresonds to this to a greater or lesser extent. When our internal reality is seriously out of kilter with external reality we are in crisis. {I am not talkig about societal norms, by the way here, but a deeper, spiritual reality]
However I also believe for more damaged people there is a pattern of repeated suffering, [and there is an interesting book called 'Healing in the Family chain']. I do know MLCers that have worked through their crisis, and got back together, and are several years on, and very happy. Nothing about them suggests that they are putting on any kind of show.
Is marriage changing - well, marriage fulfills a variety of needs, but I see a surprisingly stable pattern of ideas about marriage in writings across the ages.
At its best it is a physical and spiritual bond between two people who have large areas of compatibility, but enough individuality to interest each other. There needs to be all kinds of equalities 'Be not unevenly yoked together', as the Bible has it. It is a source of comfort, joy, solace, security.
Just as healthy people are robust, so healthy marriages will survive a lot of abuse.
I continue to believe that MLC is a spiritual/emotional sickness, which has to be resolved, and which causes teh MLCer to reject what they previously loved. yes, their view of marriage is their current reality, but it is a shifting one.
My h tells a different story every time he opens his mouth. The children's view, and mine, is curiously stable. We don't need to go back and reinterpret past events to suit the current situation. We don't need to rewrite hisotry, deny that we uttered words we didn't mean, made plans we had no intention of honouring.
I do believe that what had happened to us can be positive, but if my h doesn't learn from it, then he will fail to develop to his fullest potential.
I truly do not know and recognise the person he was in full-blown MLC. Neither does anyone else. Now we get intermittent glimpses of the person we knew and loved, and he gradually becomes happier, but he is still in a lot of pain.
So yes, I think MLC had to happen to my h, and I think he CAN work through it, and resolve a lot of issues from his childhood, and rebuild his relationships. He doesn't have to, and we will all be fine. Diminished by the loss of the person he was, unless the person he can be emerges fully. Just MO - I am still going through this, and in general, feeling good about what is going on, in an odd sort of way. I do see it as a pilgrimage, that I ddin't want to undertake, but that has led me to a better place. If my h wants to join me there, I think we could be happy together, but I will be fine.
