"MY take on a life crisis is the merging of whatever adult mind with the rough age of whatever they were when some mental trauma occurred."
All things considered, is it a relatively safe assumption to think her EA with DJ from China could be an indicator of some trauma that occurred when she dated DJ in high school and her parents broke it off. Could they BOTH have experienced some deep-rooted psychological damage way back when? Cause man, some of the stuff HE'S pulled. When I was [guilty of] snooping my wife's e-mails, I saw messages where he's telling my wife to fantasize about him kissing her, spending 'days in bed together'. He posted more pictures of MY daughter on his Windows Messenger profile page than of his own kid. (For what, to impress my wife?)I've already mentioned he walked out on his own family and has the nerve to e-mail my wife pictures of his divorce papers as proof of his love. There was one paranoid e-mail to my wife where his cell phone apparently rang one day, and the psycho thought it was ME calling him.....and speaking Chinese! Why you may ask...? Because, according to DJ, there was too much silence on the phone before I started speaking Chinese to him... Anyways, really insane stuff from this idiot. He is/was manipulating my wife's emotions and totally taking advantage of her vulnerabilities. It really, really pisses me the hell off, but what can I do at this point? And, to top it all off, my poor wife bought into alot of this and called him her soul-mate. Pretty typical MLC response I guess, but she essentially thought of him as her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ I guess(Well, the Chinese version anyways...) Bad analogy, I suppose, but still sick stuff.
As Daffy Duck would say, "Dat's Deeeeee-spicable!"
The thing that's really frustrating is knowing that my wife's depression is the key to this whole thing, but feeling helpless to do anything for her. I know the depression's the key, because I went through something similar in my early 20's. I went through a 2-year period of depression where I had pushed everyone away from me, including my step-parents, and the only thing that snapped me out of it was a car accident that killed 3 of my friends. It's really a damn shame that it took a crisis to wake me up. It's an even worse shame having gone through that life experience, and now being helpless to help my own wife...the woman I love...
Many of us have struggled with this, we know the answer to the problem, but they don't want to hear it or deal with it.
Me: 46 H:44 Together: 25 years Married: 20 years Separated: 11-30-06 Divorced 12-21-07 OW: EA began 2005 PA began end of 2006 3 children,20, 16, 6 ex asked for forgiveness 01/16/11
You don't have to be helpless, you can strengthen yourself so when she's ready, you're there and strong waiting to take her on.
She's on vacation right now, nothing in her life is real. When she comes back, she's going to need a strong MR to say he forgives her, and help get the R back on track. Read, GAL, you know what to do. Don't worry about her and don't let your love suck you down. You'll wind up depressed right alongside of her.
Why does my wife seem like she is in a trance sometimes? I mean like, literally in a trance. When she cycles/spirals through a depression episode, there are times where her eyes seem very distant, like she's staring off into space, and not quite here on the planet earth. She acts like she's just going through the motions ('robotic' is the word that comes to mind) during these episodes.
Also, can someone share with me a good explanation of what this 'replay' means that I keep reading about around here? How do I identify some of the different MLC 'stages' in my wife's behavior? I don't really understand what 'replay' means, but I definitely observe instances where my poor wife seems stuck - kinda like a song that keeps repeating itself over and over. Another thing, how do I contextualize my wife's behavior when she goes through stretches of time (could be a few days, or even a couple of weeks) where she seems to slowly inch forward out of the 'tunnel', and then starts withdrawing again? For example, the past two weeks my wife has been quite engaged with the plants and rosebush we have here at home. I had seen a lot of small (but strong) glimpses of my 'real' wife, and felt hopeful that she was inching her way out of the tunnel to an extent. However, over the last 2-3 days I have noticed that she has become more withdrawn and less interested in the plants. What causes this 'peeking/running back into the tunnel'? Is it ME somehow causing these cycles to repeat? Is it influence from her EA partner? Or, does it just happen this way with MLC?
The trance like state is her depression. They crawl within themselves for a bit. Many do this.
Replay is the stage where they go back in time to the place where their emotional state was stunted. It's where they stopped growing emotionally in order to mature adults. They begin to change their appearance, i.e., hair, dress, body piercings, tattoos, etc. They can even change their likes and dislikes of food, beverages, activities/hobbies. It's where they become the exact opposite of the person that you know and love. It's the experimentation stage of growing up. They will try all types of things to see what actually fits and makes them happy. This could include a new "soul mate" or many during this time.
The peeking out of the tunnel will occur many times during the crisis. You have to remember, this crisis isn't about you, but her. The peeking out and interacting w/you, family and friends is a way to touch base. Many times, when they do peek out, they warm up a bit and they realize that they have slipped up and allowed their true feelings to come out. They can't accept those feelings as real just yet. They do not want to get too close for fear of us seeing this as promise of getting back together. It's all part of the mlc.
I would suggest you read up on depression as depression drives the mlc in people. Once you have a better understanding of depression, you'll begin to see that your wife has many of the traits. Please remember, this is not about you....
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.
Hi there, I am not 100% certain that i have done it correctly but the address below is the link i have in my MLC folder (!!) for the stages of MLC - it is by Hearts Blessing and is quite long but totally worth reading.
Reading up on depression has helped me enormously - that is how I view my husband when he starts any of his antics - he is a man that is ill but manages to cover it up quite well a lot of the time to a lot of people. Whilst he still looks at me with those dead fish eyes he's still in a dark place and I need to treat him with love and compassion.
I hope this helps as you grapple with the landscape which is MLC.
lalxx
Choose Life Me: 45 Him: 44 S:11 D:8 Met in 1992 Married in 1995 Bomb drop September 30th 2009 Divorce final April 16th 2011 exH Marries OW June 17th 2011
Reading will help you understand what you W is going thru. Having said this, you need to be careful that you do not spend so much time trying to understand what she is feeling that you loose the time that you should be spending on you.
As many have said, this is her issue and her battle to fight. You can only sit back and hope that she at some point begins to face her feelings. When and if she does, where will Mental be? That's really the question you need to answer.
I spent months trying to understand my W. Months looking for "signs", once I understood and then I realized that I needed to look at me. I needed to understand why I felt the way that I did. Do this for yourself and most of the answers that you want will be answered.
At some point you will need to really let her go and come to the realization that YOU or your knowledge of what she is going through cannot fix it. What you can do though is fix you.
My heart goes out to you.
God Bless, Eric
"The difficulties of Life are intended to make us BETTER,not bitter". "Fear is a prison, where you are the jailer. FREE YOURSELF!" "Life is usually all about how you handle Plan B." - Jack3Beans
