I believe he is in the 3rd or Replay stage. I will never know if and when he moves to another stage because we will have no further contact. Given his past issues and his personality, he seems the type to keep spinning.
No. Never did counselling in the past. I come from a family of five children and each of us has different issues from growing up in our household. It's really quite interesting. The women (three of us) talk about it quite a bit and I am certainly congizant of my own self-esteem and confidence issues which I can trace back to my dad.
I read one of those "Adult Children of Alcoholics" books once but honestly, those self-help type things aren't for me. It just seemed to be a lot of horrible stories, each one worse than the other, that made me grateful that my dad appeared to be a better than average drunk.
I grew up in a rural community where everyone was very inter-twined and I would take my father over any of the fine upstanding and sober neighbourhood fathers anyday. He was sometimes verbally abusive and could be very cruel but he, despite what demons were biting him, adored his wife and children and did his best under some very trying financial circumstances.
There is no doubt that my past played a big part in my attaction to my h and I have always know that. Didn't see a MLC coming though! My dad and my h have a few personality traits in common as well -- some good, some not so good -- but my father would NEVER have abandoned his wife and/or children.
Sisters--aren't they wonderful to talk to, especially about family of origin matters ... I've sure spent a lot of time with mine, analysing the past. It sounds as though it must have been difficult, growing up with your dad, but good that you can appreciate the positives in him.
My own father had an MLC himself, though it wasn't until my H had his that I recognized what had been going on back then. Even so, I never would have guessed my H would take the same route.
Sorry, but I got interrupted there last time. I was thinking about patterns in our lives, how we recreate the ones that seem familiar to us--often, even, as we think we're trying to break free of patterns/situations that we recognize as unhealthy. And how in our lives we seem to end up cycling through certain lessons; if we don't resolve them the first time, they present themselves in a new way. In my case, I dealt as best as I could when I was younger with the sexual abuse, but I still saw myself as a victim, and couldn't forgive my abuser for that. A week after I finished working through my forgiveness of the abuser, I found out about my H's EA. It reopened old wounds: once again a person that I trusted and loved was cruelly putting his own needs above mine. Instantly, I knew I would be able to forgive him down the line, if appropriate, because I had mastered that process. But there were other issues (like my needs not being considered, my desire for control, and stuff about love and security and self-esteem) that were triggered by both situations, yet not dealt with the first time. I feel I made a lot of progress on them.
Meanwhile, my H had never dealt with his mother's physical and verbal abuse of him as a child. His family tended to ignore her bad behaviour, excusing it because of her medical condition, and focused on her many excellent qualities. But everything he hadn't dealt with resurfaced in his relationship with his bullying boss. Now that he's through his MLC, he's largely resolved that pattern.
I know I feel more fully alive now than I did before the whole MLC experience. I'm sure lots of people here wouldn't agree with me, but I do see something positive in the fact that MLCers are desperately trying to fix something in themselves that is broken. Unfortunately, like a disconsolate toddler, they trash the toyroom instead of recognizing they just wanted a hug....
Have you ever read The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls? It's an extreme case of growing up with an alcoholic dad, but written with such love for his "good parts." What you said about all the horrible stories out there made me think of it.
It sounds as though you have a pretty good handle on your situation, and on your expectations. You say you expect your H to "keep spinning," but it does seem that most eventually do acknowledge regret, even if it's too little too late.
This is just a curious question, but you state that your father would never have abandonned his family. Looking in from the outside, it would appear that disappearing into the bottle would feel like a kind of abandonment? Like he was often not really "there" for you?
I hope you had a good weekend with the cats! How many of them are there? And how is the weight-gain program going--what yummy snacks have you enjoyed lately?
I don't believe my h is trying to fix anything. Perhaps he will if he emerges from the "fog" but at the moment he seems to be running. He has always been the ignore it and it will go away type person. He will never confront anyone who has done him wrong. He will never confront anyone about anything.
When I asked him in Nov how he could be living with someone already (unaware that he had been having an affair with her) he said "everything was f**ked up and I don't want to talk about it." He just kept repeating that or something similar when I tried to get him to explain. It was like speaking with a three year old! It doesn't seem to me that he is making rational decisions.
And then there is the financial irresponsibility --
After we separated last June, I discovered that he had spent over $34,000 on our joint line of credit in five months and I would be responsible 50%. After we split, he than maxed out another joint line of credit to $12,000, which I had access to, so that I could not get any funds.
When we exchanged financial statements, I discovered that he had also spent $8400 on his personal line of credit.
In August, just before our first collaborative divorce meeting, he charged an additional $40,000 to our joint line of credit. I assumed that he had bought a condo or something but it turned out to be a margin call. I knew that he was responsible for any post-separation amounts so I wasn't concerned but found out that HE didn't know that! He was trying to add to my debt after we had separated!!
I was at my lawyer's office yesterday and got my copy of his financial disclosure which I didn't have a chance to review because my L had both copies. It shows that he was in debt the $40,000 (margin call) in January 08 -- one month after receiving a $330,000 bonus!!
So by the end of May 08 he (we) were in debt $82,400 spent on bad invesments, lap dances and the OW. All within five months. I had no idea. I never asked to see the statements for the investment accounts nor his visa bills nor anything else and he didn't ask to see mine. We were married and trusted each other. We split household expenses for the most part even though he made seven times what I earn, because HE was SAVING for our retirement.
This past January, the last time we spoke, he asked me how I sleep at night after getting half of our equity and a small spousal settlement.
It's all too much really.
As for my father, I didn't ever think of his drinking as abandonment. He drank A LOT, so I knew the drunk father better than the sober father.
As we were out in the country we were dependant on cars to get anywhere and my father was the only father who took the kids to any events. My brothers were the only boys who played organized hockey. He took us skiing in the winter and swimming in the summer and took as many of the neighbourhood kids as he could fit along. When we were older he drove us to our friends homes and picked us up, no matter how late it was. He was drinking and driving but someone managed to never kill anyone, thankfully!
He worked for a unionized company and had a lot of vacation time and always took his vacation so that he would be home when we were home, much to our chagrin most of the time!
We discussed politics, news and books at the dinner table and were made to read rather than watch TV most of the time.
Now I'm not trying to pretend that he was a fantastic father because, obviously, the drinking was a huge issue but the older I get the more forgiving I am and more understanding of what was likely causing his unhappiness. I am sorry that he died when I was still relatively young (21) because I would have liked to have known him with some maturity on my side.
Weekend was good. Hope yours was too. I have two cats -- Max is 15 pounds and Quigley is 23 pounds -- both male. I will be moving to a condo in May and went to measure, etc. on Saturday and discovered that the king bed I was hoping to buy will not fit comfortably. Very disappointing as I really need a bigger bed for all three of us!
I am at 125 lbs in the morning and about 127 lbs at night which is pretty good. I am 5'9" so I like to be at about 130. I eat pound cake every night before bed and sometimes a beer as well although they don't really go well together. I was drinking Ensure for a while but just can't stand the taste so I switched to beer.
I appreciate you taking the time to give me your thoughts.
Well, I guess your H's erratic spending pretty much answers the question of whether this is an MLC or not! Blowing that much money in so short a time is a pretty good indicator of it. And of the fact his brain is pretty much disconnected, or in teenaged la-la land somewhere, where money isn't an issue. It's good that you separated your finances before it got any worse.
I hear you on the lopsidedness of their thinking, that nothing is too much for them, while anything is too much for you. My H spent the MLC years constantly buying "toys" to fill his void, yet nastily stating that if we divorced he'd hide all his money, even stop working so he didn't have to pay child support--with absolutely no consideration of where that would leave his own kids!
Your dad sounds like a really caring man. Funny, my parents were really big on the reading instead of watching TV issue as well. As a child I felt a bit of a cultural misfit when other kids talked about shows and characters and commercials, but now I'm grateful for all the time it left to read, and dream, and write stories, and play outdoors....
My weekend was good, thanks. I'm chuckling about the cats & the king-sized bed, thinking they're probably like kids: take even the tiniest little baby into your bed, and in the dark it seems to grow 10 sizes, so that no matter how you lay you're being pushed off your bed and kicked in the stomach. Will you settle for a queen instead?
Wow, you must have been dangerously skinny there for a while! I'm 5'8" and got down to about 125 during the worst of the MLC, but you're just back UP to that weight. Beer and pound cake, huh--what we won't do for our health! Actually, now that my H is recovered I notice it's easier for me to put the weight back on, so I have to be more careful--no more late-night snacking here. I quite like being a size 6!!
I think you said your house needed some work and had a pretty big garden. Are you still there until May? And how will Max & Quigley feel about the move? Are they outdoor cats who play in your garden? And will you miss the garden yourself when you move to the condo? How will it feel to leave your marital home?
Yup the money thing sort of clinches it doesn't it? What a strange strange disorder or disease or whatever. I was fairly certain but a few counsellors managed to put doubt in my mind and then I start turning it back to myself and what I might have done to drive him away.
They both said there is no such thing as a MLC and that he was always this way but it became exaggerated when he suddenly started making more money that he ever thought possible. I believe the change in his status contributed, but I am no idiot and KNOW I was not married to the person he is now.
He is now living in government assisted housing after moving in with the woman with whom he was having an affair.
Does your h remember saying those things to you when he was in the middle of the MLC? I hear they forget or block out the nasty things that they said. My h always had a terrible memory anyway so I know I will never get an apology, even if he does recover.
I commend you for being able to put this behind you and save your marriage. It's funny but I would have been able to get past the affair but I will never get past the lapdances and the lies and the lies and the lies.
I already have a queen and will get another one for the new place. It has two bedrooms and I want a new bed for myself that h has never been in. One of the cats insists on using me as his pillow and gets mad if I shove him off so maybe a king would not have mattered. Unfortunately he is a cute as a button and gets away with murder.
Every month during the separation I learned new, very painful, information and when he finally admitted to the affair this past Jan, I dropped to 119. Not pretty. Had to buy a bunch of size 0-2 pants!
We sold the house about three weeks after we separated and I moved out last Sept. I threw h out at the beginning of June. I didn't want to stay there and we had only moved in the fall before so it was not yet "home." Luckily we sold just before the financial crisis began and while prices have not dropped a lot in Canada, we made money because of the timing. I had started on a beautiful wildflower type garden and will miss that.
I moved into an apartment while I tried to get my bearings and as luck would have it, h moved in with OW about a block away from me a few weeks later. She already lived there. In a city this size, it was quite the shock when I saw him going into that place one night when I was on my way home and knew immediately that he was living with someone.
I bought the condo at the beginning of Jan and although I am glad to have something, I am not enthusiastic about it if you know what I mean. The cats are strictly indoor and they adjust very quickly so I am not worried.
A lot of Cs don't believe in such a thing as an MLC, do they? I did some research on the internet and was pretty sure that was what my H was going through, but most info was written by men (largely) who'd experienced it. It was such a relief to find this site, and that essay by MWD in which she expressed that she'd come to believe MLCs existed, and often happened to guys who'd previously been quite upstanding. By that point my H had been in his crisis for 3 years, and I'd been wondering to myself how I'd never noticed during our earlier years that he was a monster of selfishness. But now that he's come out of the fog he's not cold, selfish, avoidant, workaholic, etc anymore, so I believe this is his true personality. I dunno where the rest of it came from. Depression? self-hatred? the negative aspects of his personality in full control? I also read somewhere that when someone dies their loved ones can sometimes take on aspects of their personality, so perhaps he was becoming the most wounding version of his mom?
Incidentally, my H's C also said there was no such thing as an MLC. However, that didn't stop him from getting H unentangled from it. I wasn't sure if he said that because he didn't want it to become an "excuse" for bad behaviour, or, more likely, if he was just approaching the same symptoms from a different perspective.
My H has always had a dreadful memory himself! The other day he was talking about "our terrible year." I pointed out that the terrible time had lasted for 4.5 years. He was quite amazed. He has no clear memory of things that sometimes still feel pretty gutting to me. If I bring up anything (which I don't do often), he admits to a very hazy memory of feeling very angry at the kids all the time, or of wanting to run away, etc, but he's quite surprised to hear the specific things he said.
Another thing "they" tell you is that your H did register what you said, on some level. For much of the MLC period, nothing I said seemed to penetrate. But recently he's told me many times how much he regrets hurting me and how he beats himself up for it. Now that his morality has returned, he has trouble accepting how he behaved. I guess that makes it a lot easier to (almost) trust him--there was a long period there when I didn't see how I could, after all those lies and omissions. But he really isn't that person any more.
I can understand the new bed for your new start. How horrible that he moved in so close to you--is he still there, or is the govt-assisted housing further away? Isn't it amazing how he could go from great job/great wife/great house to his present circumstances so quickly. Yet I'm surprised how many times I see the same story on these boards. And I'm really torn between anger at these guys who shred the lives of their loved ones, and sadness for their self-destructive misery.
The wildflower garden sounded lovely, but I'm sure a condo's better for now. And the cats sound like great companions. Does your condo have a balcony where you can put out some planters in the summer?
I hope you're enjoying that pound cake tonight....
A lot of counsellors and a lot of people don't believe in a MLC and I guess unless they experience it, there is no convincing them. It's frustrating but I am starting to get used to it and have given up on IC.
How old are your kids and how do you feel they dealt with the changes in your h during his MLC?
It wasn't until my h was gone that I realized that he was having a MLC and we have not really spoken often since he left. When he told me about two weeks after he moved out, that he thinks he's having a MLC and I told him that I agreed, he immediately shut down any further conversation.
H was never a talker; introverted to the extreme. Last Spring I had him do the online Meyers-Briggs Personality Test and he came out an extrovert. When I told him that he was supposed to answer how he IS and not how he would LIKE to be, he got pissed. A couple of weeks later we went to a cocktail party at our old neighbours (he insisted) and he stood beside me all night, occasionally running his hand up and down my back and didn't converse with anyone. When one guest asked us if we had kids, h replied "no." I thought that was pretty funny because he has a son from a very brief shotgun marriage when he was 20. He also paid a company in California $1,000 for three telephone conversations to sure his anxiety about having to update his co-workers and a few executives on what he has been working on. Extrovert indeed!
I've rarely called him and emailed him only when it was related to the house or the divorce, with a few regretable exceptions. When I emailed him when I discovered that he was living with someone because I was so shocked and upset, he sent me a nasty reply about me not loving him and him not loving me and never admitted that he was living with someone.
I've tried very hard to keep things business-like but admit sometimes I've asked him questions which gave him the opportunity to hurt me. Now that everything is settled we have no reason to ever contact each other again. So hard to believe that I will never speak with him again.
Yes, he is still living near me, as far as I know. I don't know anything about this woman or their relationship so I cannot give an opinion on why he has made these choices. He says he is really really happy so I guess I should believe him.
Yes the condo has a balcony so I will try to grow a few things.
My H really resisted the idea he was having an MLC, although after several years he began to wonder if that's what it was. Part of the reason, in my opinion, was that for the longest time he wanted to believe his "woe is me" feelings were unique. As he started seeing what he'd done, however, it was a relief to know he wasn't alone....
Your stories about the wanna-be extrovert are pretty funny. H, know thyself indeed!
Yes, they always have to say they're uber-happy, but don't believe it for a second! And if you should ever happen to bump into him, remember to exude such an air of contentment with your life that he's forced to rethink that "she drags me down" brainwashing he's no doubt saturated himself in. Plus I see he managed to combine the passive-aggressive "you never loved me" with the mandatory "I never loved you" in a winning combo to punish you for noticing his living situation--full marks for him!
I still feel really bad about how the MLC affected our oldest. He was 7 when his grandma died and the MLC began. He'd always been an unusually sensitive child, but also very talkative and impulsive. For several years, my H was very hard on him, very critical. My S always overreacts to criticism by being very hard on himself, so he really felt as though he were "stupid," "couldn't do anything right," etc. When he expressed this, I'd try to explain his dad was stressed and taking it out on him. Sometimes I'd try to stop my H, but that just made him lash out at me as well for doing a rotten job of bringing the kids up.
For a period of about 2 years, during Replay, my H was away "for work" all week, and when he came home he'd lay on the sofa (the central area in our small home) trying to sleep, for hours. I tried to keep the kids quiet, or downstairs, but it was never quiet enough, and then he'd be very disagreeable about how inconsiderate we all were. After that came news of the OW, and I was in tears a lot, and my H having all sorts of angry outbursts, and my S kept asking whether we were getting a divorce. Now we set a very good example of discussing instead of arguing, of parenting together, of hugging & kissing in front of the kids lots, and I hope that makes up for a lot of the past. I just worry that H's negative judgemental voice has been embedded in my S's head, as my H's mom's voice was embedded in H....
My D was only 1 when the MLC began. She's very quiet, and a really Daddy's girl. She managed to charm H into playing with her through much of those years when he just wanted to run away from all of us. There were times when H was cycling when he'd sit down to play and be totally unable to do it, though--and the alien look in his eyes was horrible. I'm not so worried about D, but I wonder if it made her a bit more of a manipulator, trying to force H to pay attention to her?
I was wondering about your mom. Is she still alive? How did she cope with your father's drinking? Are/were you close to her?
My h emailed me this afternoon. He wrote "Hi. I am sorry to have to email you but can you send me my resume. I got laid off today and don't have a copy."
My heart was pounding out of my chest and I started to cry. I feel so bad for him. Regardless of the economy, he completely lucked into that job and he will never ever find a position paying even close to what he was earning. Throw in the recession and he has a tough road ahead, especially given his debt; he had to get a loan or credit line to pay my settlement as well as the bad investments I already told you about.
I replied "Sorry. I deleted all of the files I had for you last June." I, of course, created his resume and kept it fairly up-to-date but I really did delete it last June. A little presumptuous that he would assume I would have kept his documents. That's all I wrote. He has treated me so horribly over the past year, I couldn't bring myself to tell him I am sorry or wish him luck.
It's funny but I hoped that he would lose his job or quit when we were together because we were happier when he made $35,000/year. He would scoff at me whenever I asked him to quit.
I wonder if this will help bring him out of the MLC or send him spinning even more? I also wonder if the woman he was cheating on me with will still consider him a catch. I don't know what her motivation was for having a sexual relationship with someone she knew was married but if it was money, she is going to be very disappointed.
The similarities of everyone in MLC is astounding isn't it? We all think we're special and we all think we're different and handle things differently but we are all really pretty similar, regardless of race, religion or economic status.
I am sure you handled things well with your kids and even though your h was being cruel for a few years, it is likely better for your son than if your h had left the home. Kids are so resiliant and seven is very young. I agree that it is highly unlikely that your daughter will remember anything and she likely helped to keep him a little bit grounded at the worst time.
My mom is alive and will be 87 in June. She unfortunately has Alzheimers and has (we think) for quite a few years now. It's such a gradual disease that I'm afraid we didn't catch on for a while and they become very good at pretending there is nothing wrong.
She is in a retirement home and on a waiting list for a nursing home because she has wandered a few times. The four of us take turns staying with her so she is rarely alone but can't realistically keep that up for years.
She is in good physical health but is not happy. It's very hard to see her like that and as bad as it sounds I hope she dies of a heart attack rather than continue to decline until she is bedridden. She sometimes says she wants to die and I know that she means it. A horrible disease.
How she dealt with my father was by pretending that it wasn't happening. Not the healthiest way to deal with anything but that is how it was. She went back to work when I was about five and that might be the reason we didn't freeze or starve to death because, as you can imagine, my father often came home after spending the majority of his pay. I think she lost her love for him long before he died but she quit work when he got cancer and took care of him for the two years he lived. She is a very strong woman and I admire her but wish she had been a little more affectionate with us kids.
I get the feeling this is going to be a sleepless night again. Good thing I am taking tomorrow off work.
