girlnextdoor's Blog

Re: IMPORTANT: SPAM and Solicitation Not Allowed

Hi Shepherdess,

I received a solicitation from jenny200 through winmlc.  (the last thing our members need is to be victimized again.)

jasmineannabell@yahoo.com

Re: Just another Dorothy

(((Struggling))),

I can so relate to your confusion. Can you put your finger on what it is that the OM had to offer you (or how he made you feel) that you are not getting from you husband?  Is he easier to talk to maybe?  Is it possibly affirmation from a second source other than your husband - maybe because you're not sure your husband really means it?  There must be something that you get from the OM and if you could just figure out exactly what that something is, you could work with your husband to fill that gap. 

Has your husband ever done anything to compromise your trust?  I wonder why you fear abandonment? Have you been badly hurt in the past?  I wrestle with fear of abandonment also, and I find that I need frequent affirmation from my husband.  The Language of Love that I mentioned in my earlier post might help to shed some light on YOUR love language -- and what your husband needs to do to help you feel secure in your relationship. 

It seems to me that MLC begins a time of great introspection and soul searching.  I'm STILL doing alot of that.  Maybe that just goes along with the aging process. 

I think its good for you to come out here.  It's good to be reminded that there are dangerous storms in the vicinity and to be aware of the destruction the storms are capable of producing. Hang in there -- and keep coming in here and talking through your confusion. 

Re: Just another Dorothy

MLB,
 
I would love to do what I can to help.  I don't have much time this evening as tonight is date night with hubby <<yippee!>> and I need to get ready.  But just in case you have some extra time tonite, one place you might start is by reading "The Five Languages of Love."  It's written by a Christian author, but the principles are the same regardless of your faith.  It is absolutely life changing and will really nail down your wife's specific love needs.   
 
I understand exactly what your wife means when she tells you she has lost the intimacy.  I also understand why spending three hours with her in the park "just talking" spoke volumes to her. The time in the park was intimacy.  FYI: There is intimacy and there is INTIMACY (if you know what I mean).   Talking to her, connecting to her, listening to her, focusing on HER with no TV, no telephones, no kids, no work, and no ulterior motives is heart melting to a woman.  Most woman have to feel intimately connected (ie loved) to desire INTIMACY.    Thus if she's missing the everyday intimate moments, she misses the whole INTIMACY boat. (Not good.) 
 
I'll write more tomorrow
 
GND   

Re: Just another Dorothy

Thank you responding to my email. I know your turmoil lasted 5 years. During that time and after it was over with the OM did you try to recommit to your marriage and gave it a second chance? Or did the MLC stop you from doing that. Did at any point during the MLC did you notice that your son was drifting away from you because of the relationship? Or did you notice this after the end of the MLC? Thanks for your kind response. ?

-guest_guest

No, I never tried to recommit to my marriage.  In fact, my marriage ended the day the affair became physical.  Crossing that line for me was the point of no return. After that,  I thought I was NOW headed for hell. There was no point in being the longsuffering wife anymore.

Yes, I knew my son was angry.   Because I knew I deserved his anger, I kept my distance. I hoped that time would heal.

I was so lost during that time,  I could not even handle the most routine of self-care.  I was in such a deep depression that I probably should have been hospitalized.  I had lost my God, my honor, my self-respect, my children, my business (almost) and ironically the OM for whom I threw it all away.   I could do nothing except stare into a computer screen searching for "happiness" while my real world crumbled around me.  In essense, it was a slow, agonizing form of suicide.

Re: Just another Dorothy

As you said there are individual cases and from your story I can understand why you "broke",if not from MLC, then from the pressure that your non-motoviated caused.
But in my case my wife went from all that you provided your husband, to what your husband is, and said she wants to spend the rest of her life with him.
Now that she spent 3 mos with him ( he parks cars for a living, and lives in a 1 bdrm apt) it appears, and I use that term loosely, that she wants out and away. In fact I'm kinda sirprised at the speed at which she is doing it.
I guess you can make an argument that women leave and divorce under your circumstances in the hopes of finding a better mate and thus life...I'm all for that. But to do the reverse???????
MLBHOME

-mlbhome

MLBHOME,

I totally understand your confusion in what went awry.  In my case and quite aside from my disappointment in my husbands desire to support his family, was the GLORIOUS and ADDICTIVE adoration and attention I received from the OM  that I had not received from my ex-husband since before we married. In retrospect, I can see how the demands of motherhood in combination with my husband neglecting my womanly needs of compliments and romance and expressions of appreciation (not to mention security) did a good job of stripping me of feeling like I was admired, and adored and valued as a mate.  The OM's words made me feel like a loved, sexy, desirable WOMAN again - a self image that I thought were gone forever.  Once the beautiful, sexy, desirable woman that the OM created was reborn, a team of wild horses couldn't have dragged me back to my old dead way of life.  After the OM used and dumped me,  I HAD to find someone else who could keep the revived woman alive. Had my ex-husband not had his other issues, and had he been willing to pick up the "womanly need"  ball dropped by the OM, I think our marriage might have been saved.

It my very strong belief that without constant work to keep marriages alive and healthy, over the years, couples tend to become complacent in their marriages and that causes the marriages to deteriorate. Couples are then at risk for losing sight of what brought them together in the first place, setting both of them up for being prey to outsiders.       

I learned (while in the tornado) that the desirable woman in me NEEDED to be nurtured.  All of the divorced men that I dated after my marriage dissolved (most who were in or coming out of their own version of MLC) had the SAME need -- for their woman to respect and desire him as a man.  In my new marriage, my husband and I both understand this universal need that was so badly neglected in our first marriages and work hard to make sure they are nutured.  

Is it possible MLBHOME, that like so many long-term marriages, this area (or maybe some other equally important area) of your marriage was neglected and that your wife's need was so great that it didn't matter WHO was quenching her thirst as long as SOMEBODY was? Now that she has been revitalized, she is opening her eyes and taking a little closer look at the person offering this lifeblood to her and starting to suspect that she may have a loser on her hands (and is probably wondering what she is willing to put up with to have him continue to quench her thirst.) .   

Re: Just another Dorothy

I'm sure there are as many individual circumstances as there are people going through this.  In my case, I was unhappy in my marriage (with GOOD cause) at  least 20 years before I finally "broke".  However, throughout the 23 year marriage, divorce was not an option in my mind because from a spiritual standpoint I did not (and still do not) believe in divorce.  The shutting down of my conscience and the turning my back on my marriage vows made before God was one of the major out-of-character manifestations of the MLC I went through.  The MLC catapulting me out of my unhealthy marriage (and setting me free to have a healthy relationship)  is the only positive thing that came out of my five year train wreck. 

My ex has not remarried and probably never will.  He is a "hanger-on"...ie, he wants a woman (or one of his children) to financially support him (which I did for 23 years).  He never had any interest in being financially responsible and self sufficient and still doesn't.  The women he dates (unlike me) eventually figure out what he's all about and dump him.   Currently, my ex is alarmingly close to becoming a street person.  I gave him a nice home fully furnished (all free and clear) which he mortgaged to pull all the cash out of and blow, then did not take care of the upkeep on the house.  I gave him our new jeep cherokee (and paid for it) and he promptly let the insurance lapse on it and then wrecked it.  The house has recently been repossessed and my ex is living in a tiny one bedroom apartment and amazingly talking about quitting his job (again). He historically changes jobs about every 6 months to a year with long periods of unemployment between jobs.  My eldest son (26 y/o) has recently told me that he fully expects and is preparing to move his father into his home in the not too distant future as he can see the writing on the wall.    

In contrast, I'm now married to a wonderful Christian man who is well-respected in our community as an orthopedic surgeon.  I love my new life -- but I deeply regret the damage left in the wake of the tornado that eventually landed me here.

Re: Just another Dorothy

Thanks for your latest response, Girl Next Door. I think I understand where you're coming from re: the post-divorce apologies. Fairly recently, my ex sat our son down and told him she was sorry for "everything I've done and everything that's happened." But he later scoffed to me about her approach and tone. Said it was way too little and way too late. "Sorry!" he mimicked her in a sing-song voice, as though she had apologized to him for running a little late or knocking over a glass of water - rather than upending his entire life and kicking his father out of the house so she could sleep with a college punk.
Maybe your caution is wise. Don't know.
If you don't mind, why is it that your 24-year-old is so hostile to you? I assume you're on better terms with your other off-spring. What made/makes your eldest so bitter? Do you interact with him at all? I'm very concerned that in a few years, after he's reached young adulthood, my son is going to have similar feelings about his own mom. I'd like to help steer him away from that path if at all possible. His mother devastated us and wreacked havoc on our lives, to absolutely no purpose, but I don't want him loathing her.
Thanks in advance.
Basil Duke

-basilduke

Basil,

Answering your question about my son will be difficult.  I've accepted my (general) responsibility for the demise of our relationship...but I've never actually put words to it. Putting it into words, writing out the details is like re-living a nightmare that I wish I could forget forever.  I joined this site for healing and insight.  Perhaps this is all part of it. 

{deep breath}

My precious son is a special person.  He's very intelligent, very quiet, very soft-spoken. A sweeter person has never been born.  He is the type of person who would give you his last dollar.  Words are not adequate to express my love for him. 

He was 15 when the OM tornado hit. My oldest son was 17. My daughter was 6. In the two years (!!) that followed,  I was checked out of family life and so was my husband. I wanted a divorce, desperately wanted my husband to move out, but he wouldn't.   The house could have burned down around us and I don't think my husband nor I would have noticed.  My husband moved out almost 2 years to the day of the original online meeting with the OM (Jan. 3 - after the holidays.) Following my husband moving out, my son, by then 17 y/o was still living with me but not speaking to me.  I tried to talk to him.  He very calmly said, "Mom, from everything I've seen, this is all your fault.  Dad does not want our family to break up.  I'm angry with you.  In fact, I don't like you.  I don't know if that will ever change but that is how I feel right now."  I told him I understood and that I hoped one day he could find it in his heart to forgive me for hurting him.  I told him I would not question him again nor try to make him feel bad about feelings that he had every right to have. (I TOTALLY knew I deserved it.)  He had met a young lady about 6 months earlier.  It was his first girlfriend. I was happy he had met someone that he could lean on during those hard times.  This young lady became his life.  She was over all the time (he lived with me but didn't speak to me). When he started college, he moved her into our house (never asked permission...he still wasn't speaking to me.) In my guilt, I simply allowed it.  How could I speak to him about what was right and wrong, when I was living a life oblivious to it myself?  How could I ask him to respect me when I had no self respect?  I eventually rented a duplex for both of my sons to share while attending college  - they were to pay half the rent.  My son moved his GF into the duplex.  Now that they weren't living under my roof, the GF's true colors came out.  She was abusive to my son - physically and emotionally.  My son did not have the self confidence or strength of character (thank you Mom) to stand up for himself. He continues to live with her.  She has cut him off from his entire family -- me, his dad, his brother (they were inseparable growing up) his littlesister, his aunt, uncles, grandmother. If she keeps him isolated from the people that love him, she can continue to mistreat him at will.  It is horrible.  It is my fault for not being there to nurture him and teach him during the confusing adolescent years.  He didn't just lose me (that would be bad enough).  He lost his ENTIRE family and they lost him.  And the responsibility rests with me.

Re: Just another Dorothy

Hi Everyone,

First I'd like to thank everyone for the warm welcome.  I was afraid I might be perceived by the LBS as an enemy intruder.  I'm so glad that is not the case. 

Several fellows have written to me asking me to read their threads and to give them any insight I might have.  I have been reading (and reading and reading!)  and have not yet completed a full thread.  Wow! There's a lot of "life" out here! 

I didn't want those that asked for my insight to think I am ignoring their request.  As I read, I try to reflect on myself, and what was going on in MY mind when I was in your wife or ex-wife's shoes.

One thing that comes to mind is this:  (and please understand that I say this having NOT read even one complete story)   There is no doubt that the women spinning out of control are absolutely NOT thinking clearly in many, many ways (and they know it). There is no doubt that many factors have come together to cause their out-of-control spin.  That being said, besides being "in luvvvv" with the OM, I would ask the LBS's if there is ANYTHING you can think of that has come up repeatedly throughout the years of your marriage that your wife felt she was missing out on -- something that she somehow thinks she will receive from the OM?  I've told my story and the needs I had that went unmet for the duration of our marriage. I can say with confidence that had my ex been able to be the husband I needed him to be, I would not have stepped out.   Let me give you two more real life examples:

My best friend is in the beginning stages of MLC and I am trying to counsel her through it.  There is the possibility of OM entering the picture though she has not invited him in yet.  In fact, the potential OM is oblivious to her thoughts but because of the situation she knows him to be in and the history between my friend and the potential OM (before her marriage),  he may very well be game. My friend and her husband "appear" to be the perfect couple. He is a highly paid professional, she is a stay at home mom of two.  He loves her and their children, and gives them everything they need monitarily.  He takes care of the husbandly duties around the house. On top of everything else he is absolutely adorable. To meet him is to love him.  BUT, he doesn't give her something she DESPERATELY needs and that is quality time.  She is a very social person and he is very private and very quiet.  He absolutely refuses to take her and/or the family out.  She and her children will go out to dinner (fast food) or to a movie but he won't accompany them. The one time they tried to take him out to a semi-nice restaurant for his birthday he sat down at a table, looked at the menu and make such a fuss over the prices that they got up and left in embarrassment. (He makes $200,000.+/yr)  In the entirety of their marriage, he has not taken her out on a date.  When they vacation, they rent a house on the beach and go to the grocery store so she can cook their meals.  He is not comfortable socializing with other adult couples. When he is at home, he works in his shop.  He is home but "absent". She is lonely for him. She is starving for companionship.  He refuses counseling.  She is withering on the vine and she feels the situation is hopeless.  (The potential OM is very social.)  If her husband does not wake up and hear the tornado sirens going off down the street from their home, his family is going to get hit.  (I have pointed her to this site so she can read about the woman ins MLC.  I wish I could point HIM to this site!)   I suspect that if/when the tornado hits, he will be more than willing to step out of his comfort zone and try to give her what she needs.  But after it hits, I'm afraid it will be too late.  If the OM were to accept her invitation, I think she would be so swept away there would be no returning.    

Another example: We are friends with a couple who have been married 30 years.  I was friends with the man in high school and we have remained friends throughout the years.  He owns a prosperous oil company.  His wife is BEAUTIFUL - inside and out.  She is a renowned psychologist. She looks 20 years younger than she is and has the spirit and personality of an angel. The MLC tornado hit her husband, ripping their family apart.  The OW: rather homely, noneducated, financially needy, alcoholic pot smoker.  My friends separated. His wife and child were devastated.  I kept in close contact with him as he whirled about in his crisis.  He shared his confused thoughts with me.  He had not ONE negative thing to say about his wife.  She was perfect in every way.  What did the other woman have to offer?  During his college days (early 70's) he had inbibed in and enjoyed pot smoking. As a responsible adult and father, he put aside his childish ways  - for 25 years. He encountered the OW and was intrigued that she had access to marijuana and thought he'd try it again to see if it was still fun. (It was.)  He wondered if stoned sex was still fun.  (It was.) This was something he felt he needed to do to take his mind off of his stressful day at work and something he could not ask his wife to give him.  Though his wife never knew exactly what was going on during their separation (she knew there were other women), she waited on him.  She did not question what he was doing.  She regularly took dinner to his apartment and baked cookies or brownies for him.  She loved him through it.  I listened to him without judging him but I did warn him that his wife would not wait forever.  I held pictures of his wife in front of him and asked him to look at her through the eyes of "the man on the street" and not through his eyes that had been looking at her for 30 years. He WAS going to lose her eventually.  He finally came to the realization that his stressful job was the underlying problem.  He sold his company, retired comfortably, and returned home to is beautiful wife.  They are a lovely and loving couple again.               

In my own new marriage of three years I married a man who meets the needs that my ex was not able to provide.  [My ex's situation was and still is truly hopeless.  He is currently one step away from being on the street. He mortgaged and then lost the home I gave to him and the responsibility will most likely fall on my oldest son to support his 55  y/o father due to his father's inability to hold down a job.]  My new husband is a surgeon, and a GENUINE Christian and spiritual leader for our family.  He is the son of missionaries and much of his childhood was spent in the mission field overseas. He is everything that I was missing in my first marriage.  Ironically, he is missing one thing that was not missing in my first marriage.   That is the ability to CONNECT on a deep level, i.e. having heart-to-heart talks, getting to know each others soul.  My dear husband does not do that.  It is out of his comfort zone. From "The Five Love Languages", it turns out my love language is "Quality Time",with the specific subtype of  "Intimate Conversation" - the one thing my husband does not give me.   Our conversation is very "surface".  (He does not know ANY of what I have written on this site.  He really isn't interested in my inner heart or who I was before he met me.  Intimate conversation is something I NEED to share with him to feel loved and understood and valuable to my husband and without it, my "Love bank account" is often empty and sometimes overdrawn.  Knowing the hunger I feel after only three years of marriage without having this need met, I can imagine how after 20 or 25 years of marriage in this state, I would (rightfully) feel that my husband doesn't have a clue as to who I am and I could become fodder for an unscrupulous person who came along speaking my love language. My goal (this time around) is to try to educate my husband as to what my needs are and gently draw him out of his comfort zone in this important area so we don't end up finding ourselves in a position of vulnerability to outside attacks on our marriage.   We have already begun marriage counseling to work on our communication skills.

I guess what I am saying is that if you could peel back the craziness that your wife is exhibiting and examine what lies underneath, looking for any unmet needs/desires or even over-the-top stressors that might have been present in the marriage (needs she might not even know how or was embarrassed to put into words) and ascertain whether or not you have the ability or willingness to meet those needs...perhaps you would find clues as to what might be neccessary to reach her.   And as hard as it would be to do, a good hard objective look at the "qualities" of the OM/OW would probably reveal some very valuable information - if not for this relationship, then for a future relationship (as without introspection as to what went wrong in the first marriage, we tend to repeat the same mistakes.)   

Again, thank you for accepting me as part of your community.  I would ask one favor.  I would ask that the men limit contact with me to the public forum (vs private email).  I wish to avoid even an "appearance" of inpropriety.  My husband and I have an open computer policy at our home and the very nature of the screen names used here could raise some eyebrows if they were to appear in my inbox.  I hope that makes sense. 

I am very excited to be able to explore and begin to understand this terrible thing called MLC. 

The Girl Next Door

Re: Just another Dorothy

Hey Basil,

Yes, I do have civil interaction with my ex-husband.  It was never my intention to hurt him.  I never harbored ill-will against him.  When we divorced, I told him I wanted nothing from him.  We sat at the kitchen table and discussed how the divorce would go.  He took the property that was his pre-marriage, I took what was mine pre-marriage,and with the joint property we took turns "choosing" what we wished to keep.  We agreed on joint (50/50) custody and no child support. I gave him the house and the newest car - both paid for.  I took the (MEGA) income tax debt and outstanding personal debt.   We wrote it all out on a piece of notebook paper  hired one attorney to put in in legal form and took it to the judge.  No fighting.  When the divorce was finalized, the judge said that in his entire career, he had never seen such an amicable divorce - and asked if we were sure we wanted to proceed.  

Since the divorce, I have invited him to all the family celebrations and he always attends. My husband and ex-husband get along great and have even worked together on a couple of projects.  

Have I apologized post divorce?  No, I haven't.  (I apologized for hurting him when I originally asked for the divorce but as you can imagine, that fell on deaf ears.)   I've thought about apologizing (post divorce) many times -- but don't know what to say and don't know if he would receive it.   Same with my children -  I think about apologizing to my children but am unsure how to go about it and if it would open old wounds.  Does that make sense?   

Re: Just another Dorothy

Hi Basil,

I wonder if what we are going to find is that the OM typically is the polar opposite of the man we're married to.  In my case, my husband was the good-natured "good ol' boy" that everyone loved...but sadly he was a "ne'er-do-well".  I worked two jobs when I was pregnant -- all the way until delivery day -- while my ex-husband sat home watching TV. He flitted from one low paying job to another our entire marriage. This continues to be his pattern.  (I believe now that my ex had/has underlying emotional issues that causes this behavior.)   Additionally, my ex-husband was closer to atheist than to Christianity.  I'm a Christian and longed for (and prayed for) a husband who would accompany me to Sunday School and Church, pray with me, and be a spiritual leader for our family. On the rare occasions I could get my ex to attend church with the family, he would discount all he heard in church to our children.  "Oh c'mon, kids use your heads.  The dinosaurs are proof that the Adam and Eve story is utter nonsense."  

Ironically, the OM was a Christian in MLC himself. He was a Sunday School teacher and he and his wife had taught a Bible study in their home for many years.  He was a professional in finance with a 6 figure income. (My attraction wasn't because I was financially needy. I make a very good income from my company. The attraction was that he was a man who had enough "self respect" to support his family - a trait I had longed for in my ex-husband.) The OM was separated from his wife and 5 children and was in terrible turmoil. We met in a 40's chatroom and "connected". He epitomized all that I felt was lacking in my own marriage. Where was my common sense that would ask why a "Christian" man was messing around with a married woman in a chatroom, you ask?  Good question.

Now -- get this.  I had NO INTENTION of EVER meeting this man.  I wanted it to remain fantasy where I could go to get my emotional needs met.  In fact, I knew I could never meet him.  I had gained 75 pounds after the birth of my daughter that I was still carrying.  I lied to him about my weight and sent him a "pre-baby" picture of myself.   There was NO WAY I was going to let him see me and ruin the fantasy.  My weight gain prevented me from ever crossing the PA line -- or so I thought.  But the more we talked the more we began to believe that we had fallen in love with each other.  He was like water in the desert to me -- something I HAD to have.  Without him, I was sure I would die.  He eventually  gave me an ultimatum - either we meet or call the relationship off.  He said he was buying plane tickets and gave me the date he would be in town (2 months away.)   I was in a horrible place believing that I had fallen in love with a man I could never meet. The thought of losing him was unfathomable.  I desperately began to lose weight.  I worked out at the gym like a crazy woman, I barely ate anything.   Five months after meeting him online I met him in person. I was down 45 pounds (in two months) and had 30 to go.  The picture I had sent him was of a size 4 woman.  I was a size 12.  Two hours after meeting, he asked why I had lied to him. We spent the weekend together and  I crossed the PA line. After the weekend ended, he didn't call or answer his phone for days.  When I finally reached him he told me he did not love me.  I dissentegrated.  He'd used me for sex and in the process, started a reaction within me that I had no control over.   My husband found out about the weekend PA about 3 months after it had happened.  I was in a deep depression at the time.  Sometimes I wonder if he had not confronted me if I would have eventually gotten through my depression and emotionally returned to my marriage.  But backed into a corner at that point and in my depressed state of mind, I exploded.  I told him I didn't love him anymore and wanted a divorce. He moved out of the house and I continued spiraling out of control from there.   I lost the remaining weight (down to a size two hard body), got a boob job, became blonde (they have more fun, you know)  bought a red convertible and was "young again".  I had more men's attention than I knew what to do with but I didn't have a clue who I was anymore.  I began serially discarding men BEFORE they could hurt me.  I left a trail of broken hearts (and mostly of very good men) in the wake of my tornado.    What a mess.

The Girl Next Door
        

Re: Just another Dorothy

Good Morning Struggling,

That is a great question.  I can remember the exact day the tornado struck. However, I cannot pinpoint an exact time that it was gone.  I did not wake up one day and all was fine.  It was a very gradual (at least 5 year) process. By contrast, the tornado that hit me was lightening speed. I went from the height of the "Old Me" to the depths of the "New Me" in less than two weeks.  In the midst of the tornado, I would go to church (occasionally) and ask God to change my heart and heal my mind.  I was SO AWARE that I was sick.  But the healing came slowly and in fact, may still be in progress. This new understanding (since I found this site) may be the final stage. 

A huge part of my sickness was escaping into my computer. I had carried considerably more than my fair share of responsibilty throughout my marriage.  I was in a weakened emotional and physical state and one day I simply "broke".  Almost accidentally, I discovered an online fantasy world where I could find happiness.  Real life was no contest to the fantasy I had found.  I was preyed upon by the "bottom dwellers".  (It seems so strange to call people that I considered the "best friends I ever had" bottom dwellers -- but I know now that is exactly what they were.)     I could not break away from the online fantasy and when I was away from the computer, the fantasy scripts continued to play in my head. I was obsessed with the online world to the point that I was UNABLE to continue to run my company that I had started from scratch with blood, sweat and tears.  My business, my family, my soul -- were all very nearly destroyed. Thankfully, I had enough wits left about me to understand that if my company failed my children would be on the street.  (My husband was never interested in bringing home the bacon.) I managed to carve out enough time from my online life to train one of my employees to take over the operations of my company and by the Grace of God, she was capable.     She continues to be my operations manager.

As my life began to smooth out, so did my need to live my life in the computer or live "in my head" i.e. in my fantasies. I will say that I still have to monitor my computer time because it still draws me (does that ever change, Shepherdess?) but now I use it for learning and research instead of relationships.   

Someone spoke in one of the threads about dreams (while sleeping).  My dreams returned shortly before I remarried.  They had been gone for years.  That was a breakthrough - a sign of healing.  Another sign was when the numbness that had consumed me began to dissolve.  My father died during my MLC and I could not mourn (I still haven't, but there were extenuating issues that probably account for that).   I also could not mourn the loss of my relationship with my son; however. one day while riding in the car with my husband the song "Cat in the Cradle" came on the radio and I listened to the words and began crying for him...and cried for several hours.  I cry daily for him.  I'm crying now.   That's a breakthrough.  During MLC I was numb to the pain I was causing those that loved me.  That numbness is gone and I am tortured by guilt that I was the cause of such pain.  That's a breakthrough.  My conscience has returned.

For me, healing has been a tortuously SLOW process.  But healing does eventually come. 

(((Struggling)))  hugs to you

Just another Dorothy

I found this site a week or so ago and am so VERY glad I did.  I know now (from reading on your site) that what I went through, beginning at age 43 was indeed MLC.  I did not understand what was happening to me at the time and indeed, until this past week, have honestly believed that I suffered a “nervous breakdown”.  (It’s been eight years since the storm hit.  I am currently 51.)   My MLC probably lasted a good 5 years.  My marriage of 23 years did not survive.   I remarried three years ago – most likely before the dust of the MLC had completely settled. The man I married was NOT the OM. (Go figure.)   All I have known since the tornado hit is that I lost the real “ME” and became TRULY someone else, someone who, in many ways, I hated.  I also know that it was absolutely impossible for me to keep the “NEW ME” restrained. The NEW ME was as driven to do the selfish and destructive things SHE wanted to do every bit as much as a drug addict is driven to his drug of choice.  The “NEW ME” had the ability to turn off the conscience of the old me.  The "NEW ME" tuned out the family that had been the “old me’s” very reason for existence.  The "NEW ME" turned off the joy in every aspect of my life, and turned off my sense of responsibility both for family and for my career.   The "NEW ME" refused to listen to the Holy Spirit that had resided inside me since childhood and rushed headlong into a lifestyle knowing the ultimate cost was eternity in HELL  and INCREDULOUSLY,  the "NEW ME" was ok with that!?!  

The old me is mostly back.  My conscience is alive and well and sensitive. I feel a mothers love and responsibility for my children again but the closeness will never be entirely repaired.  I feel love for my family (sister, brothers, mom) again and for my God and his Amazing Grace that can “save a wretch like me”.  Sadly though, all of my relationships have been scarred.  I am the responsible business woman again (but not as immersed as I once was).  I am a good wife again…but to a new husband.  I am sincerely sorry for what I put my first husband and my children through. But sorry is miserably inadequate.    For the past three years, I have DESPERATELY WANTED to understand what happened to me. There is much from the “tornado years” I don’t even remember and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to remember it.  My guilt is incredible.  The fear of standing before God is paralyzing. I could have competed for the “Mom of the Year Award” before the storm hit and for the “World’s Worst Mom Award” during it.   I lost one son from my life in the storm. He is now 24 and we have no relationship.  It breaks my heart but I can’t say I don’t deserve it.    I’ve wished I had an explanation for my behavior but until now, I had no clue.   I’ve spent many hours talking with my sister (we are very close) and with my best friend trying to discover what made me “go off the deep end”.  Not knowing the root cause of my crash has made me fearful it could happen to me again.    This is not something I discuss with current husband as he never knew me in my “failed” state.  He doesn’t know that the Godly woman he married has ever been “anyone else”.  I’m too ashamed to tell him.    In fact, I’ve been too ashamed to even go to a counselor to help me sort all of this out.  I take comfort now, after reading about MLC, that at age 51, perhaps its all behind me.

I know my letter is different from most.  I am not the woman in the midst of MLC spinning out of control nor the woman who navigated the stormy waters and returned home.   I am the woman who made it out alive by the grace of God and who landed, bleeding and battered in a new  and very different world. 

To the men out there who are fighting for your marriages and to the women that are spinning out of control,  feel free to ask me any questions as to what went on in the mind of this MLCer or what its like on the other end.  It sounds like we are all very much alike.