But the outright hatred / contempt for the spouse... That’s the only part that doesn’t add up.
‘If it’s not my fault, it must be yours….and that’s much less uncomfortable than it being mine’ is my best take on this. Blaming someone or something else is a pretty common way for humans to avoid looking in the mirror and holding ourselves accountable for creating or tidying up our own mess, isn’t it? A lot of humans find anger easier than sorrow or shame. And contempt is what allows us to dehumanise people sufficiently to justify treating them poorly without feeling the empathy or compassion that woukd demand more and better of us.
At a deeper psychological level tbh, I suspect this is also how people whose sense of self is overly attached to another, and who no longer value that ‘self’, sever that attachment in some cases ; a rather violent burning of bridges without much middle ground.
Writing this, I am still reminded though that it really has very little to do with me as a person. Or you. That one is just acceptable (to them) collateral damage in their own strategy for attempting to make themselves feel better. I guess it makes sense that this would continue if they do not magically feel better lol, although most LBS here find that puzzling when it seems that they have got what they wanted, right? But again, that’s not uncommon based on stories here, is it?
Once I got past the ‘this can’t be happening’ and ‘my h has been replaced by an alien’ stage - which took a really long time for me lol - my version of trying to make sense of what made no sense to me came to be based on two relatively simple principles.
The first was that none of us can ‘know’ what someone else really thinks or feels and it’s an arrogant folly to think we do, particularly if we want to believe something which is at odds with what their behaviour looks like. Yet we humans are patterning creatures and any long close relationship is based on assumptions about those repeating patterns….everything from small things like someone not liking cheese to big things like how they behave as a parent. We are biologically wired to believe that a person tomorrow will be much like they were today, so it’s a bit of a shock to the system if they suddenly start eating cheese after hating it for twenty years!
So, for instance, if someone behaves as if they do not care about us, it’s reasonable to assume that’s because they do not care about us but we struggle with that for a while bc it doesn’t fit that recognisable pattern. We may not understand why. It may feel unfair or irrational that they do. But it is the simplest explanation. Yet it is often so painful to see this that it is easier, at least for a while, to construct some kind of denial box around it…..and imho that’s an inherent weak spot in going too much into the ‘MLC made them do it, it’s not the real them’ argument.
And on the issue of the ‘real them’ - and indeed the ‘real me’ lol - my second principle became that it is indeed like a child’s toy kaleidoscope. That behaviours don’t come from nowhere but new situations twist the kaleidoscope into a different pattern, sometimes a pattern not seen before.
I learned that when I am alone, grieving and afraid, my kaleidoscope became a cave I hid in, disabled by sorrow and grief, like a small child. I don’t much like that picture and if you had asked me before this experience, it would not at all have been recognisable to me as who I am or how I thought of myself. Yet it turned out it is, in the right combination of circumstances. My recovery required me to make peace with that pattern as part of me….and I couldn’t change the pattern until I did. Which took years for me
On the same principle, I learned that my xh’s kaleidoscope pattern in his own set of circumstances was more cruel, more angry, more deceitful and more avoidant than mine was…he did things that I found, even in extreme circumstances, were just not in my mix…..but they were in his, and that was his way of dealing with the situation he felt he was in, just like my metaphorical cave was mine. Both imho are part but not all of who we are.
I have no idea if my xh, or your xw, find that pattern sufficiently uncomfortable to live with that they made peace with it in order to consciously change the pattern. If they did, it makes sense to me that this might take years for them as well. If not, perhaps they find the new pattern easier than I did or their circumstances changed sufficiently that it gave their kaleidoscope a third and different twist, idk. But it makes sense to me that, even if some internal crisis twisted his kaleidoscope into something unrecognisable to me, that version of my h is who he is when he wants to leave a long marriage and prior life. If he ever finds himself in a similar situation again, it is likely that he will find himself doing much the same. Bc none of the new kaleidoscope pattern was about me at all…..it was his way of dealing with the situation as he saw it. And like most humans, without effort or insight, if we find ourselves in a similar situation, we tend to repeat what we’ve done before, don’t we? Well, unless it becomes blindingly obvious that what worked before won’t work now lol….which is I think part of the unpicking that most LBS here find themselves going through.
What does that all mean imho?
I think it means that there is some benefit to the ‘quacks like a duck’ principle when it comes to seeing other peoples kaleidoscope patterns. And that often the simplest solution is the most likely, even if we don’t understand why a goose has become a duck. We don’t need to in order to see a duck in front of us, quacking away just like a duck. I didn’t need to understand my xh’s indifference to see it. You don’t need to understand your xw’s contempt or anger to see it. And then, once one sees it, one can choose what to do about the quacking duck. Or not.
More importantly, and more usefully probably, I think we LBS need to look hard - and with a very kind and encouraging eye - at our own LBS kaleidoscope pattern. To see what this experience created in us including things that perhaps we did not know were in the mix that might show up given the combination of a certain set of awful circumstances. I don’t know what your own kaleiscope looks like now, Why, but your unresolved questions might be part of it? And how to make peace with that as part but not all of who we are. And then to decide how, or if, we want to give our own kaleidoscope a twist to create another different pattern. If only bc that IS something we can do something about. Other people’s kaleidoscopes, not so much
As always, for all of us, jmo and a sample of one lol.
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Its not you, its me