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Resources Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9
OP: May 31, 2022, 02:14:21 AM
Previous Thread : https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=11123

Last post from Previous Thread copied here:

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Have you seen this guys theories and the chaos spectrum?

https://youcansavethismarriage.com/invisible-lifestyle/

Yes WHY, very familiar...... that's Larry B.
He is a predator. When I was new, he was the 1st person I found that seemed to know what he was talking about.
Long story short: I bought his smaller package ($100, $150, something like that). It was ok, nothing revolutionary.
What happened next was eye opening...... he wanted $2000 for his real package (a package which only lasts one year). I started getting sales calls from his people and they were very pushy....... trying to do hard sells on me. Text messages followed after that. They also promised the program could save my marriage and they had a 100% success rate. What nonsense!! Utter lies.
Since I have a background in sales, I knew what they were doing...... and even knowing that, my need, my want, especially in my vulnerable and desperate state..... I almost did it, even though I couldn't afford it.
I didn't do it, and found a different way, and I'm so glad I did.

The thing is, his information isn't bad but it isn't complete either.
I would (personally) say that Kendra Ruth's paid versions of her information is just as good (if not better) and it's a much, much better value.
Consume those, and once you have a good basic understanding for a foundation, do a call with her. I did and it was extremely helpful. There is no silver bullet, there is no magic pill, there are no shortcuts to the front of the line. So much can only be resolved with time, but you'll see that when you look backwards at some point in the future.

-SS
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« Last Edit: February 07, 2023, 02:59:05 PM by Rollercoasterider »
Me - 61, xW - 54
Together 19 years - Married 17 at separation & 21 at D-Day
S - 17, D - 13
1 Dog
BD#1 - August 2015
Atomic BD - 13 Dec 2015
House sold & separated - Mar 2016
Divorce final 30 August 2019
Moved on in life

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A "friend" will not "stand by you" no matter what you do. That is NOT a friend. That is an enabler. That is an accomplice.
A REAL friend will sit you down and tell you to your face to stop being a firetrucking idiot before you ruin your life and the lives of those around you.

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#1: May 31, 2022, 06:40:27 AM
Yes WHY, very familiar...... that's Larry B.
He is a predator. When I was new, he was the 1st person I found that seemed to know what he was talking about.

I also tried the Larry B system. Started with his course on MLC, and then took one of his longer ones. (Cheaper than the one SS describes, and I didn't get any push calls.) Definitely saw some warning signs, one being that Larry B. has a degree in marketing per Linkedin, and his course advertisement said that they have to interview you to make sure you're qualified for the course to make you feel special. (The answer is, if you've got a credit card, you're qualified.) But I was desperately searching for answers as most of us were, so I tried it. It did have some interesting information, and some of it was useful, but mostly I found it to be a way to keep myself occupied in the rough early days.

The course is basically a way to build back your confidence and happiness, and a way to learn how to not get wrapped up in other people's drama. Which is exactly what K-R teaches in Detach and Thrive. You could do the work here, and buy a copy of The Secret, and you'd have about the same thing. (He refers to a different book than The Secret, by some Russian guy. Can't remember the name.) And in the most basic sense, that stuff is true. If you're a debbie downer, you're going to bring others down or bring out that energy. If you're upbeat, people will respond likewise.

Larry B (and that book) also talks about not getting caught up in "pendulums of negative energy." That's detachment. I recommend taking K-R's Detach and Thrive course when it opens again.

JB
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#2: May 31, 2022, 07:58:12 AM
I remember at least looking him up too in the early days, and I think I might still have some audios on a hard drive. The "salesmen" can smell broken hearts, empty wallets, or the need for medical cures, which I'd already had experience in with some self-help gurus I'd worked for. Just know that there's a ton of information available for free (even if it's just the library or audiobooks, Youtube, etc.). You have to be discerning anyway to sift through whose really qualified and whose just an opportunist, but that's the life we live in all areas where capitalism can play a role. Some of the best references I still use came from no-name therapists and psychologists who had interesting websites or blogs that made sense to me. You'll find what resonates most with you.
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#3: May 31, 2022, 07:59:51 AM
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Useful reminders in here for anyone having a hard time pushing through their days (I remember early on I found holiday weekends rough, and in the US it’s a long weekend):

https://www.talkspace.com/blog/feeling-overwhelmed/

Overwhelmed doesn’t seem a strong enough word lately. I can’t keep going the way I’m going. I can’t work almost continuously for 72 hours in order to take off two full days to sit in waiting rooms for hours in between medical appointments that often end up leading to more questions than answers. I’m so fatigued, I’ve actually lost my voice.

I’ve been dancing lately (because yoga isn’t cutting it anymore for the anxious “energy,” that build up of anxiety that makes me keep moving despite my body feeling fatigued enough to crumble, which it eventually does - “she’s a maniac” indeed).

Dancing is a way to try to connect to an old version of me who, despite having to prove my right to exist every single day, was still a feisty and fiery badass who wasn’t out of time…

🎼
https://youtu.be/fhnrrLxQEVQ 

Big hugs, Nas. Dancing is a form of healing too.
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#4: June 01, 2022, 07:39:54 AM
Has anyone checked out the Reddit midlife crisis sub?  Most of the posts are from MLCers.  It's really depressing.  These folks sound so sad inside.  It's staring them in the face about whats going on with them (they're literally on the right sub), yet cant to anything to change their lives or stop self destructing.

Someone needs to decode this type of mental illness and find a treatment.  It's wrecking lives. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/midlifecrisis/
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#5: June 01, 2022, 10:27:42 AM
Here is the summary of rules in dealing with "pendulums." I'm posting them because most of them are reasonably useful and true. Pendulum is how they describe it in the book, but I like to think of it as sort of an energy vortex. If someone is all spun up about something, being spun up yourself (either for or against them) is only going to build the energy (like bad synergy). If you accept what is happening and remain calm (don't get caught up in their issue: Detachment), you can bring the total energy level down. I even did this with a friend's dog once. The chihuahua barked at EVERYONE, and the owners just accepted it. I walked into the house once, and when the dog started barking at me, I turned on the "late-night FM DJ voice," and said, "Hey, little buddy... What's all the excitement about?" Dog just sat down, stopped barking, and looked at me. Everyone was amazed. (The FM DJ voice is from Chris Voss' book on negotiation. I didn't know to call it that at the time.) some of this is also accepting that you don't have control over anything but yourself and your reactions.

"Freddy" refers to Freddy Kreuger, which is how they describe the negative energy affecting the other person (and possibly you). "Black Stamping" is how you train your amygdala to not put you in fight-or-flight mode every time something bad happens. I can post more about that later.

  • Accept Trouble. Merely accept the pendulum as having a right to exist – leave it alone, never blame it, never get angry at it, accept it as something that exists. Accepting does not mean that you embrace it; you pass it with indifference, wave goodbye as it passes through you, no longer think about it.
  • Problems Are Easy: Keep saying a problem is easy to solve and it becomes so.
  • Search Out Good: Your job is to grab onto the fine thread of good news. Do that by taking an interest in any good news no matter how small. Focus on this good news, good ideas, good purposes.
  • Have Gratitude For It: Accept your present situation as it is. Make even the smallest thing a source of joy. Start by having gratitude for it. Things you throw away deserve your gratitude. Give out positive thought vibrations.
  • Walk Right Through Trouble: When and unfortunate event happens, it is just the pendulum attempting to hook you. Accept it, ignore it, and stay on the Wave. Black Stamp it.
  • I’m Neither Good Nor Bad: Accept everything about yourself and your situation as good. You are neither important, nor are you worthless.
  • Be Comfortable With Everything: Keep your level of importance, care, concern, need, worry, desire, ambition at zero. Eliminate your Freddy’s Caring Angry Friend scam.
  • Be Calm And Listen: It is good to allow your mind to be distracted at times so your soul can give you its insights which are ALWAYS right. Order your Freddy thoughts to be quiet and ask, “Do I feel good or bad?” If bad, pick a different choice and ask again. Your soul will steer you in the right direction.
  • Friction-Free Life: Do everything calmly. Do everything in the easiest, not anxious, way possible.
  • Tend To Their Selfishness: Avoid problems by using other people’s Internal Intention. Other people’s Internal Intention is their selfishness. Instead of using your Internal Intention to get what you want (your selfishness), abandon it. Make it your intention to support the Internal Intention of other people (their selfishness).
  • There’s Multiple Possibilities: In order to avoid becoming anxious about your goals, accept defeat ahead of time. ONE TIME, imagine a scenario of a potential defeat and imagine what would happen if you don’t reach your goal. When you see this, imagine other options to ensure your success, other ways that things might also work in your favor. Do this ONLY ONCE and then it will free you from the need to force your goal into happening a certain way.
  • Greatness Is Normal: Keep looking at your “Have List” every day so you can feel comfortable with this new way of life. Get comfortable with your Have List. Until it is seen as an ordinary life (meaning you are no longer in awe of it), your new Have List will not arrive.
  • Possibility Is Comfortable: Pay attention to the comfort level of your soul. Imagine that everything on your Have List has already been reached. It’s all behind you now. Do you feel very good or very bad? If you feel good, you found your door. If not, assist your soul and keep looking.
  • Secure The Best: When things go right for you, and you feel you’re on a mountain top, dig a foxhole. This means that you will be prepared for the pendulum, your Freddy to come and try to take this away from you. Drop your own importance for this mountain top experience. Immediately let the pendulum fall to nothing. Black Stamp it.
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Everything has a beginning and an end. Life is just a cycle of starts and stops. They're ends we don't desire, but they're inevitable and we have to face them. That's what being human is all about.  -Jet Black, Cowboy Bebop

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#6: June 01, 2022, 11:19:53 AM
What an interesting and thought-provoking list, JB. What’s the book called?
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T: 18  M: 12 (at BD) No kids.
H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.


"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg

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#7: June 01, 2022, 03:53:09 PM
Thanks, Treasur. The pendulum concepts are from "Reality Transurfing" by Vadim Zeland. It's basically along the lines of The Secret (which I haven't read, so I'm assuming), but claiming to be backed by physics. Whether you go for that or not, the concepts are still valid. I think they're all from the first book/volume.

Freddy and the Black Stamp are Larry B. things. Freddy is powered by opposition, and is what is driving your spouse to act against you. This is true of MLCers in the sense that if you suggest something, they will do the opposite just because you are the enemy. If you proceed with acceptance, they have nothing to use against you. The Freddy within you wants you to be angry and upset about things, because he lives off of that. The Black Stamp is a way of associating positive meaning to bad events to train your amygdala out of overreacting. When something bad happens, you basically say, "I'm not against this. It's actually good because _________." "I'm not against stupid drivers. This is actually good because I get a chance to keep my evasive driving skills sharp."

Larry B seems to carry those to the point of absurdity, though, which would pretty much condone cake eating or being a doormat.

The negotiating book is "Never split the difference" by Chris Voss. K-R recommends that in her class, and it's really interesting. I've recommended it to a few family members and coworkers.
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Everything has a beginning and an end. Life is just a cycle of starts and stops. They're ends we don't desire, but they're inevitable and we have to face them. That's what being human is all about.  -Jet Black, Cowboy Bebop

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#8: June 22, 2022, 09:14:47 PM
The newest Affair Recovery video is very interesting! Really hit home with some of my XHs pre and post BD behaviors.  Super interested in the next installment when they swap the genders. Almost 5 years since BD and I still find this fascinating and scary.

https://youtu.be/ze0ekOT7lWE
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« Last Edit: June 22, 2022, 09:18:37 PM by Zion »

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#9: June 27, 2022, 08:52:48 PM
Thanks for the link Z.  I occasionally watch these and subscribe to their email but haven't kept up with every installment.
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Survival Instructions for Newbies

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"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass - it's about learning to dance in the rain."

"Don't become a container for bitterness.  It's a toxin that destroys what it's carried in."

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#10: July 14, 2022, 08:50:24 AM
Interesting read:

https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/eastern-practices-western-psychology

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but McLean hospital offers a ton of really interesting free webinars, some of them in particular are aimed towards helping children deal with anxiety and stress, etc, for those of you who have younger kids.
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#11: July 16, 2022, 10:41:31 AM
Does anyone know this guy?  Is the rock bottom I keep reading about and waiting for?

https://www.affairrecovery.com/survivors/samuel/day-i-moved-out-and-my-soul-shook
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#12: July 18, 2022, 04:27:38 AM
This article on grief spurred a million thoughts for me coming from multiple angles. Thought it might resonate for others:

https://psyche.co/ideas/there-is-consolation-in-a-philosophical-approach-to-grief
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#13: July 18, 2022, 07:00:19 AM
Sharing another one as I prepare for yet another therapist to move out of state, leaving me on a search for a new one…

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/talk-listen-heal-depression-0611125
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#14: July 20, 2022, 04:38:15 PM
Can one of the vets please watch this entire vid and comment on how much this has to do with MLC or if its just a marital affair situation?  Are these two situations connected or is this something different?  Thank you.

https://www.affairrecovery.com/survivors/samuel/how-developmental-and-betrayal-trauma-affect-men-and-women-differently
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#15: July 21, 2022, 12:02:04 PM
Can one of the vets please watch this entire vid and comment on how much this has to do with MLC or if its just a marital affair situation?  Are these two situations connected or is this something different?  Thank you.

https://www.affairrecovery.com/survivors/samuel/how-developmental-and-betrayal-trauma-affect-men-and-women-differently

Anyone?
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#16: July 21, 2022, 12:37:22 PM
This is a pretty long video. I'm eleven years out from this, so maybe someone a little closer to their situation will come along and watch. But I want to ask you: what will the difference between MLC or run-of-the-mill marital affair mean to you and your healing, or day-to-day coping? I mean that honestly - will it effect whether or not you stand, whether or not you engage with your spouse, whether you have hope for yourself and/or your marriage?
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#17: July 21, 2022, 04:33:56 PM
Retraumatization in ptsd recovery:

https://www.brightquest.com/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/retraumatization/amp/

I’ve been struggling badly for a bit and I have a tendency to be very hard on myself, but something I often forget to remind myself of (a reminder I think others could probably stand to hear as well): struggling doesn’t make you “less than,” nor does it make you “too much,” and in recovery from cPTSD, setbacks can occur and it doesn’t mean failure, and it doesn’t mean you’re back to zero. It’s important to give yourself credit for the ability to use the tools learned in the process of recovery when a setback or retraumatization occurs.
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#18: July 22, 2022, 08:34:16 AM
This is a pretty long video. I'm eleven years out from this, so maybe someone a little closer to their situation will come along and watch. But I want to ask you: what will the difference between MLC or run-of-the-mill marital affair mean to you and your healing, or day-to-day coping? I mean that honestly - will it effect whether or not you stand, whether or not you engage with your spouse, whether you have hope for yourself and/or your marriage?

It’s more about a guy I know that I believe had a MLC.  I thought this video may help him understand what the hell happened.  But I’m not sure if it all about MLC.  Or more of the run of the mill affair. 
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#19: July 22, 2022, 08:46:18 AM
Why, I have watched many on him and I think you can pull what understanding you need from it. He does talk to the betrayer as to warn them not to take his oath as regret will surely come. I think we all know there is no reasoning with an MLCer. I think it does help to see the reasoning in their minds, the selfishness either way. Whether it be MLC or everyday Affair , both are about getting outside needs met instead of doing the inner work. It’s a matter of is it beyond the norm. Is it a crisis. Do you want to have the affair or do you HAVE to have the affair. IMHO
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There is almost something harder about someone being alive and having to lose what you believed to be true of them than someone actually dying.

Indefatigability - determined to do or achieve something; firmness of purpose
perspicacity- a clarity of vision or intellect which provides a deep understanding and insight

Married July 1991
Jan 2018 BD1 moved out I filed for Div/ H stopped it
Oct 2018 moved back
Oct 2020 BD2
Feb 2021 Div-29 1/2 years
July 2021 Married OW
Feb 2022  XH fired
June 2022 XH bring OW to meet family due to xMIL illness
May 2023 went NC after telling XH we could not be friends
Aug 2023 XH moves w/o OWife
May 2024 xMIL visits XH/OW in their new home
Aug 2024 cut relations w/XH fam.
Dec 2024 D33 expecting baby ( XH not told)

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#20: July 31, 2022, 03:42:40 PM
I’ve been mired in reawakened feelings for the past few weeks thanks to a family thing.
It’s my birthday and I went to my very favorite little bakery and got my very favorite cake and even had them write happy birthday with my name on it because for me, my name on a cake has meaning that is valid to me, so I decided to do it for myself. And damn, it’s delicious cake.

A song, just because:
https://youtu.be/05AHPFPpHIM

An article that might resonate with some:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pieces-mind/201407/self-validation

#2 ACCURATE reflection is sometimes hard for me. Especially with family stuff, I tend fall back into “this happened because my mere existence is a nuisance and I’m not worthy of being acknowledged, or being here, or being at all…”

Self-validation is hard when you’re conditioned to believe you’re unworthy, but even for people with a fairly healthy sense of self, bring BDed can skew what previously seemed rock solid. I think the points laid out in this article could be useful for everyone, and if you’re a newbie trying to find your footing, you might find it helpful in terms of looking at your situation and examining your difficult feelings from a different angle.

Here’s another with some good basic stuff:
https://psychcentral.com/blog/imperfect/2019/11/why-its-so-important-to-validate-yourself-and-how-to-start
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The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

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#21: August 03, 2022, 11:45:15 AM
“If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time cease to react at all.”

― Yogi Bhajan
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"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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#22: August 11, 2022, 07:48:10 AM
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« Last Edit: August 11, 2022, 07:52:08 AM by Nas »
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

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#23: August 29, 2022, 05:26:59 AM
Identity is a subject that comes up a lot. For me, it’s been central to my journey the past few years. I lost a lot in the 18 months after BD: my house, my marriage, my substantial savings, my credit score. But I was still me.

In the years since then, though, that woman disappeared. Without the material and monetary comforts I worked so hard for during my marriage, I was still Nas. Until the one thing I never thought about losing was suddenly lost.
And truly, I think that had my health issues come when I was still safely in my home, with my financial safety nets in place and my future visible, I would have been able to (or if I’m being honest, more willing to) better adhere to treatment.  I might not have faced or be facing certain issues resulting from cancer and it’s treatment.
Since the spring, I’ve been dealing with a very strange and uncommon side effect. It’s called a pseudo tumor, which basically means all of the affects of a brain tumor without the actual tumor. Which you would think is a blessing (and it is) but it’s been a real b!tc#, and some devastating (to me) side effects of the medication.
It’s just made me feel even further away from myself.

The future can never be known and I used to think nothing of that. But the reason I thought nothing of that is because the skeleton of my future was there. I may not have known exactly what would happen, but I had built myself a skeleton and that was enough to make me feel stable and safe  about the fact that the future is unknown and life is ever-changing. When that skeleton is there, life looks very different than when the future is a giant foggy void and you don’t know if behind that fog is a road to safety or a ledge you could fall right off of.

I know who I was but not how to get back to her. She’s so gone, I literally don’t recognize myself in the mirror. If I took a side-by-side picture of myself from 10 years ago and myself today, you would say those are two different women.

Anyway, all this to say that I have noticed the issue of identity and the difference between who we were then and who we are now as a theme in several threads and it’s something I’ve been grappling with, so I just wanted to share.

https://centering.org/grief-digest-articles/a-deathless-grievance-losing-ones-self-identity/

And of course a song:
https://youtu.be/zfiISFiozg8
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« Last Edit: August 29, 2022, 05:30:42 AM by Nas »
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

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#24: August 29, 2022, 08:50:02 AM
Thank you very much for posting this, Nas - it was very timely for me.
Interesting bit in the article about the different roles and things and people we hook our identity on. That rang a loud bell with me.
I have just started working with my own coach a couple of week’s ago on this kind of rebuilding. Bc I was stuck but knew I needed to do something very different than I would normally do. I could see Me....but couldn’t reach Me. I know you will get how frustrating and demoralising that is. I know you will get how being able to see Me felt like a big success in itself even though I had no idea how to get to her  :)
For me it wasn’t a skeleton but a sense of ground under my feet....the principle is the same though so yes I think I get just what you mean. It literally is a kind of existential crisis, isn’t it? Ha ha, a raspberry to those MLCers and their piddling blow everything up crises, I say - frigging amateurs  :)

But my word, this s$it is hard. Even with an appropriately bullish, positive and rather intuitively kind coach. A lot of up and down, found and lost, bursting out and then suddenly surprisingly up to my ears in sludge. She has had me working on a vision board and an affirmation - she calls it a living board - and it was both very good and rather exhausting to do. Round and round, up and down. It has taken me AGES, days and days....good thing that I learned to say ‘not now’ to that ‘why are you being too slow/so stupid’ voice years back  :)....but my days, this last week was hard mentally and emotionally.
Which seems silly really, not to have a grip on who you are now and what you want to do with yourself. Almost impossible to put into words for someone who has not been there, right? I have found that I sort of need to sidle up on myself bc a full frontal approach tends to freeze me into a kind of despairing blank page....
It’s a lot of trial and error tbh.
In many ways it feels like a different version of the old ‘day at a time’ just with less sobbing  :)

I am very sorry to hear about your pseudo-tumour.
The word makes it sound like a light weight, but I suspect it really isn’t.
Do feel free to PM me if you think you can use second-hand any of my v v useful, if challenging, coaching  :)
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#25: August 29, 2022, 01:40:11 PM
I'm glad but not glad the article resonated for you, T - you know what I mean by that.  ;)
I figured the idea of mourning who we were might strike a chord with folks here. From newbies to old timers, we all had to let go of at least some part of what we had known for so long.

I could see Me....but couldn’t reach Me.

I couldn't/can't even see me, let alone reach that person. I can look back and see who I was in terms of the roles and things and people I hooked my identity on, there's really nothing left of her to salvage.

I made a vision board about a year post-BD as I was preparing to move hundreds of miles away. For 7 months I was killing it and then it all completely blew up. Now I know to set much, much smaller goals. It's hard to look at an ordinary thing that seems to tiny and call it a "goal" and celebrate meeting it. It's hard not to be impatient. It's hard to look back and see that I've lost years of my life to just surviving when I was supposed to be moving forward, starting over, not just getting older and older and moving an inch at a time instead of the miles I should have, could have, would have.

That's the mourning I sometimes find myself doing, mourning the Nas who was supposed to come out on top. Yes, I could celebrate overcoming every single obstacle, but I'm too busy looking ahead at the next obstacle and trying to head off more of them. And if I'm honest, being really salty that they exist. It's a bit like living in a game of Frogger (if anyone remembers that Atari classic). I can cross the street, but unlike when I used to be able to just look both ways and then simply walk across, I have to time every single step perfectly to avoid oncoming trouble/danger/impediments, otherwise I'll end up splattered on the pavement.
The impediments don't stop coming, yet I have to keep moving. It's slower than I'd like, so slow it sometimes feels like I'm not moving at all. But the key is to keep moving - that's what I'd say to newbies. Even if it is so, so, so (sometimes) physically and (mostly) psychologically exhausting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBM9Sjp7tpk
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#26: August 29, 2022, 10:31:54 PM
Quote
I couldn't/can't even see me, let alone reach that person. I can look back and see who I was in terms of the roles and things and people I hooked my identity on, there's really nothing left of her to salvage.
Ah yes, I couldn’t see her either. For years and years. It’s a hard thing to describe and live with, isn’t it?
I don’t want to invalidate you by saying you might not be right. In fact I assume you are right, right now.
The only thing I will say is that you might not be completely right forever.....to suggest that is a possibility even if it feels as if it is not?
Bc I was rather surprised when my Me popped up only a few months ago here. And there is nothing unique about me tbh. I think I had probably stopped hunting for her  ::) So it rather threw me when I could see her.  :) i’d had the odd glimmer in the past, moments, like snatches of an old familiar tune, but then it would drift away again. Do you get those? And of course it is true that most of the hooks are long gone, just as you say. But there may be a Nas there anyway, the Nas before the hooks, pure Nas lol. In a way it would be strange if there wasn’t something, right? Even if it feels like a tiny something too small to salvage. My coach used the word Reclaim and I jibbed against that....it doesn’t feel like a reclaiming, like you that feels not possible. Perhaps not worth doing. It feels more like, idk, a reacquaintance? A rebuilding from parts to make something else? Idk.

Quote
For 7 months I was killing it and then it all completely blew up. Now I know to set much, much smaller goals. It's hard to look at an ordinary thing that seems to tiny and call it a "goal" and celebrate meeting it. It's hard not to be impatient. It's hard to look back and see that I've lost years of my life to just surviving when I was supposed to be moving forward, starting over, not just getting older and older and moving an inch at a time instead of the miles I should have, could have, would have.......That's the mourning I sometimes find myself doing, mourning the Nas who was supposed to come out on top.

Ah yes again.
I found my frustration led me to a sort of despair tbh. Maybe I gave up trying bc it seemed undoable and it hurt to keep trying. I was very attached to those ‘supposed to be’s but I failed over and over again. Felt like a pig trying to fly  :). Or perhaps more accurately a pig who remembered being an eagle. I liked being an eagle....or my memory of how it felt anyway....I did not like being a pig with flying goals. Not one jot.

Quote
Yes, I could celebrate overcoming every single obstacle, but I'm too busy looking ahead at the next obstacle and trying to head off more of them. And if I'm honest, being really salty that they exist. It's a bit like living in a game of Frogger (if anyone remembers that Atari classic). I can cross the street, but unlike when I used to be able to just look both ways and then simply walk across, I have to time every single step perfectly to avoid oncoming trouble/danger/impediments, otherwise I'll end up splattered on the pavement.

And another yes.
I don’t remember the game but I absolutely know the feeling. It’s exhausting isn’t it? And a bit baffling while everyone else seems to skip over the street. And - at least this was my experience - I ended up getting splattered anyway more often than not.
And yes, I felt indescribably stupid and small somehow that I had become a person who only had these infinitesimally tiny nuggets to go ‘yay Me’ about. Parking in an unfamiliar car park. Emptying a box, not vomiting on a train. Getting out of bed somedays, breathing tbh.Still the reality, my reality, was that the nuggets were mountains, each and every one of them. You get that, I know, but ‘normal’ folks don’t. I would not have got it before either.
So what can one do?
I think - very slowly - I had to let go of the belief that I could salvage the old Me. Bc I was so self evidently failing lol. Perhaps that is the inherent purpose of Mourning, idk? But I didn’t want to bc that felt like a failure too. And one that would maroon me in this s$itty place of No Me. Which also felt like a failure. S$itty rock and s$itty hard place. I think I had to - even more slowly lol - find some way of approaching it that felt more real and more realistic, some way of almost embracing the s$ittiness of it enough to tidy up some pieces of s$it so I could see a few little bits of shiny. Not saying I did this very consciously and i’m sure others have found more efficient glam ways....mine was more a small bucket and a tiny tiny brush kind of way lol.
Bc it was also true that, even with the many ups and downs (and they are still here), that I did not stay in exactly the same spot that I had been in before. That I did have the odd cross the street moment even if I fell flat on my face the next day whereas at one time I couldn’t cross the street at all. Tbh in recovery from PTSD I had no choice but to go small bc that was all I had in me.....they were all still mountains to me even if they were paving cracks to others.

Hence my idea of a drystone wall, I suppose....a very tiny drystone wall made at a snails pace from pebbles rather than rocks lol. Bc the reality was/is that this small wall was all I could do but....and it was an important but for me...it was also where I saw and felt an equally tiny sense of momentum. (I was going to say progress but that felt like too grand and big a word for what it was/is). It was more like starting to fill a very big jar with very small pebbles...and then a moment when you are surprised to see an inch depth of pebbles....the pebbles proved that I was not in exactly the identical place I had been last year or month. And in the blindingly obvious truth that there was no ah-ha with a mighty bound kind of thing, that was not nothing.
But I always felt and often feel still a bit silly going ‘yay you’ over a pebble  ::)
I think I have just learned to respect the effort more than the result, the pebble over the wall perhaps.

I don’t know where I am going with this, Nas. Or even if it makes any sense at all, this wittering and ambling round metaphorical pebbles and walls  ::)
Other than to say yup, I hear you and yup, I know that feeling and yup, it’s weird and hard and yup, it’s a real thing and i’m sorry that you are feeling it too.
And perhaps there is a tiny tiny possibility, just a conceptual possibility maybe, that it is not the whole story forever. But I lay that down with a bow and backing away slowly bc I know that it felt like the whole story to me for years and years and it sometimes made me feel worse if others thought they saw something of Me that I couldn’t when they had no idea really of what it felt like to wake up in my skin.

Gracie and me send you a hug (mine) and a chirrup (hers).
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#27: August 31, 2022, 04:34:27 AM
Thanks for this exchange, T. Even though we temporarily hijacked the articles thread  ;), there’s a lot of important stuff in here for everyone to take in.
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#28: September 01, 2022, 07:21:10 AM
Continuing the theme of identity/loss of identity, this is longish so not really a glance over kind of article.
One part in particular made me actually cry, and I think at least one thing in this one will resonate. Well worth the read.

https://www.guidetopsychology.com/identity.htm

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#29: September 01, 2022, 09:17:25 AM
Continuing the theme of identity/loss of identity, this is longish so not really a glance over kind of article.
One part in particular made me actually cry, and I think at least one thing in this one will resonate. Well worth the read.

https://www.guidetopsychology.com/identity.htm



Not sure this will resonate with many, but in my current deep dive into an issue/new reality that I truly am fighting the urge to run away from (like literally run, hop a train cross country and disappear for a while kind of running - so I might sound like an MLCer except I know that running only means taking the issue with me) I read this great article. Sometimes the "positive mindset" advice, though well meaning, simply isn't feasible, and this article is about poverty but likely applies well to other things and may spark ideas or insights:

https://psyche.co/ideas/why-we-shouldnt-push-a-positive-mindset-on-those-in-poverty
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#30: September 01, 2022, 09:53:58 AM
I wanted to comment on this, because depending on each person's situation, it it important.
Quote
I can cross the street, but unlike when I used to be able to just look both ways and then simply walk across, I have to time every single step perfectly to avoid oncoming trouble/danger/impediments, otherwise I'll end up splattered on the pavement.

It's like being in the chomping machine in Galaxy Quest. And I will tell you that patience is not only forefront and required, but tested. You not only have to time it correctly, but must also plan for the timing. In general, this happens as you get older anyway; reactions aren't as quick, more things to juggle in your mind, sometimes your body betrays you (raises my hand). The you you have always been HAS to change, there is no choice because we cannot go back to what was.

The trick, imo, is not to fight it but accept that this is what is NOW. Tomorrow can be something different. If our core values remain, whatever we are now is ground zero and anything we want to change and improve on is not based in comparing ourselves to what we once were, but to who we want to be given what we have now. As in "This is my life, what am I going to do with what I have right now moving forward?"

Now, if your core values are missing, that is a problem.

I sure as heck don't measure up to what I was. But that doesn't mean that what I am right now isn't just fine given my circumstances.
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#31: September 08, 2022, 05:18:47 PM
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#32: September 25, 2022, 09:09:40 PM
New article from national bureau of economic research about evidence to support midlife crises.

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30442/w30442.pdf

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#33: September 27, 2022, 07:00:39 AM
This looks really interesting, HF. I'm looking forward to reading it over coffee, hopefully soon - thanks for sharing!
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#34: October 23, 2022, 07:18:12 AM
This resonated with me so I thought I would share. These are four things you might see in yourself or might recognize in your MLCer (particularly the looking for outside validation).

https://embodiedspirituality.medium.com/the-4-setbacks-you-may-experience-on-your-healing-journey-42d00fa4c628

It’s definitely helpful to see a setback as just that, a setback. I’m trying to balance what is a setback in healing from the entirety of the past with what is just harsh reality about the present and future - some things that may look to the outside world like setbacks are actually utterly unfixable (which is quite frankly terrifying).

The freeze response has been discussed in several thread discussions over the time I’ve been here.
I’ve certainly read a lot about it, but this statement really struck me. I could write pages on the interpretation of every tense of the word “fail”…

“…if flight is not a viable option, or it is attempted but is unsuccessful in gaining safety, the brain automatically shifts to freeze….
When fight and flight are activated but do not lead to safety, it is either because they were attempted and failed or because there was no possible chance of them being attempted…”
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#35: November 11, 2022, 04:47:01 AM
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/resilience-training/in-depth/resilience/art-20046311

“ Resilience won't make your problems go away — but resilience can give you the ability to see past them, find enjoyment in life and better handle stress. If you aren't as resilient as you'd like to be, you can develop and learn skills to become more resilient.”
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#36: November 14, 2022, 01:27:21 PM
Interesting read !

 I read this article a while ago and thought I would share it here in the hopes that it may help those of you who are trying to understand not only remorse looks like, but what a genuinely contrite should look like.

IMHO, remorse is great, but contrition is what you really should be looking for if you are considering Reconciliation.

"How to Recognize True (and false) Contrition" — by Dr. George Simon, Jr.

A person’s character deficiencies inevitably spawn a host of irresponsible behavior patterns – bad habits that can become easily ingrained and, once rooted, extremely hard to break.  Often, these dysfunctional patterns involve forms of mental, emotional, and even physical abuse within relationships.  And while many of the character-impaired individuals I’ve worked with experienced periods of profound unhappiness and even a degree of regret over their actions, only a handful made truly significant changes in their once destructive behaviors. But those who truly did address their behaviors and succeeded in changing their lives for the better displayed a rare quality that seemed to make all the difference: genuine contrition.

By definition, personality patterns are deeply ingrained and hard to modify.  But that doesn’t mean a person can’t change.  People can and do change every day.  That is, genuinely contrite people do.  This begs the question about what contrition really is and how to know when someone is really experiencing it.

The word contrition comes from the Latin contritus (the same root for the word contrite), and literally means “crushed to pieces.” The contrite person has had their once haughty and prideful ego completely crushed under the tremendous weight of guilt and shame. Such a person has “hit bottom”, not only because they can no longer bear the thought of how badly their actions hurt others but also because of their deep realization of how their usual way of doing things has resulted in abject personal failure.  That’s why the contrite person is first and foremost a broken person.  And, by definition, only by acknowledging personal defeat can a person become potentially open to reconstructing their life on very different terms.  It’s been said many times, but it’s profoundly psychologically true.  One cannot begin a new life without laying to rest one’s old self.

A regretful person is not necessarily a contrite one.  Regret often precedes contrition but is definitely not synonymous with it.  And when it comes to making meaningful changes in one’s character and turning around an irresponsible life, regret is simply not sufficient.  The word regret comes from the Old French, meaning “to bewail.” It’s a person’s intellectual and emotional response to an unpleasant or unfortunate circumstance (originally used to characterize a person’s loss of a loved one through death).  Anyone can regret something they have done and for a variety of reasons, some of which can be quite ignoble.  Even some of the most hardened criminals had certain regrets. They regretted the loss of their freedom. They lamented the fact that a judge was able to exercise power over them and subject them to various unpleasant consequences.  Many “bewailed” that the sentence they received was greater than they anticipated or longer than someone else’s who committed a similar crime.  A few even regretted their actual actions, but most of the time even that kind of regret had to do with practical considerations (e.g., they didn’t plan their crime carefully enough to avoid detection, or they misjudged the character of their partner in crime who later “ratted [them] out” to authorities).  And when expressing their regrets, some were even moved to tears. But tears do not a contrite person make. And mere regret has never been sufficient to prompt a person to change their ways.

Remorse is a prerequisite for contrition, but it’s also not sufficient for it. Remorse is a genuine empathy-based expression of one’s regret over hurting someone else.  By definition, psychopaths (alt: sociopaths) cannot really experience any meaningful degree of it, although they are quite capable of feigning it.  Fortunately, most people are capable of it to some degree, and having remorse for the injury caused to another is a necessary first step toward real contrition.  But true contrition goes even beyond remorse.  Genuinely contrite people – their prideful egos crushed and torn asunder by the weight of their guilt and shame – not only hate their “sins” and the pain they inflicted on others as a result of their sins, but also are deeply unnerved about the person they allowed themselves to become that permitted their travesties in the first place.  And they necessarily resolve not only to make amends but also to make of better persons of themselves and their lives in a better fashion in the future.

Contrition is that very rare but absolutely essential feature of changing one’s life for the better.  It requires a true metanoia or “change of heart.” And even more importantly, it requires work – a lot of very hard, humble, committed work.  Reforming one’s character is the most challenging of human enterprises.  You have to put a lot of energy into doing it, and you have to feel a deep sense of obligation about doing it in order to maintain the energy to get the job done.  And contrition wears a very distinctive face.  Truly contrite people behave very differently, even from regretful and remorseful people.  And when you know what to look for, you can readily tell the difference.

One of the more reliable outward signs that someone has really experienced a change of heart is their willingness and commitment to make amends.  The contrite person is not only “sorry” for what he/she has done but is willing to repair the damage inflicted on the lives of others. Many irresponsible characters will challenge their understandably hesitant to trust again victims with retorts like: “I’ve said I’m sorry a million times now – what else do you want from me?!,” attempting all the while to throw the other party on the defensive for doubting their sincerity.  Or they will cite some small efforts they have made over a relatively short period of time and then chide their victims for not immediately accepting those small gestures as concrete evidence of meaningful, sincere, permanent change.  Contrite individuals understand that the burden of proof rests with them and that they owe those they have hurt a justifiable basis upon which to resume some degree of trust.  A contrite person is willing to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to regain good standing within a relationship.

It’s one thing to say you’re sorry.  But it’s quite another to prove it by how hard you work to change. Behavior is the best indicator that a person is truly contrite and working to really change.  Living and dealing with persons of deficient character is always difficult, but many people increase the level of pain they experience in their relationships with problem characters by buying into the notion that if a person says they’re sorry, sheds a tear, or looks unhappy, and appears to mean well, things will necessarily be different. They give too much regard to a person’s regret and sorrow and don’t look hard enough for evidence of true contrition.

A person’s genuine willingness and commitment to make amends is always accompanied by plan of action to accomplish precisely those ends. In short, a person’s actions always speak louder than their words or even their emotional expressions.  And I’m not talking about demonstrative gestures that make good impressions on others like going back to church or getting religion once again.  The contrite person conducts themselves in a fundamentally different manner than they historically have. They might not do so perfectly or every time. But they evidence a constant effort toward reforming their conduct, and when they fall short they readily admit it and do their best to get back on course.

All too many times therapists as well as the victims of irresponsible characters make the assumption that things are moving in the right direction because the bad actor shed a tear or two about something horrible they did or said they were sorry.  But even when sorrow is genuine, it’s certainly not enough to make a difference.  Sorrow is an emotional response usually connected to the loss of something. And while it is always painful to lose – especially when losing something of great value – that kind of pain is not in and of itself a reliable predictor of change. Individuals who have been in abusive relationships and who give a lot of weight or credence to expressions of regret and sorrow are most often doomed to an escalating level of personal pain and hardship. And in proper cognitive-behavioral therapy for abusers, where the principal focus is on behavior and fostering fundamental attitudinal and behavioral change, the therapist has to be much less interested in what a person has to say and much more concerned about what he/she is doing to truly correct problematic thinking and behavior patterns and repairing damage they have done.  Talk, as they say, is infinitely cheap.  And therapy that just focuses on getting someone to express their feelings or communicate their regrets is likely doomed to be ineffective in fostering meaningful change.

Having some regret simply isn’t enough to make a person mend their ways. It takes a lot of concerted effort to overcome our shortcomings.The truly contrite individual works to make amends, to do better, and above all, to be better.  That always involves demonstrable, consistent behavior – behavior that can be observed, monitored, encouraged, rewarded, and measured by both the therapist and other parties to a relationship with the troubled character.

Edited in Aug 2018 to add:

In summary, someone who is genuinely remorseful and contrite will:

1. Admit that their behaviour was wrong.

2. Continuously take full responsibility for their actions.

3. Accept and understand that their choices and actions brought them to where they are.

4. Make NO attempt to blame anyone else

5. Have humility (are receptive to and actively seek constructive criticism because they know it leads to self-improvement, they display a willingness to learn and become better, they quiet emotional responses so they can actively listen, they are eager to understand others and show a genuine interest in them and put them first in their thoughts)

6. Engage in openness and honesty in ALL aspects of their life

7. Do everything in their power to make things right with the person(s) they have harmed

8. Have patience and recognize that trust is rebuilt over a long period of time with consistent good choices and actions

9. Focus on the person(s) the have harmed - recognizing and acknowledging the impacts of the harm in both heart and mind

10. Understand the emotions of the person(s) they have harmed and have empathy and compassion for their pain

11. Validate the pain of the person(s) they have harmed and have a deep understanding of how their actions caused that pain

12. Put 100% effort into making real changes in themselves and not try to take shortcuts

13. Deliberately choose to making lasting changes and psychologically transform themselves, and are intrinsically motivated to do so
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There is almost something harder about someone being alive and having to lose what you believed to be true of them than someone actually dying.

Indefatigability - determined to do or achieve something; firmness of purpose
perspicacity- a clarity of vision or intellect which provides a deep understanding and insight

Married July 1991
Jan 2018 BD1 moved out I filed for Div/ H stopped it
Oct 2018 moved back
Oct 2020 BD2
Feb 2021 Div-29 1/2 years
July 2021 Married OW
Feb 2022  XH fired
June 2022 XH bring OW to meet family due to xMIL illness
May 2023 went NC after telling XH we could not be friends
Aug 2023 XH moves w/o OWife
May 2024 xMIL visits XH/OW in their new home
Aug 2024 cut relations w/XH fam.
Dec 2024 D33 expecting baby ( XH not told)

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#37: December 01, 2022, 04:28:48 PM
https://www.straighttalkcounseling.org/post/why-do-we-catastrophize-how-to-end-worst-case-scenario-thinking

And a few questions it’s helpful to ask yourself:
How likely is this to occur?
What is the worst outcome that can happen?
If this happened, what would I do?
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#38: December 01, 2022, 04:38:07 PM
Great article Nas. Thanks
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#39: December 03, 2022, 09:31:20 AM

More digging (and some rambling)… hopefully these are helpful for someone else. It helps me to have somewhere to share it…

A few weeks ago I said to my therapist “I need so much help, it’s shameful.”

We often talk about how anger can be a secondary emotions. Same with shame.
“Any feeling can be a primary or secondary emotion, the key thing to remember: are secondary emotions push someone away or are protecting a more profound emotion that might be too difficult to share.”
https://richerlifecounseling.com/primary-and-secondary-emotions/

I would add to that, they might also be a stand in emotion for a deeper emotion that is difficult to immediately name or identify.

I’ve been grappling with extremely hard things to untangle. In the midst of everything else going on, last night I stumbled upon something I wish I hadn’t. In all my years of having an iPhone, I never knew that when you block a phone number, if that person you blocked calls you and leaves a message, that message does actually get saved in a folder called blocked messages.

Very brief backstory: As a child, my father left and promised to come back for me but disappeared instead and there was a period of many, many I didn’t see him or know anything about his life.

He reappeared in my life when I was in my 30s and, having done lots of therapy in my 20s, I quickly recognized the situation was not good for me and I removed myself and blocked him. Fast forward to 2019. I had cancer progression, I was so weak I could barely walk, had nowhere to live, and my father told me he’d help me. I was desperate to believe him and I’ll never know if he would’ve followed through because he died just two weeks later.

Which brings us back to the blocked messages folder because last night I discovered that there were 20 messages from him between 2012 and 2015. I wish I was smart enough to just delete them. They’re hideous, deflecting and projecting like an MLC monster on steroids.

So many emotions to sort through, and I remember doing the same right after BD, even if I wasn’t connecting the dots to all the life events that brought me/bring me to similar emotional places. Everything is so connected. I guess that’s a part of why I’m posting, because all of the emotional turmoil that is happening after a BD, it’s more than likely not just because of what is happening *right now* and it was so useful for me to try to untangle how it’s all connected. Even the baby steps I made with that early on were so key to my ability to move forward.

Every little bit of work helps. I cannot imagine surviving the multiple life changing situations of the past few years if I hadn’t worked through any of the complicated emotions from the end of my marriage, if I hadn’t made the connections about why his betrayals cut so deep. To be fair, what he did was so hideous, I could have led a completely idyllic life up until then where I knew what it was like to be safe and loved and cared for, and I still would have been completely shaken to my core. But the understanding of how it all ties together with the totality of my life experiences has been so important for understanding myself.

Sometimes I read about things someone’s MLCer is doing and I feel like I have an understanding of why, like I can see they are reacting to something they can’t identify, being driven by secondary emotions because it’s easier than delving into the what and the why of how they really feel, what they’ve been through and how it’s shaped them. Those secondary emotions drive all the running from themselves, often drive them to push people away.

At times when it’s too difficult or painful to name what’s really going on, it’s awfully easy to hand over it the keys and let the secondary emotions drive.

https://georgetownpsychology.com/2021/02/secondary-emotions-a-key-to-compassionate-conversations/

“Secondary emotions are created by thoughts we have about our primary emotions. Oftentimes, these are the feelings that brew while we try to make sense of why we experienced the initial, primary feeling. You might feel the trickling in of shame as you think about why you “shouldn’t” feel angry. Or you might develop anxiety while you try to make sense of your fear. Secondary emotions are really good at taking the wheel and driving our reactions.”

🎶  https://youtu.be/snILjFUkk_A 🎶
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#40: December 03, 2022, 10:49:45 AM
These have been really interesting, Nas. Thank you for sharing. I hope you're hanging in there.
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#41: December 03, 2022, 11:42:49 AM
Thank you for that, Nas. Never heard of that way of describing primary and secondary emotions but my goodness that makes a ton of sense.

I did know that about blocking on an iPhone but only bc I investigated blocking options years ago. Death threats tend to make you prioritise that kind of s$it lol.

But you’ve given us all two potential gifts right there bc both bits of info are probably going to be useful to someone. Or someones.

I did not remember those details about your father though. Maybe I forgot, maybe you couldn’t/didn’t share them. But I am so very sorry that all of that, big and small, was part of your life experience. No words really, just sorry (and a bit cross about the unfairness of things sometimes).

I have had patches of deep shame. For me, I think the primary emotion underneath is a kind of fear of the helplessness, almost a kind of despair that life is much more awful than I believed for my first 50 years and that I am so much less. Neither are comfortable....but the despair is like a terrible looming dark hole that I try very hard to avoid. Bc to me it colours everything as pointless. Like that Neitzsche quote about looking into the abyss and it looking back into you....

Thank you for the two gifts. I send you a perhaps pointless virtual hug in return  :) :) :) 
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#42: December 03, 2022, 12:01:13 PM
Thanks, JB.
It’s crazy Treasur, my father is the only person I have ever blocked.
I have to say, when I scrolled down to the bottom of my voicemails, saw the “blocked messages,” clicked on it and saw a full page of “Dad” over and over and over, I felt that familiar freezing in place followed by involuntary shaking that I have felt many times in my life, including that night I came home, walked into the bedroom and saw my husband’s closet completely empty.


Virtual hug back at ya 🤗

And a bop
🎶 https://youtu.be/LQiOA7euaYA

My therapist is in for an interesting session next week for sure…
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« Last Edit: December 03, 2022, 12:04:03 PM by Nas »
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#43: December 04, 2022, 07:39:06 AM


I did not remember those details about your father though. Maybe I forgot, maybe you couldn’t/didn’t share them.

I wanted to touch on this yesterday but I was overwhelmed (in general). Something else I read this morning reminded me of it and I’ll post an article link about it if I can find one. This is something I remember learning about after I got into therapy in my early 20s. Overexplaining can be a trauma response, but underexplaining or not sharing can be also.

An example of overexplaining trauma might be repeatedly retelling every single detail of my story, almost like “well if I keep telling you exactly what happened when I was a child and then what happened after BD and then what happened after I was diagnosed with cancer and then what happened when… Blah blah blah“ you will understand how deep my fear of abandonment goes, you will intuit all my needs and maybe just maybe you will care for me and/or won’t abandon me.”

But because being worthy in anything other than a transactional sense of what I could provide was always a foreign concept to me, I have always kind of tended to go much more in the opposite direction of not explaining at all, more like, “don’t tell anyone anything because if they knew everything about your life experiences, they might think you can’t take care of them and if you can’t take care of them you are worthless to them. You are not worthy of being taken care of emotionally or physically, so if you want anyone to stick around, you better present yourself as someone who has something to offer and who doesn’t need anything…”

Anyway, it’s hard to talk about these things - I kind of feel a bit like I’m naked in a town square. But I just think it’s an important reminder that there are things that lay very deep within and when we talk about MLC, there’s much, much deeper layers to the process beyond just “my spouse is in a tunnel, they have to walk through the tunnel, deal with their issues and come out the other side.” They do have to come out the other side, but there are so many things that they may have to deal with in order to do so, and they are deep things, they are not obvious things and they are not easy things. Very rarely if ever does a person simply wake up one day and say “I am simply going to change all of the things are so deeply rooted within my psyche…” I mean, first you have to identify what those things are and that is the step that many people never take.

Anyway I’m just unpicking an awful lot and that particular thing you said stood out because maybe it might resonate with some other LBS, or maybe some other LBS might think some of this rambling even describes their MLCer to one degree or another.

(As far as over/under-explaining, identifying that as part of a deeply rooted pattern is just one step. FWIW, I wrote more and am now cutting details from this post just before hitting “post” and I almost didn’t even hit post…It might sound like madness or it might help explain some things for others. Who knows?)

🎶 https://youtu.be/ePAv4vJS1FA
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« Last Edit: December 04, 2022, 07:51:20 AM by Nas »
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#44: December 04, 2022, 09:26:00 AM
I had no need for you to explain, Nas - hello naked girl in the town square from another lol - but thank you for doing so. That was really helpful and thought provoking.
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#45: December 07, 2022, 05:17:19 PM
Tips for distress tolerance:
https://healthaid.lemonaidhealth.com/anxiety/distress-tolerance/

“Many people wonder about the difference between stress and distress. Stress is a normal part of life, and the human body’s stress response system can be adaptive and helpful.

But distress is different. Distress occurs when you’re exposed to stress that is severe, prolonged, or both.”

🎶  https://youtu.be/IJFvSj6SYFY   🎶
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#46: January 02, 2023, 01:47:31 PM
Exercising 150 minutes per week for four months straight is equally effective as a prescription antidepressant

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5430071/
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#47: January 02, 2023, 04:17:17 PM
Exercising 150 minutes per week for four months straight is equally effective as a prescription antidepressant

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5430071/

I believe it!!!  In the 5.5 years since BD,  intense and consistent exercising made the bestest impact on my happiness level.
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#48: January 03, 2023, 11:28:25 AM
Agreed here too! 2022 was the game changer for me.

Yoga With Adriene on YouTube has just started the yearly 30-Day Yoga Journey for people at any point in the practice (including beginners). It's a gentle way to enter into a regular routine of movement for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithadriene
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#49: January 03, 2023, 11:33:58 AM
I joined the Yoga with Adrienne 30 day Yoga Journey and it is quite lovely. I truly believe that yoga is one of the most important things we can do to calm our nervous system, relax, breath, increase strength and flexibility, improve our balance and a number of other beneficial things...30 min a day..it becomes a habit and can help with all the stressors we face every day in our lives and in our world.
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#50: January 08, 2023, 07:44:04 PM
I too am doing Yoga with Adriene and despite a few sore muscles, I have felt deeply calm and still emotionally.  Its a good thing. 
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#51: January 09, 2023, 09:21:28 PM
Oh, just what I needed - free yoga classes.  Thank you!  I am headed to bed shortly but will get out my yoga mat from the closet and dust it off.
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#52: January 24, 2023, 07:40:56 AM
Thought these might have resonance:

https://www.healthyplace.com/depression/symptoms/depression-and-attention-concentration-problems


Me, myself, and I: self-referent word use as an indicator of self-focused attention in relation to depression and anxiety:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01564/full
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#53: January 24, 2023, 01:14:21 PM
Anyone seen this guys videos? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMhVWybU2Tg
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#54: January 25, 2023, 04:14:39 AM
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#55: January 30, 2023, 03:16:25 AM
This article, while not a MLC, is within the context of depression and the effect of limerence (from the betraying spouse POV)

https://letterstomyhusbandsaffair.wordpress.com/2019/03/29/limerence-and-affairs/
https://letterstomyhusbandsaffair.wordpress.com/the-story-the-unfaithful-version/
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#56: February 04, 2023, 01:55:33 PM
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#57: February 05, 2023, 01:15:43 AM
An interesting article. I was reading on my phone and need to print it out for a real read through. Here are some first thoughts.

It is an enormous study that I think will lay the foundation for the future understanding of a midlife crisis.

I don't understand the word "crisis" in the title since my first impression is that it is a large mapping of some social constructs to volumes of different brain regions. It shows changes in these volumes with midlife. However, I don't see the word crisis much in the body of the text, nor do I see mention of some participants in the study having an abnormal change in midlife.

Second is that I didn't see the ACES score (adverse childhood experience scale) as one of the factors and I wish it would be part of the study.

This is not to undercut the relevance and enormity of the study.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Side note is how interesting the morning person versus night person trait is. Also their mention of loneliness and the affect of that on mortality. Perhaps that's why when the MLCer starts to follow the beat of another drum, they feel lonely in the marriage and feel like they are going to die if they stay.
 
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« Last Edit: February 05, 2023, 01:20:34 AM by Reinventing »

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#58: February 05, 2023, 02:20:14 AM
Grateful that Reinventing did a good job precising a dense research summary as I struggled to pull out the kernels myself  :)

Don’t know much, Why, about the details of your situation other than BD was about April 22? Imho that thirst for ‘what is this and why’ is strong in the first year or so - partly a typical kind of trauma response, partly a normal human reaction to something that seems so very WTF to us. Don’t know if this is true for you too but those of us with a lean to certain kinds of problem solving professional skills or a track record of liking to figure out things and fix them might go round this loop a bit more.

Imho it’s a pretty normal LBS response that can become a bit compulsive over time....and if we realise we are at that point, it usually draws us towards needing to focus our questions differently. Looking more perhaps at the need sitting behind the desire to ask the questions. And what the answers might give us that we don’t have now. So, for instance, if I could demonstrate to you beyond a shadow of rigorous research doubt that the cause of MLC behaviour was, say, an allergy to cheese....what would having that information give you that would be helpful and something you could use or control in your own situation? And what might you do if there was never an answer as such?

Imho too I think - if we are being all cognitively rigorous lol like any good intellectual worker - we have to accept the limitations of confirmation bias, group think, limited data about another person’s head, any normal skewing in the samples considered and our own filters. Human brains have some quirky bits when we try to figure stuff out, don’t we?

Do I think there is some kind of psychological fracture in some people at some times of their lives? Probably, based on anecdotal evidence and my own life experience, yes. Do I think there are some recognisable patterns in how these folks behave? Probably yes. Do I think that some of these folks seem to share some FOO history or character traits? Probably yes (but I say that more cautiously bc HS is naturally a self-selecting group reporting their observations, so limited data really). But - and it took me quite a few years to get to this point and hours of thinking I can’t get back lol - I don’t KNOW for sure, either generally or with regard to my xh or anyone else’s spouse here, if i’m being honest. And if I DID know for sure, i’m not sure I can see how it would have changed some of the significant events in my own situation bc most of them weren’t happening by my choice, with my knowledge even, or within my reach of influence. I was largely at the receiving end of a chain of events if that makes sense, a bit like one of those multiverse type movies lol. The things that DID make a constructive difference, bit by bit, in my own life situation had much more to do with wrestling into place some of my own thoughts and feelings and responses to events happening to me and around me rather than the underpinning rationale for the events themselves. And that required a point, a kind of mental gear shift, when the problem became less about the problem and more about how I accepted and described to myself my own experience in a way that made sufficient sense to me that I could make some kind of peace with it..

So, I suppose my question, Why, is what do you think you are seeking and how do you see that as helpful to you in your current situation today, whatever it is? (Bc being honest about my own filter, I am more concerned here about how I can help LBS navigate through and after this life-altering and rather mindf**ky experience rather than understanding MLC which I can do nothing about  :) )
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#59: February 05, 2023, 05:56:44 AM
Reinventing - thanks for reading the study.   I couldn’t make sense of it on my phone ha.  Good to know the background.

T - appreciate your candid comments.  As for what I’m seeking?  To answer the question of whether it makes sense to remain married or not. 
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#60: February 05, 2023, 06:46:22 AM
My take away from that article is that the brain is literally changing in mid-life- restructuring. So now that you know that your wife´s brain has literally changed, what does that do to your evaluation of her possible future behavior? In one sense it is a relief to know that you are not imagining things; she has literally changed and you are not imagining new behaviors. You too are changing and living with the rejection and loneliness is not good for your brain. I just keep going back to the reality of love cannot fix mental health issues. Maybe there is so little reconciliation because their brains have remodeled and they are different people as the process proceeds. We like to think that the core of the person we knew is still there but maybe that´s a bias based on hope and not reality.
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#61: February 06, 2023, 01:01:13 AM
Good Morning everyone,

This is primarily a discussion thread where specific articles are linked and a discussion around those articles ensues. However, the thread has lately been mostly a back and forth answering questions from WHY. Therefore, I have (upon agreement/request from some of the other Mods) split off that part of this thread and put it as a new, stand-alone thread.

For those that were actively engaged in the discussion with WHY, the breakout thread is here: https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=12033.0

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#62: February 10, 2023, 07:02:05 AM
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"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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#63: February 10, 2023, 08:22:18 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/opinion/despair-friendship-suicide.html?fbclid=IwAR00AnoY21EuCAvnapGCBaBtErVGOZ92lA5Pl-79BcD9tvef2ZO7-YigZpo

An article about depression..anytime I read things like this, it helps me to understand better.

Paywall.  Can you Ctrl-P thanks. 
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#64: February 10, 2023, 09:23:43 AM
I am so sorry Why...I was able to read the article even though I don't have a subscription...if I find another source I shall let you know. I think it would be against copywright to copy it. It just struck me how no matter how clear it is that someone is suffering from depression, all the help in the world will not change things.


Here it is on youtube :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJCyl_qp9eU
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« Last Edit: February 10, 2023, 09:25:34 AM by xyzcf »
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html



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#67: February 10, 2023, 10:54:58 AM
What struck me about the article is the absolute darkness the man felt and that in spite of tons of resources, therapy, medication and supportive people, he continued to feel "lost" and in darkness for years. I don't know how to relate to feeling so hopeless and I do wonder if some of these feelings are what our MLCer experiences.
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"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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#68: February 23, 2023, 05:46:10 AM
Why's question and subsequent answers have been moved to the Breakout Thread as the discussion didn't relate to an article that had been referenced or posted. It was a question if there were articles to be found.

The Breakout thread can be found here : https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=12033.30

This thread is for a discussion around articles that have been found to be helpful/useful rather than as a personal request or story.
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Me - 61, xW - 54
Together 19 years - Married 17 at separation & 21 at D-Day
S - 17, D - 13
1 Dog
BD#1 - August 2015
Atomic BD - 13 Dec 2015
House sold & separated - Mar 2016
Divorce final 30 August 2019
Moved on in life

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A "friend" will not "stand by you" no matter what you do. That is NOT a friend. That is an enabler. That is an accomplice.
A REAL friend will sit you down and tell you to your face to stop being a firetrucking idiot before you ruin your life and the lives of those around you.

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#69: March 01, 2023, 07:28:29 AM
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042810017313

"Early attachment with caregivers in childhood plays a significant role in developing healthy relationships with
other people such as peers, partners and children in later life (Howe et al., 1999). Children who are abused often can
not find their caretaker available or when they are present; their behaviors provoke anxiety, fear and anger (Howe,
2005). Sroufe et al. (1999) maintain that early attachment with the caretakers, can affect later capacity of forming
emotional connectedness, building a safe and secure foundation in relationships and self-worth.
The studies also
showed the relationship between insecure attachment and emotion regulation (e.g., Shields & Cicchetti, 1997).
The findings in our study , consistent with these studies, demonstrated individuals who were abused or neglected
in childhood, may develop dysfunctional patterns of emotional closeness, intimacy, safety seeking and building trust
in romantic relationships due to their despaired attachment systems. Even though childhood trauma is an indicator of
infidelity tendency, we could not find any difference in infidelity tendency in terms of attachment styles.

We presumed attachment functions as a mediator in the relationship of childhood trauma and infidelity tendency
but the results indicated a different form of relationship between these variables, which should be addressed in
further research. Romantic jealousy, which differed significantly among attachment groups (anxious/preoccupied
presenting the most jealousy in romantic relationships followed by fearful/avoidant, secure and
dismissive/avoidant), did not show any correlation with childhood trauma, which is another finding that can be
further explored in future research.
"


And of course a little something from the playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpjHW4mr6qo
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#70: March 01, 2023, 04:04:50 PM
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/psychology/men-and-midlife-crisis-coping-with-trauma-causes-and-treatment-psychology-essay.php

“ Researchers and psychologists also argue that traumatic experiences at childhood are likely to have a severe-long-life effect that can transit to adulthood. Children who were traumatized at early ages view the world as unfriendly, unsecure, dangerous and frightening (Eth, 1994; Terr, 1991). If this experience is not resolved, it transits to adulthood, multiplying and setting the conditions for future trauma. This can precipitate the experiences of a mid-life-crisis.”

🎶  https://youtu.be/MhEm4S-4v_U  🎶
 Someone take these dreams away
That point me to another day
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#72: March 06, 2023, 12:10:19 PM
This article reaffirmed to me that their crisis was inevitable. It had little to do with me. It resulted from they was they were formed...even with fantastic parenting, issues arise that are not dealt with. Thanks for sharing
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"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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#73: March 07, 2023, 04:46:17 PM
https://psychcentral.com/health/self-concept

“ the three core parts of self-concept are:

Ideal self: your vision and ambitions of who you want to be
Real self (self-image): how you currently see and perceive yourself
Self-esteem: how much worth and value you believe you have.

If your ideal self did not match the reality of your real self, he suggested your self-concept was “incongruent,” and your self-esteem was likely to be negatively affected.”


🎶 https://youtu.be/TNNpQM9TY84
Take it to the bridge
throw it overboard
See if it can swim
back  up to the shore…
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#74: March 11, 2023, 03:54:30 PM
https://hbr.org/2022/01/when-a-major-life-change-upends-your-sense-of-self

“Part of what makes identity paralysis so difficult to overcome is that it isn’t just your idea of who you are that gets stuck in the past. It can also cause you to get stuck in the emotions associated with that past. Whether you’re ashamed of a prior role or decision, angry about the circumstances that led to your current situation, or feeling hopeless, scared, or any other challenging negative emotion, getting stuck in these feelings can block your transition (even if you are ready for it cognitively).”

🎶 https://youtu.be/QeZkLV3ZjeI
When love breaks down
The lies we tell,
They only serve to fool ourselves,
When love breaks down
The things you do
To stop the truth from hurting you…
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#75: March 13, 2023, 08:44:01 AM
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There is almost something harder about someone being alive and having to lose what you believed to be true of them than someone actually dying.

Indefatigability - determined to do or achieve something; firmness of purpose
perspicacity- a clarity of vision or intellect which provides a deep understanding and insight

Married July 1991
Jan 2018 BD1 moved out I filed for Div/ H stopped it
Oct 2018 moved back
Oct 2020 BD2
Feb 2021 Div-29 1/2 years
July 2021 Married OW
Feb 2022  XH fired
June 2022 XH bring OW to meet family due to xMIL illness
May 2023 went NC after telling XH we could not be friends
Aug 2023 XH moves w/o OWife
May 2024 xMIL visits XH/OW in their new home
Aug 2024 cut relations w/XH fam.
Dec 2024 D33 expecting baby ( XH not told)

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#76: March 15, 2023, 08:19:42 AM
Book rec:

https://www.amazon.com/No-Bad-Parts-Restoring-Wholeness-ebook/dp/B096NHMV2R

I recommend also downloading the audiobook as it has helpful exercises guided by the author between chapters.
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#77: March 16, 2023, 04:32:23 PM
https://healingwellcounseling.com/blog/trauma-survivors-why-relaxation-techniques-dont-work-and-what-to-do-instead/

For the longest time, the inability to find comfort in “relaxation techniques” reinforced the idea that there was something “wrong“ with me. I could not relax. Meditation was too still, yoga was too slow. I felt waves of panic during breathing exercises, and the weighted blankets that everyone raves about caused me to feel instantly trapped and unsafe.
I even experienced some similar feelings in self-care situation. Sitting in a hair stylist’s chair for so long, knowing I was unable to walk out at any moment because my hair was covered in dye, made me anxious.
If you’re experiencing anxiety and trying to calm yourself but finding it more distressful, don’t get discouraged. These are some alternative techniques that *might* help:

https://healingwellcounseling.com/blog/grounding-techniques/


🎶  https://youtu.be/IsT_PvMR4j4  🎶
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#78: March 17, 2023, 12:56:46 AM
I was the same, Nas. Silence, stillness was too hard for quite a few years. Walking helped.
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H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.


"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg

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#79: March 17, 2023, 02:29:18 AM
Wow, talk about good timing, I just found out I have high (low end of high) blood pressure. Given that I have a low BMI, eat healthily, exercise regularly and don't smoke AND I've never had high BP before, I suspect anxiety. I too find that the breathing techniques just make me more conscious of trying not to be anxious (I need to get a grip  :D). Yes, I agree with Treasur about walking and also yoga is great to focus on your body and just be present. I find the yoga community an additional bonus, being in a supportive and trusting environment is really life affirming.
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#80: March 20, 2023, 10:54:27 AM
Doing a little light reading on one of my favorite sites while having some poisonous drugs pumped into my veins:

https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2023/03/does-identity-matter.html

“If I’m suffering an identity crisis the last thing I want is more of the same story. I don’t want to be the same person or continue the same narrative—that is what got me into trouble. In other words, identity seems to be the wrong relationship between me and my past self in circumstances where significant change is called for. The way out of an identity crisis is to become a similar person, me but without the conditions that give rise to the crisis, which may require I substantially change who I am.”

🎶   https://youtu.be/9qgFGqJz9yc  🎶
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#81: March 21, 2023, 10:19:39 AM
Nas,
Thank you so much for this!
I'm including it in my weekly email--I'm writing it now and trying to get it out today.
I'm big on Mindfulness and its benefits and this can help me understand why or when it's just not working or someone isn't interested or why and how it can even make a situation worse.
I definitely want to delve deeper into this topic!

https://healingwellcounseling.com/blog/trauma-survivors-why-relaxation-techniques-dont-work-and-what-to-do-instead/

For the longest time, the inability to find comfort in “relaxation techniques” reinforced the idea that there was something “wrong“ with me. I could not relax. Meditation was too still, yoga was too slow. I felt waves of panic during breathing exercises, and the weighted blankets that everyone raves about caused me to feel instantly trapped and unsafe.
I even experienced some similar feelings in self-care situation. Sitting in a hair stylist’s chair for so long, knowing I was unable to walk out at any moment because my hair was covered in dye, made me anxious.
If you’re experiencing anxiety and trying to calm yourself but finding it more distressful, don’t get discouraged. These are some alternative techniques that *might* help:

https://healingwellcounseling.com/blog/grounding-techniques/


🎶  https://youtu.be/IsT_PvMR4j4  🎶
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#82: March 22, 2023, 09:41:51 AM
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/free-range-psychology/201609/10-reasons-new-love-is-crack-cocaine

The cocaine rush feelings in new love may treat symptoms of mood depression, in the short run. The chemicals that are released during new love are the same chemicals that some antidepressant medications make more abundant in our brains. New love is not a cure for depression of course - what we can expect is a short-term reprieve followed by return to baseline when the cocaine rush phase transitions into “the testing phase.” When relationship excitement is used to mask depression or help us pave over grief or loss of a different relationship (rebound relationship formation), the relief is temporary. Like most addictive processes, long-term positive change as a result of substances (or new love’s euphoria) is generally speaking a mirage in a desert of engulfing loss.
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#83: March 22, 2023, 04:37:13 PM
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The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

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#84: March 23, 2023, 04:48:21 PM
This is kind of a “thick” read, but very, very interesting.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7594748/

(And a basic explanation of the default mode network:
Know Your Brain: Default Mode Network:
 https://neuroscientificallychallenged.com/posts/know-your-brain-default-mode-network)

🎶🎶  https://youtu.be/HUz6IZ5GnbY 

It's so hard to find an answer
It's so hard to stand alone
It's so hard to find a feeling
That was buried long ago
It's so hard to trust another
When it's easier to hide
It's so hard to believe
Unless we try baby try
If I had a dream and it got away
If I found the words would I know what to say
If I had a chance to be someone else
Yeah if I try to believe, try to believe
   🎶🎶
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#85: March 24, 2023, 04:55:36 AM
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#86: April 09, 2023, 10:58:50 AM
Really worth the read, especially if your MLCer (or you, or anyone in your life) has a history of trauma:

Part 1: Why It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better: Factors that Complicate Healing from Trauma — Different Functional

https://www.differentfunctional.com/blog/why-it-gets-worse-before-it-gets-better-factors-that-complicate-healing-from-trauma

And I was nodding my head through most of Part 2:

https://www.differentfunctional.com/blog/part-2-why-it-gets-worse-before-it-gets-better-relational-contexts-of-initial-healing-with-trauma

🎶  https://youtu.be/4IKddfxkDWk 🎶
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« Last Edit: April 09, 2023, 11:32:10 AM by Nas »
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

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#87: April 10, 2023, 08:12:05 AM
Part 2 is a very interesting read, thanks Nas.
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#88: April 10, 2023, 06:50:50 PM
Why You Really Want To Run Away From Life (+ What To Do About It)
https://www.aconsciousrethink.com/14140/i-want-to-run-away/

Running Away From Problems, People and Life: Why We Do It
https://www.1vibrantlife.com/running-away-from-problems/


🎶  https://youtu.be/8Csptci0d5s
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#89: April 22, 2023, 05:26:51 AM
Reading this with my coffee this morning, for me there’s a lot of avenues of discussion that stem from it but Im sharing it here because, as I read along, I also couldn’t help but think of MLCer’s and their choices…

https://iai.tv/articles/there-is-no-such-thing-as-weak-will-rebecca-roache-auid-2454
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#90: April 23, 2023, 11:23:17 AM
I read this today and thought about how much pressure we put on ourselves. I have memories, dreams, interactions that are a part of me, and will be forever. Healing means we live with those memories and do not let them destroy us.

"Healing doesn't happen instantly; it's gradual.
There is so much pressure to magically let go and forget, but the journey of moving beyond what
you've known isn't so clear-cut.
There will be days when you remember even when you don't necessarily want to.
Having the memory doesn't mean you're unhealed.
A lived experience sticks with you long after it's over."

Omar Hachem
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« Last Edit: April 23, 2023, 11:27:13 AM by xyzcf »
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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#91: April 29, 2023, 12:26:32 AM
This letter to the Daily Mail is a useful reminder perhaps that other people might be just as bewildered as the LBS https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12026341/BEL-MOONEY-son-hes-hurting-everyone.html

It’s pretty textbook, isn’t it? A terminally ill father, abandoned young children, a bewildered LBS, a distraught mother, debt and chaos and an MLCer tripping off into his magic happy with an OW co-worker who seems to have replaced her deceased husband in 2 months, all without seeming to care at all about the distress he has caused to at least half a dozen people.

The advice given to the mother is tbh the kind of advice that ore BD I would have agreed with. What I found interesting now is seeing that my first reaction would be quite different. Now, I believe that you just can’t reach through this level of self-centred entitlement, whatever the reason for it. And that, as Dr George Simon’s says in talking about dealing with disordered folks like this, it isn’t that they can’t see as the letter writer says, it’s that they disagree that someone else’s pleas are relevant to them.

Tbh my advice now would be much more like it is here....to dig deep to accept that this IS the kind of person you are now dealing with (for whatever reasons), to detach emotionally from them hard until or unless that changes in a big way and for everyone affected to limit their contact with him while focusing their energies consistently on their own needs and the family unit he chose to hurt, devalue and leave.

But it is a useful reminder for some of us that some of the MLCers family may be just as bewildered and flailing around on what to do as we LBS feel. We may not like or agree with the choices they make in how they respond to it, that’s true, but these folks explode a bomb in lots of peoples lives, don’t they, not just the LBS?
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« Last Edit: April 29, 2023, 12:28:49 AM by Treasur »
T: 18  M: 12 (at BD) No kids.
H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.


"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg

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#92: May 05, 2023, 10:34:07 AM
"Whose reality is more valid?  The individuals on the outside who can see the forest, but not necessarily the trees. Or the person living the experience who can see the trees, but is blind to the forest?"

https://www.differentfunctional.com/blog/the-i-cant-attitude-realism-manipulation-or-something-else

You might see a bit of yourself in this, or your MLCer, or your child, etcetera etcetera...
In any event, interesting food for thought....

https://youtu.be/ZFnEhwmpjXI
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#93: May 10, 2023, 10:11:53 AM
I could write an entire 15-page thread of commentary on this, and then probably another whole thread. If I tried to quote here all the things that stopped me in my tracks, I'd essentially be copy/pasting 3/4 of the article. So instead I'll let y'all read and find your own takeaways, if you're so inclined.

Some parts of it resonated for myself and parts of my life pre-meeting my former husband, parts of my life with him, parts of my life post-BD, some of it (throughout, but especially in the 11 "red flags"...shame? narcissism of trauma? fantasy bonds and escape fantasies? Yeah...) described my former H and a few other people in my world in a way that encouraged a different perspective on certain things, and some other parts of it was just really interesting and thought provoking:

https://emdrtraining.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/The-Death-File.pdf
(If you can’t open this link, you can also find it by googling “The Death File in EMDR Processing” by P. Wilensky.

This line in particular made me think of my former husband:
They “hide in plain sight” while pretending to be equally emotionally involved in the relationship.

Anyway, as lengthy as it is, it’s quite an insightful read on many levels.

https://youtu.be/-OO9LloDSJo
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#95: May 17, 2023, 05:38:49 PM
Five Ways to Take Control of Your Psychological Triggers – I CARE FOR YOUR BRAIN
https://www.icfyb.com/four-ways-to-take-control-of-your-psychological-triggers/

Having had to work through a trigger this week (trigger with a small t, not Trigger with a big T), I became aware how far I’ve come in actually being able to identify my feelings, which doesn’t sound like it should be celebrated as a big huge “get me a damn cake” accomplishment, but for me, and especially for the me who has “existed” for the past five or six years, it sort of is.
Labeling my emotions without judgment is not something I excel at, but I continue to do the work.


Frontiers | The AIP Model of EMDR Therapy and Pathogenic Memories
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01578/full

Reading about triggers led me down the rabbit hole of AIP, adaptive information processing, which “hypothesizes that when a memory is encoded in such excitatory, state-specific form, the original perceptions can be triggered by a variety of internal and external stimuli. In the view of the AIP model dysfunctionally stored memories form the basis for future maladaptive responses, because perceptions of current situations are automatically linked with associated memory networks of these unprocessed, dysfunctionally stored memories. For instance childhood experiences also may be encoded with survival mechanisms and include feelings of danger that are inappropriate for adults. “

“These memories lack the feeling of remembering, as described by Barry as memories without “memory awareness” (Barry et al., 2006). This contributes to the lively, actual experience, and sometimes makes it difficult to connect symptoms to the memories behind them.”

(Memories without memory awareness feels like the phrase I’ve always been searching for.)

This all makes me think of my internalized reactions to the little t triggers and the big T Triggers and all caps HOLY F%#K TRIGGERS, and my former husband and his lashing out abusively and burning it all to the ground in response in part to what I assume were his triggers. It makes me think of my sister-in-law who is currently seeming to be doing a step by step acting out of the literal “how to have the perfect MLC” handbook.

Things have been kind of extra difficult in my teeny little world lately and there’s been moments of real “no way out” darkness. Here and there, I’ve been watching my sister-in-law with a mix of compassion and disgust. Not as much compassion as maybe I should have, more disgust than maybe a compassionate person should have. She has truly every resource at her disposal, yet she still chooses destruction at every turn. Same old story. I’ve been on several scenic tours of hell and think I’d still prefer it to an MLC. But f@!k, the work is hard. I can see why people avoid it.

And of course, a song:
🎶 https://youtu.be/fhnrrLxQEVQ 🎶
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#96: May 18, 2023, 06:43:23 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/interactive/2023/birds-song-nature-mental-health-benefits/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f005

Interesting how listening to birds singing can affect our levels of anxiety and depression. Sometimes we forget the small things that can make a difference in how we are feeling.
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"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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#97: May 25, 2023, 05:10:00 AM
Just been talking to a coaching client about the polyvagal nerve this morning and it reminded me of this article https://ct.counseling.org/2016/06/polyvagal-theory-practice/# which seems to be to be a pretty good way of breaking the theory down into something you might use
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T: 18  M: 12 (at BD) No kids.
H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.


"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg

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#98: June 02, 2023, 12:27:33 PM
Good basic information on hypervigilance.
(I have wondered at times if some MLCer's behavior is sometimes hypervigilance. Even people - myself included - who haven't seemed to lived their entire adult lives being obviously/constantly hypervigilant can be triggered to become more so in the 'right' circumstances.)

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fixing-families/202105/are-you-hypervigilant

Enjoy:
https://youtu.be/Hu0-4XCT3H4
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#99: June 03, 2023, 10:29:54 AM
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inviting-monkey-tea/201902/accepting-reality-feels-unacceptable

"When we can say I accept that this is the way it is—even if I hate it and don’t know what to do about it—then we can at least be in the truth, which ultimately, is the most empowering, brave, and self-loving place from which to create our life."

I think the above statement is helpful when trying to gain one's footing after BD or settling into a new post-BD "normal."
For me in the year after BD, acceptance propelled me forward and empowered me.  I was creating a new life and to do so, I had to accept that the things I had previously put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into creating were gone and I wasn't okay with it but I accepted that it was reality.  (For what I'm facing in life now (unrelated to MLC), it's trite and frustrating and makes me eye roll, so I get it if anyone reads it and feels the same - at first.  But it's important to look past the "feeling" that all is forever lost and really look at your situation and separate what you feel is lost vs what you still have and how you can turn that into something that helps you first stand back up, then move forward, and hopefully eventually thrive.

https://youtu.be/-JDo_xGED0M
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#100: June 11, 2023, 04:40:59 PM
https://psychcentral.com/health/hypervigilance

(It was interesting to me while reading this article on hypervigilance, I didn’t even think twice about it but ever since I had a bad car accident last year, I have not had music on while driving.)


https://psychcentral.com/blog/liberation/2017/10/long-term-narcissistic-abuse-can-cause-brain-damage

Personal antidote to link these two articles: on Friday, I got in my car to drive to treatment and it wouldn’t start. Turns out it has a bad battery that needs to be replaced. OK, it’s under warranty no big deal, right?

Took an Uber to treatment and back, an unexpected expense. OK,  it sucks but not that big of a deal, right?

Approached my apartment door and there was an envelope stuck to it. Apparently there was a mixup and my rent payment was not applied and someone from the leasing office had delivered me a lovely “notice to quit” with four pages of very legal sounding mumbo-jumbo that seemed hideously unnecessary for a payment that was a few days late from someone who has never missed a payment before. But the payment was made and I left a message asking to speak to someone in the leasing office as soon as they open on Monday to confirm it’s all clears up, so, relax, no big deal, right?

Well, turns out it’s not so cut and dry.
The effects of my childhood, the effects of my marriage to a narcissist, the effects of major health issues, the effects of being homeless… I wonder if I will ever respond normally to anything ever again. Sometimes I feel (using the words of the divorce papers I was unable to serve my vanished husband) irretrievably broken. So it was good to read in this article that there are things you can do to repair the hippocampus. (I’d really love to get a good system of aromatherapy going - wouldn’t it be nice if all it took to feel safe was some lavender, sandalwood and frankincense? It’s all worth a try - might even help with insomnia.)

These events all seem to be irritating “life happens” type things. Yesterday, the day after all of the chaos, I was working when I heard a knock on the apartment door. I wasn’t even thinking consciously about what had happened the day before, yet at the sound of an unexpected knock I immediately started shaking, sweating and could feel my pulse beating out of my skin. A completely involuntary response, and obviously irrational. I mean, it’s not like they were going to send a constable to escort me out of my apartment within 24 hours of receiving the notice. But that’s how my body responded. Within the space of two seconds after a knock on the door, I went through an entire scenario of “oh my God, I’m going to be homeless again and I’m broke and I have a car issues so now I don’t even have a car to sleep in….” So not “normal,” so not rational. And even though I knew that and the thought was fleeting and not even fully formed or fully conscious, my body still responded to the intense“threat.“

I share this because I know a lot of us had these kind of seemingly outsized and difficult to explain responses to things after BD, or after our spouses subjected us to horrendous treatment, and this will resonate with folks here.
Hypervigilance is bone tired, soul sucking exhausting. I don’t “overreact” to things in an outward way that people would notice or recognize, and I don’t react to everything. But when I do react, it’s not voluntary or on a conscious level. Even after so much therapy and work on myself, some things are just so deeply embedded.

This also makes me think of some really bizarre things I read here about MLCers doing and I wonder if some of their wacky behaviors are sometimes a response to a past trauma being triggered or a hypervigilant response to an unconscious “threat,” and maybe that’s why they sometimes seem like they are not even fully aware of what they’re doing or why. Just a thought…

A song I no longer blast while driving:
🎶 https://youtu.be/amd_5VoVt1I
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#101: July 20, 2023, 10:07:35 AM
UN Broken. The Trauma Response is Never Wrong and other things you need to take back your life. MaryCatherine McDonald, PhD


Too often, we think of trauma as that which breaks our spirit. Instead, says Dr. MaryCatherine McDonald, the trauma response proves our spirit cannot be broken. Sharing the latest research and self-care tools, this trauma expert's radical reframing will change how you understand trauma and open up a profound new approach for healing.
A profound new approach to healing trauma, grounded in a radical reframing of how we understand this nearly universal experience

For centuries, we've been taught that being traumatized means we are somehow broken--and that trauma only happens to people who are too fragile or flawed to deal with hardship. But as a researcher, teacher, and survivor, Dr. MaryCatherine McDonald has learned that the only thing broken is our society's understanding of trauma. "The body's trauma response is designed to save our lives--and it does," she says. "It's not a sign of weakness, but of our function, strength, and amazing resilience."
With Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong, Dr. McDonald overturns the misconceptions about trauma with the latest evidence from neuroscience and psychology--and shares tested practices and tools to help you work with your body's coping mechanisms to accelerate healing. Here, you'll explore:
- What is trauma? The latest science that undoes the stigmas of shame, blame, and humiliation
- Moral injury--having our basic sense of how the world should work overturned
- The truth about triggers--what they really are and how they can guide the healing journey
- Traumatic patterns--new findings to help break free from recurring habits and toxic dynamics
- Why we can always rewrite our inner narratives, no matter how much time has passed
- Finding a "relational home" for trauma--how we can help each other return to wholeness
Dr. McDonald's case studies reveal the many ways trauma can manifest and persist in our lives, yet there's one factor every case has in common: the trauma response itself reveals the path to healing. "Our traumatic experiences reveal that we can be bent, dented, or bruised," she says, "but we cannot be broken." For anyone who has gone through trauma or wants to help others who are struggling, here is an empowering resource for finding our way home to our bodies, rebuilding our relationships, and returning to full engagement with life.
A profound new approach to healing trauma, grounded in a radical reframing of how we understand this nearly universal experience
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"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html


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#103: July 30, 2023, 11:28:26 PM
Don't try to taste green with your elbow:

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Me - 61, xW - 54
Together 19 years - Married 17 at separation & 21 at D-Day
S - 17, D - 13
1 Dog
BD#1 - August 2015
Atomic BD - 13 Dec 2015
House sold & separated - Mar 2016
Divorce final 30 August 2019
Moved on in life

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A "friend" will not "stand by you" no matter what you do. That is NOT a friend. That is an enabler. That is an accomplice.
A REAL friend will sit you down and tell you to your face to stop being a firetrucking idiot before you ruin your life and the lives of those around you.

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#104: August 02, 2023, 04:25:33 AM
This article showed up in my inbox this morning that I thought might interest some folks. I have almost the opposite of “death anxiety” in my circumstances, but we often talk about the MLCers’ fear of facing mortality.
Notice how in the tips for reining in this fear, nowhere does it suggest having an affair, bankrupting your family, or running around from place to place expecting something to change…

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-deal-with-death-anxiety-with-the-help-of-cbt
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#105: August 03, 2023, 04:59:22 AM
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#106: August 03, 2023, 08:11:41 AM
So good. It is like it is written for how the LBS healthily gets to a better place through processing as a normal adult and shows exactly what the MLCer is not doing and why they can remain stuck or not ever be a better version of themselves. Thank you for sharing. I really enjoyed the article.
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There is almost something harder about someone being alive and having to lose what you believed to be true of them than someone actually dying.

Indefatigability - determined to do or achieve something; firmness of purpose
perspicacity- a clarity of vision or intellect which provides a deep understanding and insight

Married July 1991
Jan 2018 BD1 moved out I filed for Div/ H stopped it
Oct 2018 moved back
Oct 2020 BD2
Feb 2021 Div-29 1/2 years
July 2021 Married OW
Feb 2022  XH fired
June 2022 XH bring OW to meet family due to xMIL illness
May 2023 went NC after telling XH we could not be friends
Aug 2023 XH moves w/o OWife
May 2024 xMIL visits XH/OW in their new home
Aug 2024 cut relations w/XH fam.
Dec 2024 D33 expecting baby ( XH not told)

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#107: August 03, 2023, 02:17:34 PM
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M: 54 (48 @ BD), H: 56 (51 @ BD); Married 20yrs, together 23yrs
D: 25 (19 @ BD), D: 23 (17 @ BD), 'Extra D': 23 (17 @ BD)
BD (that I didn't recognise as such) Easter 2018
BD 9th Sep 2018
OW - he (supposedly) met her in the pub a week before BD, told me about her a week after BD. Thinks 'their planets have collided' because 'their eyes met across the room' and they had an 'instant connection'. Lives with her. Is building a life with her.
Jun 20: H plans to buy a block of land and build a house with her (never happens).
May 22: Movement... (likely T&G? Time will tell I guess)
May 23: Yep, definitely a T&G last year. Still have contact but very minimal. He is a long way away from me these days. He doesn't seem particularly happy in his new life... but he's still there soooo....
Jun 23: I meet a lovely new man (M).
Jun 24: xH and OW finally buy a block of land
Jul 24: xH proposes to OW... in front of the whole family, just wow...

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#108: August 11, 2023, 05:06:18 AM
Came across this today and thought it was a really thought provoking way to look at “hope” in any situation:

https://aeon.co/essays/when-clinging-to-old-hopes-gets-in-the-way-of-healing-and-growth

Recognising the complexity of hope involves, he suggests, acknowledging the dialectic interplay ‘between the static and familiar and the longing for something fuller and more rewarding’.

Wanting to be understood, as adults, can be, among many other things, our most violent form of nostalgia.’ Alex’s anger, with himself and with others, was not only a reaction to fear and hurt, not only a ‘secondary emotion’, but a protective anticipation to disappointment and injury.
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#109: August 11, 2023, 05:56:22 AM
Came across this today and thought it was a really thought provoking way to look at “hope” in any situation:

https://aeon.co/essays/when-clinging-to-old-hopes-gets-in-the-way-of-healing-and-growth

Recognising the complexity of hope involves, he suggests, acknowledging the dialectic interplay ‘between the static and familiar and the longing for something fuller and more rewarding’.

Wanting to be understood, as adults, can be, among many other things, our most violent form of nostalgia.’ Alex’s anger, with himself and with others, was not only a reaction to fear and hurt, not only a ‘secondary emotion’, but a protective anticipation to disappointment and injury.

What a very interesting article.
Struck by the comment that hope, or that double-edged version perhaps, is based on needing to believe that it is possible for a wish to be fulfilled and that you have some influence over whether it is or not. Rang true for me - certainly when my hopes were more specific.
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H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.


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#110: August 11, 2023, 07:01:18 AM
Interesting article.

The positive side of having hope is also of benefit. One of the most impactful books I have ever read is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

Here is an article of how hope helped people to survive the worst .

https://muldoont.medium.com/facing-our-hardships-with-hope-lessons-from-viktor-frankl-7a44b7bb4990#:~:text=Those%20who%20lost%20hope%2C%20he,nothing%20really%20mattered%20any%20more.
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« Last Edit: August 11, 2023, 07:08:22 AM by xyzcf »
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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#111: August 13, 2023, 10:57:22 AM
Another one well worth a perusal. This one was a different read than what I expected going into it, but it spoke to me, pun intended, and some of you might find it interesting.

I’m often hyper aware of my voice, both how it sounds and what it’s saying, and how it’s received. As a child, I was often punished by not being allowed to speak or make any sound for a specified lengthy period of time. And for years, my husband made “jokes” about my voice. After everything I said, he would mimic mumbling as if he couldn’t hear me, even though he heard every word. I experienced many other subtle abusive tactics meant to minimize and silence me, but the idea that they had made me feel minimized and silenced has only started to become clear more recently through therapy and a lot of dismantling and reassembling of myself.

Most of us experience at least one time or another where we feel like we can’t speak or we’re not heard. Or what someone else hears is different than what we intended. Part of having a voice in relationship to others does depend on their willingness to communicate *with* us, not just *to* us, which MLCers (for example) are very often not willing to do, which adds another layer. We can feel “silenced” in a lot of situations, and growth comes from overcoming that fear. Our voice matters.

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-find-your-natural-voice-and-learn-to-speak-up


🎼 https://youtu.be/3Bc-5ozQzHw
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#112: August 15, 2023, 02:51:21 AM
With a dearth of information about MLC that comes from the person in crisis, I found this really instructive and thought provoking - https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-wife-expert/episodes/I-Had-An-Affair-and-Left-My-Wife--Midlife-Crisis-Man-Shares-Real-Heartfelt-Story-e26fcr1


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#113: August 20, 2023, 05:19:04 PM
https://www.healthygamer.gg/blog/feel-lonely-even-when-surrounded-by-people

Was just talking to my old “friend” who left her husband and may or may not be having an MLC. She sent me a stupid meme that said “psychology says if a person laughs too much, even at stupid things, he is deeply lonely inside.” She followed that up quickly with another text that simply said “I’m lonely.”

She is currently holed up in a Caribbean hideaway and has not seen or spoken to her husband in many many months. (I documented some of this on the vanishers thread.) Usually when I hear from her, it involves her crossing a boundary or doing something selfish. This time felt different. So I called her to see if she was OK, thinking she might want to open up and have an authentic conversation.

We had an interesting talk about loneliness. She appears to be living completely in the past, romanticizing it as a time when she was always happy and never lonely. She reminded me that there were 200 at one of my birthday parties and I knew them all. And I told her that none of them *knew* me because I wore a mask and never, ever let my guard down for anyone. All I ever wanted in my life was to be known and understood, but I self-sabotaged constantly, making it so that no one could actually know me. Everything was superficial and shallow. I was desperate to open up to someone, but instead I just pretended to be what everyone wanted me to be. And as a result, I was always surrounded by people. And I was always lonely.

I wore that mask until I met my former husband and he felt so familiar (though I didn’t realize then that that familiarity was not a good thing). Early on I felt this false safety that I now know was him prepping me for his narcissistic abuse. But then, he felt like the home I’d been craving, it felt like safety. Early on he let me open up in a way I never had and it was a feeling I can’t even describe. I didn’t know then he was just information gathering, storing away all of my greatest fears and biggest wishes and deepest traumas to later use against me.

I was my real self throughout my marriage and then he “threw me away” - but not before he told me that it had all always been a lie, my true self was not good enough, was “less than.” It would’ve been so easy to go back to wearing a mask and being completely self protecting after that but I instead went straight back to therapy. She appears to have opted for a different path, one where she wallows in old memories and tries to re-create them in the present, even though those old memories aren’t even real because we weren’t our real selves back then.

I think the difference is I was discarded and she was the discarder. The experience of being discarded forced me to re-examine, forced me to face the truth about the masks I used to wear and why (a lengthy ongoing process). She didn’t have to dig deep inside because she is the one who left, so she’s simply trying to go back to a time she has not been forced to really look at and dissect. I wonder if hearing my experience will have any impact on her. Probably not right now, she doesn’t really seem in a place to really take in what I said. But she heard it and she may think about it. Someday.

🎼 https://youtu.be/L2arpoFvUkI
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#114: August 22, 2023, 10:00:57 PM
Show this to our MLCers ha

https://youtu.be/aC2AY0LjSnI
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#115: August 23, 2023, 08:47:22 AM
So many good articles showing up in my inbox lately that pertain to things I've been talking about or grappling with (almost like someone is "hearing" me  :o, not a coincidence but that's another topic altogether...)

"While thinking the worst is unhelpful in the long run, at some point, this tendency likely took hold in your mind because it seemed to be of use and perhaps even helped you in some way. Before it became a chronic style of thinking – leading to avoidance and even greater anxiety – it might have given you a sense of power and control over uncontrollable events."

I like the word "awfulizing" that's used in this article. Catastrophizing is a common LBS pitfall. My "what if" scenarios have come true in a "actually, it is and, not only that, it's so much worse than you imagined..." so many times, it's exceedingly hard for me to redirect my thinking, sometimes it feels impossible and it's a daunting, lonely, exhausting task. And it's circumstantial. When things are bad, we catastrophize more, and certain things seem bigger. Uncertainty existed in my life before BD, it existed before cancer. Uncertainty and complete instability existed ALL my life, in various ways, to varying degrees, but I didn't catastrophize until the confluence of real catastrophes that occurred all at once.

A bit of my own musing after reading this: It's not very productive but is natural to think in terms of if only as a result of thinking in terms of what if. The what if arises and then the if only seeks a solution: If only I had someone emotionally safe to bounce my deepest concerns, fears and dark thoughts off of, 99% of them would not grow into catastrophized what ifs. (I'm not talking about a therapist who is paid to let you bounce things off of them; I'm talking about someone who is there by choice, because knowing we're not in it alone makes a massive difference to how we heal and how we confront our problems.) If I woke up tomorrow with less or no pain or discomfort in my body, no debt, some retirement savings, 95% of my fears would be cleared from my brain.  But "if only" is just another (imo more damaging) form of "what if." It's simply focusing on something that I wish to be but that absolutely isn't, while "what if" is focusing on something that isn't yet and hopefully won't be.  "What if" gives me the illusion of control, the ability to prepare; "if only" does nothing but shine a light on loneliest, most painful fears while offering no solution.

Anyway, this is a good article with some helpful tips when catastrophizing or awfulizing are causing you distress:

https://psyche.co/guides/how-to-stop-thinking-the-worst-and-learn-not-to-catastrophise?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=cb43c33a93-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_08_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-38dd9ec67a-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

And of course a song:
https://youtu.be/S698DWXhu5I
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#116: August 23, 2023, 09:45:35 AM
A coach of my acquaintance recently posted a question asking people what they are currently using their imagination more for…..the ‘what if’ fears or the ‘what if’ possibilities?

Bc the creative process, the energy of imagination, is involved in both. But they take you to different places and give you different things.

Simple question but one I found quite thought provoking. I can absolutely recall a time of hypervigiliance when all I could do was the first. I had no imagination or energy left for the second.  ::) But it made me start musing on times when I might have more choice about how I use my imagination than I did then.
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H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.


"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg

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#117: August 24, 2023, 01:26:32 AM
This is probably one of the best books I have ever read.....

"Why has no-one told me this before"  by Dr Julie Smith.   It's available on Amazon and Audible.  She also has you tube clips on specific things. 

I cannot recommend this highly enough ; it's not about marriage; it's about self.

For me even 11 yrs on with lots of therapy and reading and training to be a life coach; it's like a breath of fresh air!
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BD march 2013
Stay at home MLCer
OW for 3.5 years - finishing Autumn 2016
Reconnection started 2017.
Separated 2022 (my choice because he wanted to live alone) and yet fully reconnected seeing each other often.

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#118: August 25, 2023, 06:28:54 PM
While researching something else that required me to search through some of the writings of David Foster Wallace, I stumbled across this quote that I remember reading many years ago in This Is Water (a great read btw)– reading it again just now, it takes on deeper meaning, MUCH deeper meaning for me, reminds me a little bit of MLCers, and particularly my former H, so I thought I’d share it:

“Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. If you worship money and things—if they are where you tap real meaning in life—then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.”
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The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

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#119: September 01, 2023, 06:18:07 PM
If a MLCer does not finish their MLC and gets yanked out the first time.  And 10 years later they go in for round 2.  Does anyone know how long round 2 lasts. 

Is it still the same 7-10 years for men.  Or is it less?   

Thanks. 
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#120: September 01, 2023, 08:34:01 PM
If a MLCer does not finish their MLC and gets yanked out the first time.  And 10 years later they go in for round 2.  Does anyone know how long round 2 lasts. 

Is it still the same 7-10 years for men.  Or is it less?   

Please be weary of these "rules" and arbitrarily stated patterns and ideas. I know that early on we LBS tend to want to assert some control over what is happening and try to look for a "system" or guide or something that will let us understand and plan. But what we call MLC is a major psychological event, there is no single cause, and there are no patterns to how MLCers will behave, how long "it" will take, or if there is even any chance of them ever putting themselves back together. It can cause LBSes to remain stuck, looking for tea leaves, or believing that it is a process and it just "takes time." I have read many versions of these ideas across many sites, and it all comes from non professional people with good intentions.

Hardest thing is to accept there is no rhyme nor reason to this except it all begins with deep seated issues in our MLCers, usually from very early days. What happens after that, how they fall apart, how badly and when and if they ever start putting themselves back together is not something that can be generalized and made into a recipe. I believe the sooner we start accepting this truth the sooner we can make informed decisions about the only thing we can control: how do we move forward in our lives.
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No Kids, 23 years at BD1 (4 years), married 21
First signs of MLC Jan '15
BD 1 Jan '17, BD 2 Mar, Separated Apr, BD 3 May,BD 4 Jun '18
First Sign of Waking up-Dec '17, First Cycle out of MLC Mar '18-Jun ‘18, Second cycle Jul '18-??
Meets OM Jan '17 and acts "in love," admits "in love" Jun '18, asks for divorce Jul '18, no change since, keeps "not leaving"

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#121: September 02, 2023, 04:30:36 PM
If a MLCer does not finish their MLC and gets yanked out the first time.  And 10 years later they go in for round 2.  Does anyone know how long round 2 lasts. 

Is it still the same 7-10 years for men.  Or is it less?   

Please be weary of these "rules" and arbitrarily stated patterns and ideas. I know that early on we LBS tend to want to assert some control over what is happening and try to look for a "system" or guide or something that will let us understand and plan. But what we call MLC is a major psychological event, there is no single cause, and there are no patterns to how MLCers will behave, how long "it" will take, or if there is even any chance of them ever putting themselves back together. It can cause LBSes to remain stuck, looking for tea leaves, or believing that it is a process and it just "takes time." I have read many versions of these ideas across many sites, and it all comes from non professional people with good intentions.

Hardest thing is to accept there is no rhyme nor reason to this except it all begins with deep seated issues in our MLCers, usually from very early days. What happens after that, how they fall apart, how badly and when and if they ever start putting themselves back together is not something that can be generalized and made into a recipe. I believe the sooner we start accepting this truth the sooner we can make informed decisions about the only thing we can control: how do we move forward in our lives.

So true Marv.  So true. 

However, there are guidelines.  Like 7-10 years for me.   3-7 years for women etc.  I’m just curious if there’s a guideline for MLC2.  Thanks. 
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#122: September 02, 2023, 05:00:27 PM
WHY, I think the unfortunate truth is that there are no real guidelines. You will do yourself a disservice if you look for milestones at certain time markers or hold fast to a specific number of years. Each person is different and no one who is having a true crisis is going to magically wake up based on an arbitrary ticking clock. There is real work that needs to be done, grueling, brutal inner work. If that work is never even started, my opinion is the person never “recovers.” I also do not believe in the double dip crisis, where a person supposedly comes out not “fully baked” and then years later goes back in. I think it mythologizes a person’s disordered state and often can keep an LBS from facing reality. Jmho.

***

I attended a huge fundraiser today where the word gratitude was uttered approximately 9,782,312 times. And I maybe saw double that number of eye rolls from the people in attendance. This is a great article about the sometimes frustrating topic. We’re all familiar with the fight flight freeze (and also fawn) responses that are so often talked about. You don’t see much on what happens after AND HOW TO GROW BEYOND living in that state.

“What Happens After Fight/Flight/Freeze?

When the traumatic event has passed, the trauma trigger remains. The individual can easily be re-triggered to feel the danger has returned by things that look, sound, smell, or feel like things experienced at the time of trauma.
As a result, many survivors feel “on edge” all the time. A feeling that terrible danger is at hand haunts them everywhere they go. This chronic sense of danger often activates a withdrawal response.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/expressive-trauma-integration/202001/the-neuroscience-gratitude-and-trauma

🎶 https://youtu.be/GrC_yuzO-Ss?si=12za9lKeAU6eEWmB
(and I’m reminded of a funny meme I really love and use often. It says: some of you should try walking a mile in my shoes… Because that would mean you’d be a mile away from me and that would be fantastic. Keep the shoes. 😂😂😂 )
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« Last Edit: September 02, 2023, 05:31:45 PM by Nas »
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

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#123: September 03, 2023, 07:16:51 AM
I think WHY’s question has led to me thinking a lot more on this subject this morning as I drink my coffee.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/expressive-trauma-integration/201809/roadmap-after-trauma-six-stages-trauma-integration


https://www.eti.training/post/experiential-self-regulation-in-trauma-therapy

I forgot to include the two above links in my last post but they are links that are within the first article. These are really good reads. Healing from trauma takes a concerted effort to want to heal, I really believe that. That’s why I believe that anyone who is in crisis that stems from Trauma who does not take steps to heal will maybe appear to “come out of crisis”, but really they have just become another unhealed version of themselves. I do think it is dangerous to believe that Midlife Crisis is some thing that simply happens and then unhappens. Perhaps midlife transition is that way, more like puberty, phase that people work their way through. But crisis… Crisis is something different. A crisis is an internal break that needs to be actively healed, not passively waited out. (these are my opinions.)

Digging in to severe trauma is difficult. In some ways, it may have been easier for me to never have addressed mine, to continue through life with the virtual graveyard of buried trauma in the back of my brain, pretending to be whatever I needed to be to fit in.  “Fake it till you make it” does not apply to trauma. I’m coming to realize that more and more. Faking it in the hope of making it hurt me more than it ever helped me. I think we often see MLCers (and others) faking it for decades and never trying to change. Sometimes “faking it” turns into complacency and just settling into another inauthentic version of yourself.
Catastrophic life events forced me into this work of true healing. It’s messy and overwhelming and at times terrifying and turns people off and I probably appear insane sometimes. I thought I had done the work already; I was so wrong. I was never healed, it’s just that life was “consistent” enough for me to bury everything and just move through the days on auto pilot.

Knowing about the fight flight freeze fawn responses is great, but that is not enough. One has to understand that is what’s happening and then do the uncomfortable work of moving beyond it and relating in a different way. I was essentially numb for large part of my adulthood, and then experienced multiple new traumas that caused me to revert to typical trauma responses. Going through life constantly fighting, flighting or freezing or fawning is not ideal. I shortchanged myself for many many years; I want better now, so I’m working for it.

It does take a level of humility and an acceptance of being misunderstood - that in itself is hard work. There’s the saying, dance like no one’s watching, meaning go ahead and let yourself be authentic without concern for other’s judgment or expectations. I guess the motto now should be “heal like no one’s watching.” Until eventually becomes just “heal, it doesn’t matter who’s watching or what they think.”

Anyway, this has been off the cuff coffee thoughts with Nas. My opinions, like my coffee, are generally strong and not to everyone’s taste.

🎶 https://youtu.be/Feu6v9bdvRs?si=oR04vdfAASjPcF3o
Stop my flight to fight
And die
And take a stand to change my life
So savage with red desperation
I clench my hands
You draw your claws
A hidden rage consumes my heart
Fuelled by years of wasted time
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« Last Edit: September 03, 2023, 07:55:00 AM by Nas »
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

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#124: September 03, 2023, 08:35:40 AM
Both the articles and your interpretations make a lot of sense to me Nas. I've always considered MLC as a kind of umbrella term - descriptive of a crisis that hits tipping point at certain point of life - a point when someone who had fragile coping skills and thus created more defense mechanisms finally shatters. Or the defenses can no longer hold. Perhaps this is most common at mid-life because it is the very time that our parents begin to ail and for many of us, we get drawn back into our FOO, which often means being drawn back into the same type of dynamics and schema we experienced in childhood. Maybe in relatively healthy families this is manageable, but for people with childhood trauma, who have likely spent a lifetime running from the issues created within the crucible of the FOO, it could trigger a trauma response. This is exactly what happened to my H and, yes, after anger, his response was withdrawal. At the time, I didn't fully understand, and took much of this personally. My response to his withdrawal probably added another trigger response related to abandonment. Ironic really, and I do not blame myself, because this is such a complex thing. I think your strong coffee ponderings give much food for thought. Thank you for sharing.
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#125: September 03, 2023, 09:51:17 AM
Thank you for sharing your coffee musings, Nas.
You put words to an instinct that came back to bite me a bit this week, that realisation that my own healing seems to have no end point that I can see. I can only see my own progress. And the occasional bit where I get stuck in something I don’t understand for reasons I don’t always understand. And sometimes resent  :)

I can only speak for myself but there is definitely a pre-PTSD me, a PTSD one, a post PTSD one, and a something else where I seem to find myself now. Idk if there is a post-something else, we’ll see…..

I miss the pre-pTSD me a bit like missing my teenage self who was in actuality so beautiful and bold and lovely although I didn’t know or see that then, and much as I miss her, I can no more go back to her than I can go back to being 14 with colt legs.

I fear the PTSD me. Actually, she terrifies me like an unseen monster under a child’s bed. I’m pretty sure she’s gone now, vanquished in inches, but I fear her return so much that even a hint of her paralyses me. Bc I am really not at all sure I  could survive a second visit.

I admire the post PTSD me because I know how much work it took to build her. Like a beautiful bespoke dress….I know the stitches sown at midnight, exhausted, the tiny specks of blood from a pricked finger that no one else can see. I’m not sure I like her much, she’s rather earnest and tiring, but I do appreciate her.

And I don’t know the Now Me yet tbh….so my jury is out. I know she is different in lots of ways from the pre-PTSD me and I’m not always sure how I feel about that tbh. (I get a bit impatient with her bc I think I want her to be speedier and shinier than she is  :) )

It was my experience too that nothing started to heal until I was so desperate to heal that it was an absolute priority. Pretty sure at times it may have made me look or sound a bit bonkers to people who knew me before. Not sure I cared much though. You don’t worry much about your hairdo if you’re drowning, do you? Very ‘heal like no one’s watching’ indeed. I don’t talk about it much now bc usually I have no words for it (and as you all know I am a creature of multiple words ha ha)….so I very much appreciate your words and links to others’ words.

I don’t know what happened to my h or what his experience was if it. Or how much he suffered or how much he chose to heal. A vanishing spouse comes with their own tumbleweed sound effect, I find  :) But if he experienced anything close to what I survived, much as I resent the bits he unleashed on me, I feel some compassion for that. Albeit a rather tentative, guarded and unspoken compassion. (Insert tumbleweed sound effect here  :) )

And in the same spirit, a poem….which I think one can see as a half empty of half full glass. I choose to see the last line as encouragement bc that is still my Babe-ish nature  :) https://waxwingmag.org/items/Issue9/28_Smith-Good-Bones.php
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« Last Edit: September 03, 2023, 09:57:51 AM by Treasur »
T: 18  M: 12 (at BD) No kids.
H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.


"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg


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#127: September 03, 2023, 07:57:08 PM
Interesting article. I really cannot understand how anyone would go after a married man. I just would not.  And then of course the man who leaves his wife for this woman..nothing good about either of them.
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"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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#128: September 05, 2023, 11:29:45 AM
I read a RCR piece on narcissistic supply and then did some digging myself. 

I found this website extremely helpful in terms of dealing with our MLCers.  During the MLC years, they genuinely do become full blown narcissists, even if they were never like this before. 

https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-supply/
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#129: September 05, 2023, 02:13:47 PM
I agree. I can see the build up of narcissistic traits and it peaking at BD and just after BD when I look back. It would make sense too, given all that they do that they need to be narcissistic to keep thinking it is justified.

That is why monster appears to defend their fantasy world.

As Marvin282 once said, "okay, move back slowly and don't make eye contact......."
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#130: September 07, 2023, 10:00:16 AM
https://psyche.co/ideas/many-people-not-only-survive-mental-illness-they-thrive

“In our study, 67 per cent of people with any past mental illness had reached symptomatic recovery, meaning they no longer met the diagnostic criteria for a particular illness…

objectively, having depression does not foreclose the possibility of future happiness…”

I got a little less hopeful towards the end of reading this, but still overall positive. I think even though my anxiety lies to me in times of turmoil or high stress, I know deep down that this version of me has a bumpy road to travel, but it’s not me forever. It’s not the totality of me. My core being is frankly nothing to scoff at and it’s solid enough a foundation to make continued rebuilding worthwhile.
For those with spouses in Crisis, my hope is they realize the same.

(*Of course, the stigma of calling it“mental illness” will be offputting for many. I certainly don’t enjoy classifying myself as mentally ill because of the misconceptions surrounding that term. But cPTSD is a mental health condition, as is ptsd, depression, anxiety. I couldn’t treat my breast cancer on my own by simply doing lots of reading and introspection, and I can’t treat cPTSD that way either - although it does enhance treatment. For those in crisis with underlying depression, anxiety, etc., I truly believe professional intervention is necessary for true recovery. Jmho, I’m no expert on any of it, not even the stuff I’m dealing with myself.)
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« Last Edit: September 07, 2023, 10:12:13 AM by Nas »
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

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#131: September 07, 2023, 02:30:47 PM
Quote
I found this website extremely helpful in terms of dealing with our MLCers.  During the MLC years, they genuinely do become full blown narcissists, even if they were never like this before
I think that is why we are in our own spinning and cycling. The avoidant sweet and understanding, supportive spouse switches  after BD to become the narcissist spouse with no empathy. Your beat friend you told everything to becomes the one person you can’t talk to. It takes a while to grasp it all.

NAS— I had no idea you were still legally married to your vanisher. Not sure how I missed that.
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There is almost something harder about someone being alive and having to lose what you believed to be true of them than someone actually dying.

Indefatigability - determined to do or achieve something; firmness of purpose
perspicacity- a clarity of vision or intellect which provides a deep understanding and insight

Married July 1991
Jan 2018 BD1 moved out I filed for Div/ H stopped it
Oct 2018 moved back
Oct 2020 BD2
Feb 2021 Div-29 1/2 years
July 2021 Married OW
Feb 2022  XH fired
June 2022 XH bring OW to meet family due to xMIL illness
May 2023 went NC after telling XH we could not be friends
Aug 2023 XH moves w/o OWife
May 2024 xMIL visits XH/OW in their new home
Aug 2024 cut relations w/XH fam.
Dec 2024 D33 expecting baby ( XH not told)

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#132: September 08, 2023, 06:57:02 AM
I subscribe to Bishop Jake's Blog and there are times that his articles have some seriously wise words.

If you are not of a religious bent, feel free to skip these or to skim over the religious aspects of them....


https://jakeowensby.com/2023/09/01/mending-frayed-relationships/     Here is the first one
https://jakeowensby.com/2023/09/08/the-forgiveness-process/ and the second in the series
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Me - 61, xW - 54
Together 19 years - Married 17 at separation & 21 at D-Day
S - 17, D - 13
1 Dog
BD#1 - August 2015
Atomic BD - 13 Dec 2015
House sold & separated - Mar 2016
Divorce final 30 August 2019
Moved on in life

Survival Instructions for Newbies
Site Map
 
A "friend" will not "stand by you" no matter what you do. That is NOT a friend. That is an enabler. That is an accomplice.
A REAL friend will sit you down and tell you to your face to stop being a firetrucking idiot before you ruin your life and the lives of those around you.

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#133: September 08, 2023, 07:33:44 AM
Thank you Ursa, both articles speak to my heart.

I have been reminded, many times of how I am to love and forgive my husband. The peace I have now I believe is because I can trust God. That faith is indeed a gift that I am fortunate to have had since I was a very young child.

Thank you for sharing. I shall subscribe to these devotions as well as the others that "feed me".
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"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

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#134: September 10, 2023, 04:45:15 PM
I don’t love this poem as a poem, but its simple message is one many of us probably wish we’d embraced a lot younger.

People Aren’t Homes

Child,
why did no one
ever teach you
that you cannot
turn people
into homes?

People are rivers,
ever changing,
ever flowing.
They will disappear with
everything you put
inside them.

Still,
your home does
have a heartbeat.
But it isn’t one
locked in
anyone else’s
chest.

Just
look inside
your own.

~Nikita Gill
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#135: September 12, 2023, 04:21:17 AM
These comments are really an eye opener for those that do not understand depression. 

https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/s/lXzzCgC4EG
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#136: September 19, 2023, 09:52:47 PM
Has there been any examples of MLCers reading something like Jim Conway’s Middle Passage? 

Any stories to share?
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#137: September 20, 2023, 05:04:41 PM
Sitting with some big emotions, I started thinking about the difference between analyzing feelings and feeling feelings. This is a longish but interesting article. I like the coin metaphor: pain is the flipside of what we value. 
(Avoiding feelings is something most MLCers could teach a PhD level course in.)

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/harnessing-principles-change/202010/the-key-skill-we-rarely-learn-how-feel-your-feelings

“Our initial emotional response is often a complex jumble of primary feelings (that reflect what’s actually happening), plus secondary emotions (often related to distorted interpretations), mixed together with all of our avoidance behaviors (our reactive struggle against all of the feelings). We have to develop the muscle and courage to stay with this uncomfortable welter of emotions in order to unpack what is important and meaningful…”

🎶 https://youtu.be/MXyGEw8lHG8?si=ctkF4kE-Ioo1Y4rZ
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#138: September 23, 2023, 06:50:45 AM
https://psyche.co/ideas/when-nietzsche-said-become-who-you-are-this-is-what-he-meant

“The self we become is ultimately made, not found.”

That sentence jumped out at me almost like it was yelling. It seems so obvious but it’s such a distinction that imo people confuse too easily.  I’m trying to actively build myself from something that was never recognized enough to thrive. There’s people who remake themselves, rebuild themselves, reconstruct themselves and I’m so impressed by that. It’s a process, it’s work, it takes a concerted effort. It’s not like these entitled children in adult bodies who run around doing whatever they want, taking whatever they want, justifying everything they do under the guise of “finding themselves.” The very phrase “finding myself” denotes something that just happens  without any effort, like some magic transformation - wait long enough and one day, poof, the ground shakes, a puff of smoke clears, and then suddenly “happiness” just comes to you. Another fairytale, another delusion. Nothing just happens.

“It can sometimes appear that the ideal life would be a smooth one, complete with stable income and harmonious relationships. But Nietzsche would say that it is greatness of the soul that constitutes the good life, not pleasure, comfort or external success. The development of one’s unique virtues is a process that inevitably involved overcoming the resistance in yourself and in your environment, and learning to be comfortable with discomfort.”

🎶 https://youtu.be/3LXHE9Q1JRk?si=-gyM5Rgv8xVy1oqG

I remember when the world was a little girl
Every corner turned leading back to her
Flowing like a stream on a rolling stone
Certain there was nothing changing

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#139: September 23, 2023, 06:40:33 PM
“The self we become is ultimately made, not found.”

Thanks, Nas. I'm going to print that out and put it somewhere I'll remember it.
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#140: September 23, 2023, 11:09:44 PM
“The self we become is ultimately made, not found.”

Thanks, Nas. I'm going to print that out and put it somewhere I'll remember it.

Isn’t it odd that we usually don’t think of it that way? Yet it struck me too as a useful reminder of what is true for we LBS. In reality, perhaps, the same is true for MLCers….their choices and actions make a different version of themselves and that is why not all stories here turn out the same. Perhaps go so far down that road that this is who they become for the rest of their lives. Us too maybe….certainly there are ways in which I am different now than I used to be.
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« Last Edit: September 23, 2023, 11:12:27 PM by Treasur »
T: 18  M: 12 (at BD) No kids.
H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.


"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg

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#141: September 28, 2023, 05:19:11 AM
This was so beautiful, it made me start my day out with a good cry.

https://aeon.co/essays/flat-places-are-the-ground-that-my-mind-is-built-upon

“At its root, complex trauma is relational trauma. It comes from being totally dependent on someone, for a long time, and being catastrophically betrayed by them – so catastrophically that they distort your sense of other people, and what they will do to you. Complex PTSD can mean feeling that other people aren’t real, or safe. That you are fundamentally different from them and can never share a world…

Yet the only way out of cPTSD is relationship. It’s a cruel irony. The only way to start feeling better is to get close to people, and trust them: to have the experience of them not betraying you.”

And there it is, the reason why my own cptsd took over after BD and cancer stripped away the entire façade of who I was pretending to be my whole life. I had no caregivers, no care whatsoever, from the day I was born. I taught myself how to love, but I did it “wrong” and tbh I left some good men in my wake. Then I met my H, I got close, I trusted, and it cost me everything.

“How can we ever know each other? How can we even know what we are seeing?”

One thing this piece made me think of was how the thoughts that arise from complex trauma feel so unexplainable and isolating. I think this is a really important thing to grasp: the person you were closest to absolutely had an entire inner world that was unknown to anyone but them. If they ever seek to resolve their trauma, you may learn part of the why of what they did. But if they never learn a new way of handling life, if they remain in fight/flight/dissociation, it’s very likely that that why will remain unknown even to them.

🎶 https://youtu.be/32GGaizRqu0
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#142: September 30, 2023, 08:19:20 AM
I just read this post on the cPTSD community on Reddit.

https://reddit.com/r/CPTSD/s/GBTaWyZkRH

I’m putting it here because this sounds like so many stories posted here of what LBS say their spouses present like just before or after BD. Just a reminder, especially as suicide awareness month draws to a close (the post contains a flair re: suicidal ideation), just because it happens in Midlife does not mean Midlife is the cause. The cause often, almost always, goes back a long way.

It’s very easy to fall into the trap of naming it midlife crisis and thinking that turning a certain age flipped the switch and therefore maybe another significant event or reaching another point in life will make them just “come out of it.” I can say as a sample of one example that with complex trauma, it can be way under the surface, so far it seems nonexistent, for a long time, until something (or things) happens to bring it to the forefront. Once the switch gets flipped, the only way out is to face the cause head on. You can’t re-bury it. You can’t go back to being who you were (because who you were was largely just a bunch of ways you learned to survive). You forget that there were even parts of who you were that had value. The world becomes a different place. Everything that was buried has now become the lens through which the world is seen and that’s bleak and often terrifying.

If your spouse has complex trauma, there’s at least parts of that trauma that you have absolutely no idea about, no matter how well you think you know them, and it’s because of that that they seem completely different now. The person who wrote this Reddit post has a family and kids but still ends the post by saying they have no one to talk to. I’m sure that’s 100% true to them, no one knows the real them, and the real them is defective, and even if they get to a point of wanting to be understood, trying to explain it makes them a burden.

Early on we look for return stories: “they left and then out of the blue they came back.“ Those stories really don’t exist because it’s impossible, it wasn’t about the marriage to begin with so it’s not as simple as they left the marriage and then returned to the marriage. The reality has nothing to do with “leaving someone and returning to someone.” Maybe in a simple straightforward affair that happens, but not in a crisis. And certainly not with significant unresolved trauma. A person can have an epiphany moment, but it doesn’t end there.

The epiphany leads to wanting to heal, the epiphany is not the healing. And healing is brave; running is easy. Healing is hard. You have to stop hiding all your perceived brokenness while also often still grappling with the validity of the belief that you are too broken for anyone to care about…and looking for confirmation of that. But they aren’t aware that that’s what they’re doing. If they were, they would be on the road to healing. They can’t step back from what is being said to them and objectively look at it. They don’t have the self-awareness to explore it. Insightfulness comes from growth, but growth is scary and exhausting. The trauma response is to just internalize everything as criticism, or proof that they are broken, different, unworthy…

Just wanted to share to give another angle of looking at things. It’s not personal, it’s not about you, it’s not about the marriage. And it’s also not as simple as “it’s a midlife crisis, one day they will wake up.” We want them to wake up, but it’s not a dream to them, it’s their stone cold reality the way they see it.What we call MLC is no different than what this person describes as cPTSD or what other people might call something else in that none of these things resolve spontaneously.

🎶 https://youtu.be/w0UjPuZKrVg?si=JazQIwNUUgzBDbV5
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« Last Edit: September 30, 2023, 08:30:25 AM by Nas »
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#143: October 04, 2023, 11:11:46 AM
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-nonattached-self/201906/what-is-nonattachment?amp

Attachments are our fixated attempts to control our experience, usually through clinging to what we perceive as desirable or aversion to what we perceive as undesirable…

Nonattachment, therefore, is what occurs when we can let go of the need to be in dogged control of what is occurring and can reduce our demands on the present moment to be any way in particular…

Nonattachment is aligned with psychological maturity and insight into the ever-changing nature of experience and the futility of trying to control it….nonattachment involves doing whatever would normally drive you, just without fixation and the accompanied rumination and worry about getting everything right, or adhering to the societal- or self-imposed expectations about what your life should be like.


The attachment I struggle so much with involves the future less than the past. Though I have spent a lot of time looking to the past as a way to grapple with what has happened and what is happening now, and to help me understand myself and who I am, I don’t ruminate on what has already happened. But worrying about what might/will happen is something I struggle tremendously with – understandable, I have significant challenges. But I know this has a negative impact on me and I have to constantly be conscious of this in working on myself: focus on the moment - everything is transient; clinging to any thing or experience or person is wasted energy.

Detachment is a pulling away from something, whereas nonattachment is not holding on.  It's a subtle but important difference. For example, I can’t detach from my challenges, I can’t just disengage without even worse repercussions; they are ever-present and must be faced. I wish they didn’t exist, but they do. With nonattachment, I acknowledge the challenges, acknowledge the hardship, but I don’t hold onto (try to control/ruminate on/spiral into fear about) what may happen. This doesn’t make my problems disappear by any means, it just allows some moments of peace between storms – but hey, that ain’t nothing.

Our attachments and our dis-ease with the present moment are so ubiquitous, that almost all self-focused thinking involves wanting things to be better, or worrying about things that have happened or will happen. Rarely are they focused on the appreciation of the present moment.”

Just another way of looking at things...

https://youtu.be/R_zaEcrpCbI?si=BaVN_pkXYPWRORRt
Things must change
We must rearrange them
Or we'll have to estrange them
All that I'm saying
The game's not worth playing
Over and over again
Things must change

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#144: October 16, 2023, 08:42:14 PM
A bit more on nonattachment - Thought I would share this, after reading a post on Marvin’s thread that resonated with part of a transformation that’s been happening in me. It seems like a shift has occurred out of nowhere but in reality it’s been a long time in the making, a slow burn that I’m just seeing start to ignite.
Just observing my thoughts and emotions without judging them has been an extremely helpful (and difficult) exercise.

Non-Attachment: What It Is and How to Practice It - Mindfulled Guide
https://mindfulled.com/non-attachment/

“Ask yourself where you are outsourcing your happiness, to things, events, people.”

“You can’t control other people nor can you control the outcome of things. Let go of the ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’. That way you can allow life to happen without imposing your expectations on it.”

“…if you look closely, you’ll see that nothing is ever truly yours, it’s just your turn with it.”

🎶 https://youtu.be/FD2SfQJOK08?si=becO1VuRfGZDSjdE



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#146: October 25, 2023, 12:53:50 PM
I saw this posted on Reddit.  Any validity to it?

“Typically, when MLC comes, you stop getting dopamine from life (especially from your job). Low dopamine causes depression and/or anxiety, which in turn causes massive constant cortisol releases, killing most of oxytocin (attachment hormone), making neocortex frantically find "logical"  answers ( intrusive and obsessive thoughts). Thus, in most cases both therapy and meds are required. Some people can get through with just one of the two, but it is very difficult.

If you go with just meds, once you stop, it is highly likely you relapse, as the thinking, beliefs and emotional memories are still there. If you go with just therapy, especially CBT, you will be trying to use logic to calm emotions driven by amygdala (fear center). No need to say, it is very tough to do.”
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#147: October 25, 2023, 02:26:04 PM
I saw this posted on Reddit.  Any validity to it?

“Typically, when MLC comes, you stop getting dopamine from life (especially from your job). Low dopamine causes depression and/or anxiety, which in turn causes massive constant cortisol releases, killing most of oxytocin (attachment hormone), making neocortex frantically find "logical"  answers ( intrusive and obsessive thoughts). Thus, in most cases both therapy and meds are required. Some people can get through with just one of the two, but it is very difficult.

If you go with just meds, once you stop, it is highly likely you relapse, as the thinking, beliefs and emotional memories are still there. If you go with just therapy, especially CBT, you will be trying to use logic to calm emotions driven by amygdala (fear center). No need to say, it is very tough to do.”


Yes, although a bit more nuanced - this is more scholarly - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8584322/

Interesting "In bipolar disorder (BD), an increase in cortisol secretion may be seen in the manic phase" - parallels have often been drawn between BD and MLC
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#148: October 30, 2023, 10:37:05 PM
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-observe-your-emotions

(I particularly like the part about recognizing contradictory emotions. )

I have, over the last few years, often struggled to identify my emotions, let alone observe them without judgment. As a consequence of not even being able to name them, I was operating with some pretty blurry emotional vision. Our reality really is highly subjective. When we  are in trauma mode (and I would guess it’s similar for people in crisis), our feelings dictate how we experience things, and those feelings don’t accurately reflect reality. In the blurriness I’ve been living in for the last few years (hmm, some might call it ’fog’), I wasn’t even “me.” My inner landscape was a bad expressionist painting, emotionally over-vivid, with distorted, exaggerated features. The reality I saw was at times a reflection of my own unexplored, unnamed feelings, and I stumbled more than once but I had to dig and consciously admit where I was blind, projecting, or just lying to myself - if I wasn’t actively trying to heal, I would have (like a person in crisis) reacted to that deluded reality in any number of unhealthy ways - mostly anger, without recognizing, naming and dealing with the root causes of anger: grief, fear, loss, sadness.

The emotion wheel is a good tool for identifying your TRUE feelings, the first step in releasing projection and reclaiming reality - what IS, not what we want to be, what we fear might be or what we secretly hope to be even if we aren’t admitting or even conscious of that hope:

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/emotion-wheel

“The eight primary emotions in the emotion wheel are sadness, anger, disgust, joy, trust, fear, surprise, and anticipation," Espinoza explains. ‘Humans also have secondary emotions, which are emotional reactions to an emotion such as the feeling of shame when angry or feeling fear as a result of anger.’”

“The [emotion] wheel can make it easier for you to grapple with your true feelings, make an informed decision that best serves you, and find a satisfying resolution. If you're struggling to pinpoint something you can't quite put your finger on, Espinoza recommends taking out the emotion wheel to identify the triggering event/situation/person affecting you and naming what you might be feeling until it resonates.”

“When you experience distressing and confusing sensations, you can stop to physically trace out your emotions on the wheel and check in with yourself to ask:
* Where is that feeling coming from?
* What just happened in my environment that is making me react like this?
* Why am I feeling this way?”


🎶 https://youtu.be/L9Wnh0V4HMM?si=wxPQj08LsK39nqgZ
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#149: December 05, 2023, 10:01:43 AM
https://cptsdfoundation.org/2020/11/25/holiday-time-after-experiencing-trauma/

"We, and only we, are the authors of the book of this year’s experiences. What will the pages of your book hold?"

A few nights ago, I took myself (and my inner child) on a solo dream date to see The Nutcracker, followed by some fancy hot chocolate at a great little pastry shop. It was a gorgeous performance, and the evening was a mix of emotions, but ultimately a nice night with great company  ;).
The holidays are a hard time of year, I'm glad I was able to create a moment for myself. It's been a long time.
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#150: December 05, 2023, 10:30:31 AM
Sounds lovely, Nas.
I find my inner child is pretty good company too and as her joys are simple ones, she’s a pretty cheap date  :)
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T: 18  M: 12 (at BD) No kids.
H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.


"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg

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#151: December 05, 2023, 03:59:30 PM
Oh my. I came across this vid and it’s like a lighthouse went off in my head.   I sincerely think this woman is onto something here with her connection between limerance and the shadow. 

This is what I was talking about the other day when it comes to group think at HS.  We believe the limerance is just more escape and avoid and a fantasy to avoid the MLC facing themself and running away from depression etc.  A fair theory. 

BUT, this lady explains it extremely well and I genuinely believe she’s onto something here.  I’m actually so excited to hear it described this way.   

And I’m talking it one level further.   If an MLCer can do this with a limerant object because they want to access something they haven’t allowed themselves to feel.  Then why does the MLCer apply such hatred towards the spouse, the exact opposite of limerance.   Perhaps it’s the same mechanism at work as it relates to the shadow.  But just the opposite.  Parts of them they don’t want to feel.

How do I tag RCR in this post?   I think this theory requires serious discussion.   VERY INTERESTING. 

 https://youtu.be/5iKO9rEHpyo?feature=shared
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#152: December 06, 2023, 05:36:35 AM
I guess I’m not seeing anything in there that hasn’t already been discussed ad nauseam. It’s also also important to remember that every single thing said about MLC is hypothesizing. A theory is supported by research and evidence.

You will drive yourself crazy trying to find the answers. Even if there were some scientifically supported, reasonably strong theory about Limerence, the person in crisis or the person in Limerence would have to participate in the exercise of self discovery that is talked about in that video. So it’s basically a moot point.
For me, love has always been a logical endeavor, but the truth is that most people, even if they intellectually understand the brain chemistry and psychology and everything else that goes into “falling in love,” they are still going to go with their feelings when it comes to “love.” So the scientific community could write 9,752,112 rigorously tested and proven papers on the subject. It won’t matter, people will still believe the Hollywood version.
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#153: December 07, 2023, 09:26:03 PM
New thread started here: https://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=12131.0

Lock it up, mods! :)

Thanks, JB! You got to it before I did... - UM
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« Last Edit: December 07, 2023, 11:12:49 PM by UrsaMajor »
Everything has a beginning and an end. Life is just a cycle of starts and stops. They're ends we don't desire, but they're inevitable and we have to face them. That's what being human is all about.  -Jet Black, Cowboy Bebop

 

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