Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses

Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: AlvinTheMaker on October 01, 2019, 05:47:51 AM

Title: Stress reactions behind MLC/LBS behaviour - need your suggestions and opinions
Post by: AlvinTheMaker on October 01, 2019, 05:47:51 AM

Just to get some wider discussion (and more brainpower and cumulative thinking) on something I pondered on my own story....

Quote from: AlvinTheMaker on September 30, 2019, 02:12:27 AM

And what we see as MLCr - LBS dynamics is basically two different kind of pattern sets colliding. 

MLCr is in survival/stress mode - they are falling into hard, self supporting patterns.  They are interested on what makes them feel good, taking care of their needs only.   

LBS is on the opposite pole, falling into "soft relationship building patterns".   They are interested on what benefits the togetherness, takes care of common needs, sometimes at their own expense (which is not good).

I view this as "cooking time" table (bit modified from Jay Earley's  relationship patterns book):

Dimension	LBS stress reaction (unhealthy)	Goal 2: healthy relationship reaction	Goal 1: LBS/MLCr healing reaction	MLCr stress reaction (unhealthy)
Intimacy	Needy, dependant, clingy, pursuer	Intimacy	Self supporting, boundary setting (no cake eating)	Intimacy avoiding, distancer
Conflicts	Conflict avoiding	Good communication	Self-care, boundary setting (low communication)	Momster (judgemental, defensive)
Powerplay	Passive-agressive, pleasing	Go-operation	Assertive, boundary setting (no momstering)	Momster (controllive, rebelling,destructive))
Care	Fixing	Caring	Self-care, boundary setting	Cold, blaming, self-absorbing

The axis here being dual: time and energy/strength of behaviour.   The more energy involved in reaction, the longer it takes to steps out of it. The more time spent in reaction, the more energy it takes to step out of it. Yet another evil cycle of it's own there.

The first step is to get both out of unhealthy zones (as they are damaging oneself or damaging other). And that means heading into healing or healthy behaviour.   But considering the nature of this (stress reaction/response to relationship) and that old relationship is dead as dodo, it always requires both MLCr and LBS to visit healing zone before something new could come out of it.  So basically healing block remains the only true option remaining.

 

The way I look at above table/chart is akind of "cooking meter"... For example if I take Conflicts-dimension, I have definitely moved from LBS stress reaction to healthy relationship reaction, but I still have to advance to "healing reaction".   My MLCr on the other hand is still stuck with her stress reaction (aka. momster).    Essentially saying  both of us need to cook more.... I see this as a tool that can be used to track individual healing process of LBS or MLCr, or the overall status of relationship.

But I think there are (should be) more dimensions.  And those dimensions would have naturally unique set of reactions.   But what would the dimensions and reactions be?   I'm open for suggestions and opinions and discussion on what makes relationships and MLC-LBS dynamics tick, and what would be stress/healing/healthy reactions of those dimensions. 

Why I think this topic matters more than it looks is because this is IMHO basically at heart of boundary-setting.  It is all about learning to recognize unhealthy reactions, and then drawing the boundaries that help us to heal.

Feel free to share even strangest of thoughts, feel free to share examples of boundary setting in real life etc.. Show me what the united brainpower of LBS army could do to turn this into tool all of us could use to heal (and track our healing) . The stage is yours.   8)

Alvin, growing & healing & learning.

Title: Re: Stress reactions behind MLC/LBS behaviour - need your suggestions and opinions
Post by: AlvinTheMaker on October 01, 2019, 06:44:46 AM

Hope this topic doesn't turn into monologue, but I came up with one important dimension.... Safety.

So my current table would look like

Dimension	LBS stress reaction (unhealthy)	Goal 2: healthy relationship reaction	Goal 1: LBS/MLCr healing reaction	MLCr stress reaction (unhealthy)
Intimacy	Needy, dependant, clingy, pursuer	Intimacy	Self supporting, boundary setting (no cake eating)	Intimacy avoiding, distancer
Conflicts	Conflict avoiding	Good communication	Self-care, boundary setting (low communication)	Momster (judgemental, defensive)
Powerplay	Passive-agressive, pleasing	Go-operation	Assertive, boundary setting (no momstering)	Momster (controllive, rebelling,destructive))
Care	Fixing	Caring	Self-care, boundary setting	Cold, blaming, self-absorbing
Safety	Submissive (love can fix everything)	Trust	Self-care, assertive, boundary setting (no momstering, distancing)	Momster (Abusive, dominance, controllive)