Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: Albatross on March 24, 2014, 05:59:50 AM
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Stages of individuation
a) the containment/nurturance (i.e., the maternal, or in Neumann’s terminology the “matriarchal”) stage,
b) the adapting/adjusting (i.e., the paternal, or, again in Neumann’s terminology, the “patriarchal”) stage, and
c) the centering/integrating (in Neumann’s terminology, the individual) stage.
(These can be coordinated with Erik Erickson’s seven stages of psychological development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erikson%27s_stages_of_psychosocial_development).)
The two major crises of individuation fall in the transitions between these stages, the first in adolescence and early adulthood and the second at midlife.
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Care: Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle adulthood, 25-64, or 40-64 years)[edit]
Existential Question: Can I Make My Life Count?
Generativity is the concern of guiding the next generation. Socially-valued work and disciplines are expressions of generativity.
The adult stage of generativity has broad application to family, relationships, work, and society. “Generativity, then is primarily the concern in establishing and guiding the next generation... the concept is meant to include... productivity and creativity."[13]
During middle age the primary developmental task is one of contributing to society and helping to guide future generations. When a person makes a contribution during this period, perhaps by raising a family or working toward the betterment of society, a sense of generativity- a sense of productivity and accomplishment- results. In contrast, a person who is self-centered and unable or unwilling to help society move forward develops a feeling of stagnation- a dissatisfaction with the relative lack of productivity.
Central tasks of middle adulthood
Express love through more than sexual contacts.
Maintain healthy life patterns.
Develop a sense of unity with mate.
Help growing and grown children to be responsible adults.
Relinquish central role in lives of grown children.
Accept children's mates and friends.
Create a comfortable home.
Be proud of accomplishments of self and mate/spouse.
Reverse roles with aging parents.
Achieve mature, civic and social responsibility.
Adjust to physical changes of middle age.
Use leisure time creatively.
Hmmmmmmmmm .... this is from wikipedia, Erik Erikson's stage. This kind of explains things for me I think. My H is desperately trying to become a successful businessman but he has left his spouse and children in order to do that, in his attempt to avoid stagnation and a sense of failure he has turned his back on the generativity? Am I on the right track Albatross?
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Thoughtimes according Central tasks of middle adulthood
Express love through more than sexual contacts.
Maintain healthy life patterns.
Develop a sense of unity with mate.
Help growing and grown children to be responsible adults.
Relinquish central role in lives of grown children.
Accept children's mates and friends.
Create a comfortable home.
Be proud of accomplishments of self and mate/spouse.
Reverse roles with aging parents.
Achieve mature, civic and social responsibility.
Adjust to physical changes of middle age.
Use leisure time creatively.
If someone did not developed well in previous stages of human psychological development he is not able to achieve majority of this tasks. That means he then can't feel satisfied with self. We have to accommodate self to be able achieve those tasks or lost reasons to be, or live empty life.
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Hi Toughtimes,
In my experience it is easy to believe they are angels to OP, that they adore each other and such. Perhaps that is true in your case, but perhaps that is the mask he wishes to show to you and the public currently. We never really know what goes on behind closed doors until much later in the process I believe based on my experience. For example, I would have sworn J loved OW very much. But he made her do disgusting things, demeaned her often, and physically abused her as was revealed later in their relationship.
OW still adores him to this day and would take him back into her home if he would but say the word.
Interesting you mention the exhausted point. Genius was always exhausted when he was at his mother's house. It was in response to his manic behavior prior and the feeling of going home to momma and safety when he was there. He could let his guard down, let his mask slip and be a child again with mommy looking out for him for a few hours.
Could it work the other way around...in public both H and OW don't even act like they know each other...both with downtrodden faces. It must only back at her CZ farmhouse/love nest....they blossom ?
My H was always exhausted after visiting MIL...had to take a nap on the couch after each visit.
SSG
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I prefer the simple three stage process of the midlife change from accommodation to true individualism....changing identity to the final wholeness we all strive for.
1) Separation - shedding the old skin and stripping down to bare bones. Abandoning the "old" persona and ego identity.
2) Liminality - the "in-between" stage where you are in no-man's-land. There is really no identity in this stage. You are in that threshold from one identity to another. This is where all the bad things happen.
3) Reintegration - when the ego consciousness is melded with the soul....the inner being. There truly must be a balance of adaptation and of being your true self. Only then are we really whole.
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I prefer the simple three stage process of the midlife change from accommodation to true individualism....changing identity to the final wholeness we all strive for.
1) Separation - shedding the old skin and stripping down to bare bones. Abandoning the "old" persona and ego identity.
2) Liminality - the "in-between" stage where you are in no-man's-land. There is really no identity in this stage. You are in that threshold from one identity to another. This is where all the bad things happen.
3) Reintegration - when the ego consciousness is melded with the soul....the inner being. There truly must be a balance of adaptation and of being your true self. Only then are we really whole.
Exactly. But I am here talking about individuation process trough whole life and in final pin it possible problems of our MLCers during their development before they meltdown.
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THE CONTAINMENT/NURTURANCE STAGE OF INDIVIDUATION
For postnatal life, the mother’s womb symbolizes the psychological environment needed for the first stage of a person’s life. It is a protected space, an enclosure in which the vulnerable young can grow relatively undisturbed by toxic intrusions from the surrounding world. For humans, this type of shielded environment is suitable for a lengthy period of time after birth. Human neonates require an external nurturing environment of extended duration, until their bodies and minds are prepared to cope with the physical and social worlds into which they have been delivered.
Especially in modern first world cultures, this first stage of life, which we casually refer to as childhood, lasts a long time. For most people today, the containment/nurturance stage extends through much of the educational experience, from infancy and the years of primary and secondary school, through university studies and further professional training. During these years, a person, even if physically and to some extent psychologically prepared to assume some of the roles of adulthood, is not fully equipped to deal with the demands of social life and is usually not economically viable as an adult member of society. This period of dependence on parents and parental institutions may last for 30 years or more.
Instead of screening harsh reality out of the protected environment, anxious parents may amplify threats and worrisome aspects of reality. Absence of adequate containment and serious breaches in the walls of protection surrounding the person at this stage generally put down the groundwork for later psychopathology, such as anxiety disorders and various character disorders. In addition, the frightened or threatened child, in order to replace the absent or breached outer protective shield, develops primitive and massive defenses of the self, which also have the capacity to cut the person off from important developments and relationships later in life.
Under the best conditions, the quality and degree of containment gradually changes as a person passes through the sub-phases of childhood. At first there is maximal nurturance and containment. The kind of attention given to the newborn baby, who can do practically nothing for itself, modulates to a less intense level of care as the child grows older. Later the parents will place further limits on the amount and kind of nurturance they provide, and the degree of containment is eased. Expectations for a relative amount of autonomy, independence, and self-control are introduced at many points along the way, as the child is able to respond positively to these changes. Normally these shifts are met by a willingness on the part of the child to cooperate if the onset of these new conditions corresponds to growing abilities (cognitive, emotional, motor). As the individual proceeds through the usual sub-phases of childhood development, the nurturing container evolves in order to meet the new needs that appear and to reduce what would become an intrusive type of overprotective care in many areas. By the end of this stage of individuation, people experience only a minimum of nurturing and containment from the environment and are able to do for themselves what others have done for them earlier.
The first and primary nurturing figure is, of course, the mother. From pregnancy onwards, the mother symbolizes the nurturing container itself. Nurturing and containing can be referred to as “the mothering function,” whether this is delivered by the actual biological mother, by mother surrogates, by fathers, teachers, or institutions. Symbolically speaking, they are all “the mother” if they approach the individual in a nurturing, containing mode.
Whether the containing/nurturing function is performed by the actual mother, by another person, or by an institution, the underlying attitude is: “I am here to help you.” Nurturers are providers, helpers, sustainers. This attitude on the part of the nurturer, in turn, creates or inspires a corresponding attitude in the recipient of nurturance. Nurturers conjure children, and children attach themselves to nurturers. The recipient’s attitude is one of radical dependence upon the perceived nurturer. This attitude may be quite conscious or largely unconscious. In the first years of life, it is definitely unconscious. Nurturance and containment are simply taken for granted by the infant and the young child. Recipients often struggle mightily against their caregivers, not realizing how profound the real dependence actually is. A child pushing away from its mother and running impulsively out into traffic simply assumes, at an unconscious level, that it will be safe, cared for, protected, and at the end of the day fed, held and comforted. This degree of entitlement is unchallenged in the young child, and the nurturing adult, who may even find it attractive and mildly amusing, freely gives it. The dependency arising out of a good bonding between infant and mother is to be desired, for too much anxiety about the world at this early stage of life would not augur well.
The containment/nurturance phase of individuation serves the psychological purpose of supporting and protecting an incipient ego in the child. The ego complex, which we conceive of as the center of consciousness with certain executive functions and some measure of innate anxiety about reality, comes into being gradually over the course of early childhood. Its earliest beginnings lie already in the intrauterine experience. There the ego is barely a point of awareness and of reaction to stimuli, a tiny bit of separate consciousness in the darkness of the mother’s body. With birth, the ego’s world is dramatically enlarged, and the infant’s ego responds by registering and reacting to sights, tastes, and touching as well as to sounds and smells. Very quickly a baby is able to recognize its mother’s face and to respond. At a profound psychological level, however, infant and mother remain joined in a state of psychological fusion. The ego’s separateness is severely limited. This unconscious identification is mutual. The mother is as deeply tied into it as the infant. Jung termed this type of identification participation mystique, a phrase that denotes an unconscious psychophysical bond. What happens to one person in this union happens to the other. They feel each other’s pain, hunger, and joy. For the infant, this forms the basis of later empathy and eventually will develop into a sense of responsibility for others and an inner conscience. It also creates part of the foundation for later ego identity, especially for female children.
With further motor and cognitive development, the ego is able to begin exercising its executive functions and to exert some control over muscles. Arms and legs become coordinated and speech follows. Soon the whole world becomes a vast theater of play and learning, a veritable Garden of Eden to explore. The healthy child asserts itself vigorously and with abandon in this perceived safe and protected environment. Serious reality testing is left to the oversight of the parental unit, a nurturing and containing presence hovering above. The boundaries of this paradise are tested soon enough as the child exerts more and more autonomy physically and emotionally. Disobedience and increasing consciousness go hand in hand. Psychological boundaries begin to be erected between child and parental guardian, and the child becomes aware of the differences between self and other and exploits them. Throughout this stage, however, a basic level of unconscious identification remains between child and nurturing environment. Participation mystique continues to reign. Jung thought of the child’s psyche as largely contained in the parental psyche and reflective of it. The child’s true individual personality does not emerge until it leaves the parents’ psyche in a sort of second birth, a psychological birth for the ego when it becomes a more truly separate entity.
This psychological containment of the young gives parents enormous influence over their children, not only through the conscious transmission of culture, tradition, teaching and training, but more importantly and deeply through unconscious communication of attitude and structure. Via the unconscious, a kind of psychological programming of the child’s inner world takes place, for good or ill. It is not what the parent says, but what the parent is and does, that has the greatest impact on the shape the child’s inner world. The family is the child’s adaptive environment, and much of this world’s emotional tone enters the child’s inner world by introjection.
The testing and challenging of physical and psychological boundaries continues throughout the first stage of individuation. Adolescence, which for most of us falls within this stage, is a transitional time when physically, and to some extent psychologically, a person is ready to leave the nurturing/containing environment and enter the next stage of individuation. In modern first world societies, however, this is complicated by educational and training requirements that often prolong the containment stage to a significant extent. An adolescent of 15 or even 18 is nowhere near being able to take on the tasks and responsibilities of adulthood in modern societies. This prolongation of the first stage of individuation creates the specific problems and attitudes so characteristic of adolescents in these countries: impatience, rebelliousness, feelings of inferiority, being marginalized, and frustration. Ready to leave the world of childhood but not yet prepared for the tasks of adulthood, they are truly “betwixt and between.” The adult personae that initiation rituals provide in traditional societies are withheld from adolescents in modern cultures, and the dependent state of childhood is artificially prolonged far beyond its natural physical and psychological timeframe. Schools and colleges are the holding pens and containers devised by modern cultures for adolescents and post-adolescents who need to have more time to mature and to become acculturated and ready for successful adaptation to the demands of work and family that are shortly to fall upon them.
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From THE CONTAINMENT/NURTURANCE STAGE OF INDIVIDUATION stage of development my wife for sure have this issues:
" Instead of screening harsh reality out of the protected environment, anxious parents may amplify threats and worrisome aspects of reality. Absence of adequate containment and serious breaches in the walls of protection surrounding the person at this stage generally put down the groundwork for later psychopathology, such as anxiety disorders and various character disorders. In addition, the frightened or threatened child, in order to replace the absent or breached outer protective shield, develops primitive and massive defenses of the self, which also have the capacity to cut the person off from important developments and relationships later in life."
She is anxious because of overprotecting of mother but there was not true love from mother to her. Also she was obviously frightened by to powerful mother which leads using primitive and massive defenses and that leads lacking capacity for healthy psychological development and future problems in social relationships. Anxiety, fearfulness, defense guard, which leads to develop low self esteem. Also inability to connect with people properly, mostly emotively.
"At a profound psychological level, however, infant and mother remain joined in a state of psychological fusion. The ego’s separateness is severely limited. This unconscious identification is mutual. The mother is as deeply tied into it as the infant. Jung termed this type of identification participation mystique, a phrase that denotes an unconscious psychophysical bond. What happens to one person in this union happens to the other. They feel each other’s pain, hunger, and joy. For the infant, this forms the basis of later empathy and eventually will develop into a sense of responsibility for others and an inner conscience. It also creates part of the foundation for later ego identity, especially for female children."
This part was also a problem for my wife. But, I believe that she has ability to empathize with people and has well developed conscience. But she obviously had problems with identity, which was produced also with problems which is written in first quotation in this post.
Because she obviously never be able to develop strong self identity and be able to make wider bonds (primary emotional) with people, specially with myself and children and be anxious, fearful, to defense and with low self esteem, she was not able to have fulfilled life... When she enter in last stage of individuation she haven't potential to go there trough MLT and obviously she have to crash - hit MLC.
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Hi Albatross
Wonder if you can give me any info about the internal female in the male, the anima.
Sorry if this isn't replay stuff but didn't know where to ask.
The bit I am wondering about mainly is the last part of integrating the anima, do you know if the last bit is the Goddess part.
Hope that makes sense to you.
x
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THE ADAPTING/ADJUSTING STAGE OF INDIVIDUATION
While the mother occupies the symbolic center of the first stage of individuation, the father assumes this position in the second stage. This transformation comes about not by usurpation but gradually and through psychological necessity. The father is needed by the growing ego to gain freedom from the nurturing containment offered by the mother and to instill the rigor of functioning and performance demanded for adaptation to the world. The father introduces anxiety to the ego, but ideally in amounts that can be mastered by increasing competence.
Again it is necessary to understand the terms “father” and “patriarchal” (Neumann) symbolically and metaphorically rather than literally and sociologically. Where the first stage of individuation is characterized by containment and nurturance (the Garden of Eden), the second stage is governed by the law of consequences for actions taken (the reality principle) and by the constant demand for performance and achievement in the wider world. In the second stage of individuation, the person is exposed to a world in which standards of performance are paramount and consequences for behavior are forcefully and implacably drawn. A person who is living fully in this type of environment of expectation and conditional regard has entered the “father world”. It is no longer a world in which unconditional love is the norm, but rather one in which strict and even harsh conditions are imposed upon the distribution of all rewards, including love and positive regard. This is not the world as ideal but the world as real. The ego is required to become realistic about itself and about the world at large. This means fitness and competition.
In truth, the reality principle is typically introduced into the life of children long before they leave the containment stage, but there, ideally, it is introduced in doses that are moderate and therefore tolerable to the young and vulnerable ego. The containing environment provides a protective screen that removes the harsh and potentially damaging aspects of reality. The demands for performance and achievement should not be brought to bear too forcefully or too soon in life. If this does happen, the child’s ego can be crushed or convulsed with anxiety. Against severe threats such as these, the psyche will erect primitive defenses to guard against annihilation. On the other hand, if too few demands for achievement and performance are introduced into a child’s Garden of Eden, and if consequences for behavior are not drawn, the ego does not become accustomed to dealing with stress and tension. It remains underdeveloped, and hence will be unprepared later for the demands and expectations characteristic of the next stage of individuation. A moderate amount of frustration and tension, dosed out at the right times and in the right amounts, is growth promoting for the ego. Jung believed that the ego develops through “collisions with the environment”, and Fordham introduced the notion that the ego develops through cycles of de-integration and re-integration. Both notions feature the element of optimal frustration.
Demands for performance pick up with schooling and gradually increase in seriousness and consequence as a child passes out of primary school into secondary school. The father becomes a more important figure, symbolically speaking, after the early years of childhood have passed. By the time a child reaches high school and college, the adaptive environment induces a good bit of anxiety, and the young person becomes aware of and responsive to the demands of a less forgiving world. Consequences become more life shaping and determinative of action and behavior. In some countries, the academic tests taken around the age of 13 are decisive for a person’s entire career. Grades and academic performance have life-changing consequences for almost all children, and under the pressure of this awareness there comes the realization that the world will not continue to be the nurturing container that one knew as an infant and a young child.
The decisive passage from the first stage of individuation into the second takes place over a period of time, typically between the ages of early puberty and early adulthood (ages 12-21) in most modern societies. This may be earlier in exceptional cases, and it is later for people who prolong their education into graduate and post-graduate studies. Schools are partially matriarchal holding environments and partially patriarchal adaptive ones. Their job is gradually to prepare a person for life beyond school. (For some people, of course, this does not happen. They may ignore school and drop out of its programs before they reach any degree of real competence, or they may stay in school all their lives, as perpetual students or teachers.) As bridging institutions, schools play the archetypal role of the paternal parent to a growing child, whose job it is to help the child leave the family container when the years appropriate for nurturing are over and adapt to the demands of adult life in the larger world. This is the role fathers play in traditional cultures for the young men who come of age and need to be introduced into the social structure at a new level. Mothers play a similar role for daughters, who are given new and larger responsibilities and taught the skills of womanhood as they come of age. In modern societies there is no distinction of this sort between sons and daughters. Today both genders go to school with the idea of preparing for a life of work in the world outside the home. In addition, both genders are expected to accept the responsibilities of house holding and childrearing. The division of labor between women and men, while still often present to a degree, has been considerably blurred in modern life.
The completion of the passage from the containment stage (childhood) to the adapting/adjusting stage of individuation (adulthood) is, of course, fraught with crisis and emotional turmoil. The largest psychological obstacle lying in the way of making this passage is what Jung discussed under the rubric of the incest wish. Disagreeing with Freud that the incest wish was concretely a wish to have sexual relations with one’s closest family members, especially the contrasexual mother and father, Jung interpreted it as the wish to remain a child, to stay in the containment stage of life. The incest wish is the wish never to grow up, to live in a Garden of Eden forever. Peter Pan speaks for this attitude when he announces with vehemence: “I’ll never grow up, I’ll never grow up!” and refuses the transition from playful boy full of fantasy to reality oriented adult. What is required psychologically to overcome this desire to remain a child is the appearance of the “heroic,” a surge of ambition and energy that pushes one out of the security of Eden to meet the exciting challenges offered by the real world. The hero is the archetypal energy that kills the dragon (i.e., “the incest wish”) and frees the princess (i.e., “the soul”), for the sake of going forward in life. The hero asks for and takes up the challenges of real life with an abundance of confidence that many find unrealistic and almost death defying. The hero shows the confidence, call it bravado, to face up to the father and meet the challenges of the patriarchal world. An inner identification with a hero figure frees the ego from the pull towards regression and towards the comfortable earlier dependency on the “mother” and energizes it to meet the tasks and challenges of adaptation to reality. When a person comes to the conclusion that reality offers greater and finer rewards than fantasy, and that reality can be mastered, that person has passed from the first stage of individuation to the second.
Reality must be understood as the whole world of psychological, physical, social, cultural, and economic challenges facing an individual in life, many of which lie beyond anyone’s control. To deal with reality means that one faces up to all the issues that present themselves from without and within – love and death, jobs and career, the weather, sexuality, ambition, other people’s expectations, the body with its weaknesses and tendencies to succumb to illness, the consequences of smoking or alcohol abuse, on and on. It means recognizing that one lives and participates in a world filled with uncertainty and hazard, and that one’s area of mastery and control is seriously limited. The hero gladly and even joyfully attacks the problems posed by reality with the confidence that whatever dangers may lurk, there must be some way to surmount them. Every problem has a solution, the hero believes. As the ego sets forth on the hero’s journey, it soon enough discovers that in this stage one comes into a world of work and taxes, of pension plans and insurance policies, of long-term relationships and family responsibilities, of success and failure as judged by others, and of often intractable problems with no clear-cut solution. This is what must be faced, adapted and adjusted to, and invested in during the second stage of individuation. This is life outside the Garden of Eden.
Many people shrink away from this because of early psychological traumas that so severely handicap their capacities to cope with anxiety that they can never bring themselves to face reality fully. Moreover, there is a natural enough resistance to facing harsh reality, and the ego’s defenses push it away. Some people procrastinate and delay so long, and are allowed to do so by extended nurturing environments and circumstances, or by trickery and subterfuge and self-deception, that it becomes embarrassing and nearly impossible to face this transition later in life. This delay produces what Jungians call the puer aeternus (or puella aeterna, for the female version) neurotic character type. For one reason or another in these people, the hero has never arrived on the scene, or the ego has not identified with a hero figure and its energy, and dependency (conscious or unconscious) on nurturing and containing environments, real or imaginary, has been prolonged into adulthood and even old age. The incest wish goes unchallenged to any serious degree, and the threatening father looms too large and fearsome. The psyche stagnates as a result. A sort of invalidism takes hold, as the person, fearing exposure, challenge, and the normal problems of coping with life, shies away and falls back. The ego remains “in the mother”, symbolically speaking, sometimes even literally acting this out by never leaving home. In these cases, one wonders if there is any individuation beyond the first stage. These people tend to remain childish throughout life. They may be harmless, but they also contribute little. Their potentials remain just that, potentials; they are not actualized. They are always just about to write the great novel but can never bring themselves to the point of putting real words on real paper.
Many of the character disorders described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DMS IV) have their origins in the failure to separate successfully enough from the containing world of childhood. The borderline personality disorder, for example, seems to stem from remaining stuck in a love/hate relationship with the mother that is typical of children in their early years: now a person succumbs to fusion states of dependency upon maternal others, now he or she attacks them and tries to separate from them with violent gestures of hatred and disdain. This is a person who has not managed to accomplish the transition process from stage one to two and is repeating the drama of separation from the mother endlessly with significant maternal others throughout an entire lifetime. The narcissistic personality disorder also derives from being stuck in the containment stage of individuation, in that a driven need and demand persists that significant others do nothing but offer adoration and mirroring. People with narcissistic personality disorders long to remain the adored baby forever, performing for enthralled audiences who never utter a critical word or render a judgment on their brilliant performance. Their lives are full of open wounds and suffering because the world outside of the contained space of childhood is not set up to accommodate their needs to be seen and totally admired.
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Albatross,
I love reading your posts they make much sense. I want to know how my ow plays into my husband. She is half his age. Only had 1 relationship in her life. She has completely changed herself into me. She also loves everything my h loves, even down to wanting to use the same medicine he uses. I think she believes she has to have everything like him to keep the R. H sees this as she is doing and loving him like no other. I am not obsessing about ow, but am now fascinated with the whole dynamics of MLC. How would the affair ever break down, if she is losing herself in H?
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Albatross,
I love reading your posts they make much sense. I want to know how my ow plays into my husband. She is half his age. Only had 1 relationship in her life. She has completely changed herself into me. She also loves everything my h loves, even down to wanting to use the same medicine he uses. I think she believes she has to have everything like him to keep the R. H sees this as she is doing and loving him like no other. I am not obsessing about ow, but am now fascinated with the whole dynamics of MLC. How would the affair ever break down, if she is losing herself in H?
I was study a lot personality disorders and what You saying about that OW she could be pathological narcissist. Because they use mirroring of victim (in this case Your spouse) personality. They completely mimic victim personality. She love what he love, they have ability to gather information and lie that love everything what other person love. On that way narcissist want to show that he/she is soul mate of other person, or perfect match. Experienced people can disguise narcissist very fast, but MLCers are in lala world, so they need more time for that. And narcissist haven't self, so they have nothing to lose.
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Will H ever wake up to this, or continue to think this is good. Ow even taking my place in our business, saying she will always work there and never look for other job. She is 30 , H is 60 yrs.
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New REPLAY thread, speaking about lifetime individuation process, split from previous one.
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As You can see in bold text in first two phases of human psychological development our spouses can stuck in:
a) the containment/nurturance (i.e., the maternal, or in Neumann’s terminology the “matriarchal”) stage,
b) the adapting/adjusting (i.e., the paternal, or, again in Neumann’s terminology, the “patriarchal”) stage
So, they never finished first and second phase, or never finish second one. When they reach last stage which should be in middle age, they can't go forward, so they have to go backward to finish one or both of them. I believe that my wife regress in second stage then that does not solve problems, and now I believe that she is in first stage, act and show up as girl, 2012, 2013 as teenager. 2014 is little girl. I have to say that she is much bearable as little girl. So, OM stuff diminish. If she solve first stage issues hopefully then she should (?) go again in second and try solve that, then OM will show up again (?), I don't like this !!! So, long path she have to travel...
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I am here, reading these gold nuggets of information avidly! Thank you for the amazing amount of work you do and provide to all....
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Yes, thank you! Your insight is fascinating!
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Taken a couple of days to backtrack with this thread-fascinating stuff Albatross.
My H has admitted recently he's been self medicating and said on his last visit he'd stopped (I referred in emails to him at the 'trying to use logic stage' that the red mustang on our drive, drinking every day, running obsessively, becoming a workaholic and of course OW -were self medication for him
I even wrote that I know how it feels to be attracted to someone-I've had flirtations a couple of times and told him about the dopamine and adrenaline rush being addictive like cocaine but short lived
Do you think this admission that nothing helps and the stopping blaming me could be him entering liminality?
He's depressed, sick, doesn't know who he is, wishes he was dead, has no friends etc
When I said my self esteem was better since going out more he said 'there's nothing wrong with you-it's the relationship' this is a man who wished he'd never met me and thought I was controlling, manipulative and had robbed him of a normal sex life just a few months ago
X
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Albatross,
You post some very interesting articles & data; I must admit, I have to read some of them a couple times to get what is being said.
Looking at Stage two (and I hope I am interpreting this correctly), where the Father becomes the dominant figure, I am wondering if this is where my wife has her issues. She lost her biological father to a motorcycle accident at age 10. A year later, her mother re-married to her step-father. From what my wife has described, her mother was obviously still in mourning and was self-medicating through alcohol & drugs at the time, mostly provided & supported by the step-father. He himself was an extreme alcoholic; over 10 DUI's, bar fights, etc. He never nurtured her; instead always cut her down! In fact, he never really took care of the family except the basics of providing for the house payment, utilities, etc. The rest of HIS money he kept to himself and her mother had to work to by the necessities (food, clothing, etc) for wife & my BIL. She also had an EXTREMELY early sexual experience that I have no doubt left emotional scars!
To me it seems she never had an appropriate father figure. She always had more male friends than female growing up and has even stated throughout or marriage (even recently) that she doesn't have many female friends and most women don't like her. I don't see this to be true; she has a few women here that she is friends with and several have been to our house at one point or another and they have went out on "girls nights" and shopping days.
What I am seeing from the past and her EA's; she is looking for male validation! The first OM is what I consider a "father-figure" type person; theirs started off and even continued to be more of a daughter asking a father for advice. Wife ended up emotionally attached but from what I could see, he didn't reciprocate it in that way. Even during EA#2 confrontation, she admitted she feels like she just needs A LOT of this type attention.
Any thoughts from the group?
OBO
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Arghhh , quote: "When I said my self esteem was better since going out more he said 'there's nothing wrong with you-it's the relationship' this is a man who wished he'd never met me and thought I was controlling, manipulative and had robbed him of a normal sex life just a few months ago".....is your H parading as mine perhaps???? Heard the same, how strange...not!
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She always had more male friends than female growing up and has even stated throughout or marriage (even recently) that she doesn't have many female friends and most women don't like her.
Here is exactly the same thing with my wife. I believe that is not connected with father figure, most likely is about mother issues and problem of maternal stage of development. Love hate relationship with mother - borderline threat. So, they have issues with female figure.
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My H has admitted recently he's been self medicating and said on his last visit he'd stopped (I referred in emails to him at the 'trying to use logic stage' that the red mustang on our drive, drinking every day, running obsessively, becoming a workaholic and of course OW -were self medication for him
I even wrote that I know how it feels to be attracted to someone-I've had flirtations a couple of times and told him about the dopamine and adrenaline rush being addictive like cocaine but short lived
Do you think this admission that nothing helps and the stopping blaming me could be him entering liminality?
He's depressed, sick, doesn't know who he is, wishes he was dead, has no friends etc
He is deep in replay. Escape & Avoid as well. He is stuck in space and time, can't go forward and of course nobody can go backward in time. Deep depression push him to use primitive coping mechanisms and primitive defense mechanisms. In other words he project own misery on people who are prone to receive his projections. He is right - world is not. His misery cause is the world not his mistakes. He is regressed in youth in time when he felt safe and using persona from that time. In other words, you have child who is desperate and acting out own pain and misery. Hitting liminal depression is moment when they finally realize that they tried everything possible without changing self and spend all shadow energy and their life in real world become even much more worst then before. In same time they have to reach point of humility - not being center of universe (egotism and narcissism). Then they become aware of anima/animus. That point should be change self or die... Next step is dissolution of animus/anima. When they dissolute anima/animus their soul is dead - they become nothing in spiritual meaning. After that moment all projections are ceased. There real work on self begin.
When I said my self esteem was better since going out more he said 'there's nothing wrong with you-it's the relationship' this is a man who wished he'd never met me and thought I was controlling, manipulative and had robbed him of a normal sex life just a few months ago
X
He blame Your relationship and You. Means he strongly project blame, he is still deep into fog and replay.
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Yes, I think you're right. He wrote an email to D10 that he'd been running and got sunburnt. Trying to escape his own thoughts I think.
He won't answer any of my emails at all
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Middle path from Jin and Yang
"That is to say I know the center and I know that good and evil are simply temporal aberrations."
Instead splitting world to good and bad we should take middle ground, otherwise will be judgmental. It is hard to know even impossible to be sure why something happens why someone do something and we habitually judge people. We does know how particular person see the world and how he/she feels, and certainly we don't know history of their sou.
"The perfect way is only difficult for those who pick and choose. Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. Make a hairbreadth difference and heaven and earth are set apart; if you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between “for” and “against” is the mind’s worst disease."
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IMHO
"Do not like or dislike; then all will be clear" is when you achieve indifference. This is not to be confused with being uncaring- just relatively unaffected by words and/or behavior.
My possibly biggest flaw is enabling.
Technically indifference is the opposite of love.
Happiness is a gift you give yourself.
Biblically " Be still- and know that I am God"
Arghhh? Stop emailing him. (((HUGS)))
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I will. I was doing fine until I had to email him about S6 hospital and about my huge imminent pay cut. Got him to reply but then my mind started racing.
All calm again now. A week off to focus on my kids
X
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I wanted to pick up on the quote about more male friends than female growing up.
This is me also. I hung around with boys and had them as my best friends, had very few female ones at all.
I totally Agree with albatross on this, it's not the daddy issues it's the mummy ones. I always felt like my mother did nothing to stop my dad being mean and aggressive towards me and my sister and I therefore did not trust her to have my back. My mum was also very critical of my looks and my weight and I often felt ugly because of it never once told me I was pretty. I guess I thought this was all women.
It's is only now that I find myself seeking out women to befriend and I have to say it is hard and I still gravitate towards men. It's not a sexual thing at all, just feels more comfortable and safe. I am learning though.
Sd
X
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I wanted to pick up on the quote about more male friends than female growing up.
This is me also. I hung around with boys and had them as my best friends, had very few female ones at all.
I totally Agree with albatross on this, it's not the daddy issues it's the mummy ones. I always felt like my mother did nothing to stop my dad being mean and aggressive towards me and my sister and I therefore did not trust her to have my back. My mum was also very critical of my looks and my weight and I often felt ugly because of it never once told me I was pretty. I guess I thought this was all women.
It's is only now that I find myself seeking out women to befriend and I have to say it is hard and I still gravitate towards men. It's not a sexual thing at all, just feels more comfortable and safe. I am learning though.
Sd
X
I am the exact same way, SD. My mom was very sweet and not exactly critical but she NEVER says I am pretty. She will say I look nice but that is about it. i try to tell my girls that they are often and mention their strengths too, along with complimenting their intelligence and character. I think it is really important. But jeez, girls are mean! Sorry to hijack.
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Sorry for the hijack too.
Yes girls are very mean in my experience too. I have brought up my daughter to recognise that what is outside can be appreciated and even changed but it's inside that matters most. This is what has happened with a lot of these mlcers, they have perpetuated the cycle of abuse rather than change it like you and I have just described.
My mum was very immature.
Sd
X
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Superdog & BP,
Thanks for the input / comments concerning the mother issues and affecting female friendships. Couple of the the things you gals said make some sense when I look at wife's FOO and the family dynamic she was raised in. Sets off a light bulb for me.
She has even stated in the past (prior to MLC/current issues) that her male friendships are non-sexual in nature; she views them as "brothers". I know this is true of a few of my friends we are close to; she absolutely treats them like brothers she never had.
OBO
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IMHO
"Do not like or dislike; then all will be clear" is when you achieve indifference. This is not to be confused with being uncaring- just relatively unaffected by words and/or behavior.
Technically indifference is the opposite of love.
It is not about indifference. Indifference is when one withdraw from the world and that is exactly what happening to MLCer. It is about living without prejudice. In other words world and life is about good and bad mixed together. IMO humans by heritage expecting only good which is core problem because in life is normal to experience good and bad mixed together. And finally we should not dislike bad or like good because some event is not 100% good it is always in between 0 and 100%. It is about acceptance, embracing reality at it is, live in reality and just be. Of course that one can dislike and like what ever he wants but living without liking - disliking, accepting life at it is, embrace it fully at it is - is middle path. Otherwise we will live in fantasy world how we want to be (future, not present) , which will never happened and then never satisfied...
In my opinion is indifference is absence of life and then absence of love or if You like it one who is indifferent is not able to live in reality, then unable to love.
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It is not about indifference. Indifference is when one withdraw from the world and that is exactly what happening to MLCer. It is about living without prejudice. In other words world and life is about good and bad mixed together. IMO humans by heritage expecting only good which is core problem because in life is normal to experience good and bad mixed together. And finally we should not dislike bad or like good because some event is not 100% good it is always in between 0 and 100%. It is about acceptance, embracing reality at it is, live in reality and just be. Of course that one can dislike and like what ever he wants but living without liking - disliking, accepting life at it is, embrace it fully at it is - is middle path. Otherwise we will live in fantasy world how we want to be (future, not present) , which will never happened and then never satisfied...
In my opinion is indifference is absence of life and then absence of love or if You like it one who is indifferent is not able to live in reality, then unable to love.
Well stated Albatross ;) I never thought about the MLCer being indifferent - I always thought of it more as they hate themselves but indifference makes a lot of sense.
In my H's case, I think that he has been a very unbalanced person for a long time - MLC is kind of the universe rebalancing us.
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I've been thinking a lot about this today and how my H says he doesn't feel anything when listening to our favourite music-it's always been his world before now. This was when I realised he was truly ill. I think he knows it himself but refuses help or medication as his dad got addicted and had seven years of depression and a nervous breakdown.
To become indifferent about music is something I never would've thought could happen to anyone.
At the start he seemed like he hated me but we hugged sometimes really nicely. Now he won't let me touch him (except to feel the lump he thinks he has in his stomach)
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I wanted to pick up on the quote about more male friends than female growing up.
This is me also. I hung around with boys and had them as my best friends, had very few female ones at all.
I totally Agree with albatross on this, it's not the daddy issues it's the mummy ones. I always felt like my mother did nothing to stop my dad being mean and aggressive towards me and my sister and I therefore did not trust her to have my back. My mum was also very critical of my looks and my weight and I often felt ugly because of it never once told me I was pretty. I guess I thought this was all women.
It's is only now that I find myself seeking out women to befriend and I have to say it is hard and I still gravitate towards men. It's not a sexual thing at all, just feels more comfortable and safe. I am learning though.
Sd
X
I am the exact same way, SD. My mom was very sweet and not exactly critical but she NEVER says I am pretty. She will say I look nice but that is about it. i try to tell my girls that they are often and mention their strengths too, along with complimenting their intelligence and character. I think it is really important. But jeez, girls are mean! Sorry to hijack.
I fit in right with both of you. I have always had male friends, all through my childhood (just one girlfriend) and throughout college and beyond. My mother, though she gave us every opportunity to experience life...she was also very critical...of how we dressed, weight, etc. I also agree it is about being more comfortable with the male species. I have 3 really close girlfriends...and the rest are men.
I am also sorry to hijack.... and many thanks Albatross...I follow all of your threads !
Standing Germany
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I just wanted to keep the topic of Replay going as it was this subject matter that originally bought me to this site.
My wife is in replay, however there has been a split with OM#2 and he is back with his long term partner so it is my guess that he binned W to pick up his life where it left off. So at the moment W could turn anyway, chase after OM, find another OM or take dreaded steps towards liminality. I know she is fighting the last option as she is monstering at me and dragging her heels on the divorce she instigated.
My now xW is in high intensity replay now with OM#4, Yes that's the way she turned, however she is still in contact with OM#2 & OM#3. OM#2 is still trying for PA by sending her pictures of his bits, OM#3 seems to be someone she confides in. She still monsters at me if I give her the chance, she has the divorce she wanted but yet she clings on by not moving out. Yes we are divorced but she won't go.
I'm just guessing but this round of replay has been going on around 2 1/2 year covering 3 OM, it's 2 1/2 years since divorce proceeding started and that's when I can see that she started going out and staying out.
As we know, the contents of the unconscious compensate our conscious attitude; since the male tends to be rather polygamous in his outward life, his anima usually appears singly. The woman on the other hand tends toward monogamy in her real life and thus reveals a polygamous trait in her soul image; which for the woman will be personified in many figures - like an assembly of fathers."
Your x wife is possessed by own shadow and animus. People possessed by shadow become opposite then their real self. MLCers are under huge influence of own shadow, woman MLCers become polygamous in MLC - means they can have in same time in parallel OM1, OM2 and so on, man MLCers become monogamous, so they can have serial OW1, OW2 and so on. But always one at the time. I believe that is the reason why woman have shorter in time MLC then man.
From what I can see xW has really become the opposite of what she was before very straight laced and proper (very good mask) but now she is very much polygamous (and I'm being polite here) there could be more OM than I know of (the woman has gone crazy).
A question I have, This polygamous person that we see now, will this have always been with her but she suppressed it, but now that she's in MLC it has all been unleashed with a vengeance and she can't control it ?.
Just interested
Lanzo
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A question I have, This polygamous person that we see now, will this have always been with her but she suppressed it, but now that she's in MLC it has all been unleashed with a vengeance and she can't control it ?.
Just interested
Lanzo
Woman have animus as connection between subconsciousness and consciousness always have and always will have. Animus have 4 stages in psychological evolution. Animus is not nothing bad at all but shadow can be very evil. When shadow marry her animus woman went to hell.
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How long does replay last? H in it for nearly 2 and half years, divorcing me at moment and settling in with 25 year old employee ow. It feels he's settling down but he's doing what we did 10/15 years ago, even living in the same place. He's high energy, huge ego, grandiosity, narcissist, blaming and an immature nasty streak.
I can see he is re-doing his adolescent years, this was when his mother had an affair, abandoned family and then his parents divorced with his dad moving in a new partner and her two young sons. He was constantly abandoned by mother and then by father. Could it be he has gone back to adolescence and will simply continue from there and not come back to midlife? So have another family and that be appropriate time? I hope not, I hope he hits liminality and sees the reality of the situation.
Ow has foo issues, similar to h in that she had sibling with illness, her sister died when she was nine. I believe ow has some arrested development issues as a result, h took her to Harry Potter studios for her 25th birthday treat last year and she suffered/suffers from anorexia (a disease rooted in not wanting to grow up, resonant with the puer theory). Her father is older than her mother too, her mother was her dad's student at university. So h is redoing what his mother did and ow is redoing what her mother did. Any insights here albatross?
I too think ow is a mask wearer, she's just too lovely to be true, sweet and adoring and yet so young to have affair with married boss with kids.
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In brief:
Replay stops when they realize that narcissistic supply does not "make them happy" anymore. It is individual thing.
Or:
Hitting liminal depression is moment when they finally realize that they tried everything possible without changing self and spend all shadow energy and their life in real world become even much more worst then before. In same time they have to reach point of humility - not being center of universe (egotism and narcissism). Then they become aware of anima/animus. That point should be change self or die... Next step is dissolution of animus/anima. When they dissolute anima/animus their soul is dead - they become nothing in spiritual meaning. After that moment all projections are ceased. There real work on self begin.
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Well before the BD, my H read a couple of books, one called "boys adrift", and it was about the difference between how girls and boys lean differently and that the school system is set up for girls. Anyway, there was a lot of scientific/behavioral research involved in these books and he always discussed what he was reading with me in great detail.
I've made several attempts to get him to read about the effects of early childhood neglect and abuse and he will not!! He told me he's not interested in behavioral science at all. :)
He told me he's reading a book called "Moms house/Dads house", and I should read it. I told him, I'm NOT interested, as I've read the reviews that say, "if two people can get along that well as separated co-parents, they should just be married." And I got the "deer in headlights" look.
He thought he could give it all up and just work his glorious job, and if we are "friends" he will be les miserable.
I know it's just the MLC but I think it's just part of the denial and wanting to remain in Replay. It has only just begun for him.
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My xW is still in replay, still trying to make herself happy.
In the past she changed her job several time and ended up on a totally different career path (From retail fashion to construction and housing).
She had a cat when she was younger, she got one during the divorce process to pee me off and to make herself happy, don’t think it worked either way.
The Divorce was final in May and she moved out in June. She has multiple OM. Is she happy, still don’t know although the mask she wears says yes.
The house is sold and she is due £70k from the proceeds . She will be going on a Caribbean cruise in December .
So loads of money to spend, men to spend it on, places to go and visit, her replay will be going on for a considerably long time.
Lanzo
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Replay stops when they realize that narcissistic supply does not "make them happy" anymore. It is individual thing.
My H has always had narcissistic traits - I didn't see them for what they were. I don't think that my H will ever realize that it is not making him happy. Once a narcissist always a narcissist! I really think that this is where standing becomes important - standing gives you the opportunity to really look at the relationship and yourself, then you can make an informed decision about what you want from life.
Good to see you Albatross ;)
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I have been reading your threads for a while now. I have to re-read them a lot as I don't always understand everything. But I appreciate your threads as they help me immensely.
I'm not sure if my h had narcissistic traits before this happened, maybe some, but I wouldn't classify him as being a narcissist. Conflict avoidance, yes, definitely and low self esteem, which I never understood because I thought he was so smart and could do anything. His childhood was very abusive, but he doesn't think of it that way.
He has a knowledge there is something wrong with him as he has now left ow again, supposedly, and is going to therapy and his m.d. But as my bd was only 5 months ago I'm not sure if this will help or hurt. He told me he needs help to get himself together and for me not to give up on him, but I really don't trust anything he says.
In the last 2 years he lost his mother (his last living parent) and six months later suffered a mini stroke and he started a new career during all this. I was in a very good career and the money I made got us through all of this. But instead of being proud of me it turned into some kind of competition about everything. I have really tried to figure it all, but looking back the only things I can see that he has carried over to mlc are his anger, competitiveness, and conflict avoidance.
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TooManyTears - have you read about different insecure attachment styles? My H falls completely in line anxious/insecure attachment style or Fear insecure attachment style.
There is also Avoidant insecure attachment.
Of course all of the traits are severely enhanced in early BD during monster, but my H has always had these issues. but it also talks about how it affects the spouse.
All very interesting, and has helped me detach as he cannot change or be happy with ANYONE until he addresses his childhood and then learns about secure attachment. A lot of work for them.
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I'm not sure if my h had narcissistic traits before this happened, maybe some, but I wouldn't classify him as being a narcissist. Conflict avoidance, yes, definitely and low self esteem, which I never understood because I thought he was so smart and could do anything. His childhood was very abusive, but he doesn't think of it that way.
Conflict avoidance is prerogative for MLC for sure. Low self esteem is prerogative for MLC and also infidelity. Abusive childhood is also prerogative for MLC.
He has a knowledge there is something wrong with him as he has now left ow again, supposedly, and is going to therapy and his m.d. But as my bd was only 5 months ago I'm not sure if this will help or hurt. He told me he needs help to get himself together and for me not to give up on him, but I really don't trust anything he says.
It is good because he is aware that something wrong with him, specially if he dumps OW. Like with people who are addicts admitting that You have problem is first step for healing !
In the last 2 years he lost his mother (his last living parent) and six months later suffered a mini stroke and he started a new career during all this. I was in a very good career and the money I made got us through all of this. But instead of being proud of me it turned into some kind of competition about everything. I have really tried to figure it all, but looking back the only things I can see that he has carried over to mlc are his anger, competitiveness, and conflict avoidance.
Losing mother can be for sure trigger for MLC, but not a cause. Mini stroke is definitely contribute that he start to feel even more scared. It is very hard for male that his wife making more money, or better carrier when he have personal crisis. Yes, they become very competitive to prove self that they are better then we are ! Because if they succeed they then feel better about self. Anger is common feeling for them. And conflict avoidance bring them in crisis.
Your husband have perfect storm.
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Well great. ::) The one thing he has to be perfect at. It figures. :P
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I know TMT that's why you have to try to stay away from him!
They will take anyone they can with them. I never realized I was dealing with a NPD person until I backed off and looked at the relationship.
A narcissist with an MLC..whew stay away from them.
The ex was in replay his entire life! MLC magnified it!
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THE CENTERING/INTEGRATING STAGE OF INDIVIDUATION
The most significant and interesting contribution of Jungian psychology to the idea of psychological development is what it says about the part of life that follows the second stage of individuation. This is where most other psychoanalytic theories stop. What is still left to do, they might ask, after a person has successfully passed over from the attitude of dependency upon nurturing environments in the first stage of psychological development and has taken up the responsibility of living like an adult in a world of other adults in the second stage? Is there anything more beyond the psychologically advanced stage of entering the father world of adaptation and adjustment and being willing and able to cope with reality? For the Jungian psychotherapist the answer is “yes”, because in fact many people enter Jungian therapy in the second half of life looking for something more than fine-tuning of their patriarchal attitudes and the further elimination of residues of childish complexes. They are often successful adults who have held jobs, raised families, succeeded in reaching many of their goals, and now wonder if this is all there is to life. It is at this point that Jungian reflection on the individuation process in the second half of life becomes relevant. This is the phase of psychological development described classically by Jung in such works as “A Study in the Process of Individuation”, when mandala symbolism, the religious function, and the search for individual meaning become important.
The task in this stage of life, if all has gone relatively well in earlier phases, is not to become a responsible member of the community and a relatively independent and self-sufficient personality (this has been achieved in the second stage), but rather to become a centered and whole individual who is related to the transcendent as well as the immediate concrete realities of human existence. For this, another level of development is called for.
The first separation was from the mother, initially from her body (the first birth), then from her nurturing parental psyche (a second birth). At that point the psychological individual stepped forth into the world. Now there is another passage, a third birth, when the ego puts away the primary importance given to the achievement of adaptation, which calls for conformity to the standards and expectations of the collective (the world of the “fathers”), and embarks upon the journey of becoming an individual. The second stage, a stage of conformity, is often entered, paradoxically enough, by violent acts of adolescent rebellion, undergirded by the energy of the hero archetype. The adolescent breaks out of the parental container with determined force.
The third stage, on the other hand, is usually entered into with a rather depressed and questioning attitude, as a person in the middle of life begins to shed the trappings of conformity and enters slowly and often painfully into a process of becoming born anew as a whole and integrated individual. Sometimes this stage is entered as the consequence of tragic loss that shatters fixed collective assumptions. Generally synchronicity (defined by Jung as “meaningful coincidence) plays an important role in the entry into and in the ongoing process of individuation in the third stage.
Entering the stage of centering and integrating means gradually abandoning the previous collective definitions of identity and persona and assuming an image of self that emerges from within. Of course this does not mean leaving collective reality behind. Social reality does not disappear from the ego’s horizon or concern, but coping with it and adapting to its demands absorb less energy. There is a shift of interest and emphasis, toward reaching out to dimensions of living that have less to do with survival and more to do with meaning. Spiritual life becomes more crucially important and individualized.
Much of the identity that is established in the second stage of individuation is derived from collective images and stereotypes, also from parental models. The persona assumed by the ego in the second stage is a structure offered by society and made of a socially constructed set of elements that more or less suit the individual. Personality in the second stage of individuation is largely a social construction. This persona is highly useful for adapting to cultural imperatives and expectations. In the third stage, the ego, which has taken on this persona and largely identified with it, begins to draw away and create a distinction between a true inner self and the social self that has been dominant. As the light between these two psychological structures widens, an element of choice enters with respect to what kind of person one is and is going to become. This new person is more unique and individual, less a social construction.
This does not mean that one can now become anything, or anyone, one wants to be or can imagine. Rather, the truth is that an underlying structure of the psyche – called by Jung the Self (capitalized to denote its transcendence and essential difference from the ego) – comes into play in a new way and takes over the dominant position formerly held by external authority, by the voice of reality and by the “father” and the social persona. The ego now begins to answer to an inner demand and call to obedience from the psyche, rather than primarily to an outer one derived from authorities in society. The new structure that emerges from the inner world of the psyche, in the form of dream images, intuitions, inspirations, remembered ambitions, fantasies, and a strong impulse toward personal meaning, gradually destroys and replaces the persona. Working to live and to survive is no longer sufficient; one must now find something that is worth living for, and this new direction must be tailor made to fit the individual. In fact, it grows out of the individual who is deeply and constructively individuating in the second half of life.
For someone entering upon this stage of development, psychotherapy is quite different from what it is for people who have not made it through the first two stages.
While everyone, no matter how developed or mature, shows some residual elements from the earlier stages of development – some borderline and narcissistic features, some degree of participation mystique with others and the environment, some lingering childishness and puerile qualities and defensiveness – these are not the paramount issues in therapy with a person in the third stage of individuation. What is central is, first, separating from the identification with the persona formed in the second stage, and then finding a personal center, a point of inner integrity that is free of the stereotypes of collective culture and based on intimations of the Self. What is aimed for is a degree of integration of the inner opposites inherent in the Self, which allows for striking a vital balance in ones everyday life. Jung speaks of integrating the shadow and relating in a new conscious way to the anima or animus.
Transference is fundamentally different, too, in the psychotherapy of people who are entering or pursuing further the third stage of individuation. The therapist is not consciously or unconsciously related to as nurturing mother or guiding father. Instead, the therapist is typically seen (truly or not) as a wisdom figure, as someone who has achieved individuality and wholeness and relates personally to the Self. This projection is cast upon the therapist because this is the unconscious content that the patient needs and must find a model for somewhere in the world at this stage of life. That job lands at the feet of the therapist. People look for, and seem to find, the models they need for their further growth in their therapists, and an image of psychological wholeness is what is now required by the psyche.
A wisdom figure is someone who is seen to have arrived at an inner center and lives out of the resource found there. It is not necessarily someone who has all the answers to life’s concrete problems. It is a person in whom we see containment of the opposites, who is able to remain intact and balanced in even the most splitting and tension-ridden situations, who maintains an even attitude of connection with others but also detachment from ego preferences. It is a person who has found the Self and lives in relation to that inner reality rather than seeking approval from others or being possessed by desire and attachment to egoistic goals. Most importantly, it is a person who shows spontaneity, freedom, and a distinctive personality. This person is vivid and displays a sense of uniqueness based upon having made many clear individual choices in life.
This image is what is found in the transference projection. Much of it is, of course, a projection based on unconscious patterns that are emerging in the field between patient and therapist. One can think of it as a sort of idealizing transference, but one that is grounded in the archetype of the Self rather than in the unconscious mother or father images.
The goal of this third stage of individuation is the inner union of pieces of the psyche that were divided and split off by earlier developmental demands and processes. In this stage of integration, a strong need arises to join the opposites of persona (good person) and shadow (bad person), of masculine and feminine, of child and adult, of right brain and left brain, of thinking and feeling, of introversion and extraversion. All of the undervalued pieces of potential development that were earlier separated from consciousness and repressed in the course of the first two stages of individuation, so that one could grow an ego and enter into relation to the world of reality in an adaptive way, now come back for integration. In those first two stages one typically becomes a certain psychological type, one identifies with one gender and one gender preference, one adopts a certain persona from among those offered by family and wider culture and identifies with it. In the centering/integrating stage, on the other hand, one reaches back and picks up the lost or denied pieces and weaves them into the fabric of the whole. In the end, nothing (or very little) that is human is foreign to the Self. And as the ego approximates the Self, it too feels less alienated from all of humanity and from the profound complexities of reality. In short, one becomes more accepting of complexity within and without.
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This, for me, explains the journey I am on. I was deeply influenced by my parents during my first adulthood and clung to unconscious behaviours that did not serve me, my true self. I made choices based upon survival, which job will pay reasonably well so that I can look after myself. No parents to bank role me so I could try what I truly wanted to do.
So birth is the first stage of individuation, adolescence is the birth of the second stage (first adulthood) and then midlife is the birth of the third (second adulthood) and individuation at midlife is taking steps to become the person you truly are.
This is what my MLCer said to me, he said he was the becoming the man he always should have been. However, he got together with a 23 year old, now 26, he is redoing his twenties with someone else. Is it possible to take this journey consciously, the third stage, but because there is trauma at other stages (for my H it is parting from the mother at four and then parents divorcing at 15 and so abandonment from the mother again and some rejection from the father who was starting again with a new family) the conscious decision to individuate gets messed up with the unconscious egoic drive? This is what RCR is saying MLC essentially is right????
A question a friend asked me the other day was, what if they go through the individuation process and just come out the other side with the other person? The pull of the LBS or family is not enough to bring them back because they have reconciled this was all meant to be for their journey? The model of family that they have experienced is one of break up, parents are 'happy' - kids are messed up but the MLCer has individuated and distanced himself from that pain and cannot see that he is doing the same to his children?
The ego now begins to answer to an inner demand and call to obedience from the psyche, rather than primarily to an outer one derived from authorities in society. The new structure that emerges from the inner world of the psyche, in the form of dream images, intuitions, inspirations, remembered ambitions, fantasies, and a strong impulse toward personal meaning, gradually destroys and replaces the persona. Working to live and to survive is no longer sufficient; one must now find something that is worth living for, and this new direction must be tailor made to fit the individual. In fact, it grows out of the individual who is deeply and constructively individuating in the second half of life.
It seems that MLCers who have abandoned are in a much better position to individuate successfully because they have the resources (my H used family money to change his career and life) and the time and the freedom to follow this path. But I suppose individuation is about the inner work and MLCers are too busy focusing on the ego and outside forces giving pleasure etc.
The LBS who has small children to care for, is left with no other choice than to work to live and survive again, although the inner urge is to seek meaningful work we have kids to house and feed and nurture and so, like adolescence our third birth is influenced/restricted by outside forces and we might not be truly free to become who we really are meant to be? Might be being a bit dramatic here, especially as the process is about the inner self???
Just a few questions that have come up for me around Jung's theories. I am aware that he started writing about individuation in 1916 so real life, as opposed the inner life, has changed significantly, people are having children later and so midlife individuation can occur when those children are still very young and in need of nurturing.
Found quite a good article by Murray Stein published in 2005 -
http://www.junginstitute.org/pdf_files/JungV7N2p1-14.pdf
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Thx for this amazing input, I had to read it a couple of times to understand. An some I stil don't get...
It makes me understand that it was al programmed and non of us wer able to save them from this journey, they are damaged. And have to find out al about them self
My W is had a bad childhood, really bad.....
I notice al her changes now I know we're it come from, I probely would have reacted different, if I know all about MLC.
I have a question about replay.
My w pusched the pause bottun, w left on 24/10/2013. Fild in for divorce selling the hous. Blaming angry and scared. Ther was OM W left OM and came back on 16/05/2014. After 8 months.....stop to the divorce dident want the House on the market. W moved back in, just to leaf again after 7 months.....
is it possible that they can push the pause button? Was she a ware that I was getting on with my life our just to confirm that here first choice was the right one. She moved back in with OM. Told me theat she stil had feelings for him....in May w told me that they dident fit toughter at no point, now it's here soulmate, that's what w tells. Maybe is this here outcome and w is on the outher side and OM is the right one. Our is her journy not ended?
Can they push on pause ?
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Re the "pause button"... Progress is not always linear. I think that's why they sometimes come back only to leave again. People like options and when we begin to move on i think they sometimes panic knowing an option (control) is being removed. Just my opinion.
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Hi Brave heart,
I believe that they can push a pause button, or more likely they will run, gets scared run back and stay while functioning as normal. Run a bit further, get scared, run back, then run again and run, run, run.
Mine is a long story but that’s how I see it with my xW anyway.
Lanzo
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Thx for the replay!
I do notice that here behavior is diverent this time more calm, and monster is les, no w don't contact me any more, maybe w is sky high with OM.
The day w came back was first like she never left. We had our bad moments and did talk. After rethinking her return ther was actualy never real remors. Now I see that.
W started to change in December. Started with subtile comment on me. Talked to my friends that I don't have a own life, worked long hours, always on the run. Very actif on FB, even friends told me that w is posting strange things. Her sexual behavior changed in a more explicit way.w starts to get les and les sleep maybe 3-5 hours a night. Gets agitated, a louder voice and angry. Angry to her college friends, strang meaning on daily situations.
I think w is aware of her behavior, a couple of days befor bd w try to tel me something. In 2013 w sent me a email I try to translate.
" I love you with al my heart, but gif me the time to cut out the rotten peaces. I see the beauty of us and I'm gone do something with it. Ignore my demons. Deep in me ther is something beautiful.
This time she hold my hand real strong and told me
" you have to take care for me when I'm down, pick me up when I'm falling"
And the song text from Sam smith" could you love me again"
Like she know what's gone happens....our is it my imaginagen our ther way to start playing us?
Someone with the same expierince?
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Yeah my experience was quite similar. I think they know they are falling from grace and just don't have the self control to stop it. I'll never understand... I watched my w completely melt down and it seemed like it was almost against her own will. Like yours she hardly slept... 2-3 hours a night from someone that used to 8-10 hrs and nap on weekends. It was like she was posessed. Very hard to watch, still haunts me.
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TooManyTears - have you read about different insecure attachment styles? My H falls completely in line anxious/insecure attachment style or Fear insecure attachment style.
There is also Avoidant insecure attachment.
Of course all of the traits are severely enhanced in early BD during monster, but my H has always had these issues. but it also talks about how it affects the spouse.
All very interesting, and has helped me detach as he cannot change or be happy with ANYONE until he addresses his childhood and then learns about secure attachment. A lot of work for them.
Does anyone know a good source for this information?