Midlife Crisis: Support for Left Behind Spouses
Archives => Archived Topics => Topic started by: UnconditionalLove on February 23, 2016, 02:43:02 PM
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I wanted to throw this out there and start a discussion on our Midlife and if there is a pattern here.
As I am working through stuff I now see that although I was married to an amazing person or so I thought I am now seeing that maybe he wasn't as amazing as I want to admit as people are trying to get me to understand that nice people doesn't alway line up to a good partnership. He was always care, loving, more affectionate then I, I would say. I guess I wrapped that up to what I am missing about him but
My EX H was a quiet soul introvert some would say. Looking back I now see that he might have been considered a person with big dreams but didn't really know what his dream were. I would ask him all the time what his passion was. He just could not answer that. Never!
He took on likes of people around him. AKA I loved music, so did he. I had ideas so he followed them. He got involved with things his friends did and they became his hobby. Tennis, Nascar, golf, etc.
I realized that his friends called him - he never called them or called to go out to do anything. He would just spend time with them when they called. Even his best friend he did this with. I'm guessing he never missed anyone when we moved to a new state. Out of site out of mind.
He allowed me to do everything and wasn't emotionally there for me. When we struggled financially he never helped, never said anything I always had to find the answers. I remember talking to him about it excited to be over a hump financially and the excited wasn't there for him. He just never responded emotionally to anything.
Even in business stuff I would step in and have to talk to investor, or business people as through I was his mother telling them EX H would not respond to this and I would make the deals.
The bottom line is...is this a trait? Are we the LBS all the same person as in we ran all the business, we thought our MLC loved everything we did only to find out that his life was really kind of a lie and he just didn't know what kind of eggs he like? Is this illness only hitting the same kind of people? People who never really knew who they were ever and that puts them into crisis then the blame us for everything because we were controlling everything because we had to?
As people around me have tried talking to me about what is a partnership I'm wondering if my normal wasn't normal and if this MLC is about the same personality types.
So with that being said I would like to start this discussion on personal likes of our MLC person to see if indeed crisis seems to come in certain personalities and other personalities not so much or is it really about issues from the past?
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As people around me have tried talking to me about what is a partnership I'm wondering if my normal wasn't normal and if this MLC is about the same personality types.
Well I don't agree with there being a "Normal" each person has different traits in them and have an idea on what their ideal relationship partner will be. This may be completely different than what others expect. My wife and my relationship is very different from what the "typical" happy marriage is but also shares some similarities. So it's hard to decide what normal is.
I think MLC has very much to do with the past and FOO issues. After research on the topic I can see clearly the issues my W struggled with and how they now effect her in her crisis. Even the behavior you describe of you H sounds a little like FOO issues. Just my opinion though.
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I was always warned that it was the quiet ones that you had to watch. My friends said this over and over and I thought it was a ridiculous generalization. Well, the jokes on me! Turns out they were right. Mr. Quiet Guy was quietly accumulating mental strikes against his life and dreaming of greener pastures. All under the guise of Mr. Nice Family Man.
Maybe the nice guy is in there somewhere, buried under layers of anger, insecurity, ungratefulness, and self-centered arrogance. Maybe this is natures way of releasing them from their own pain. Unfortunately, they drag their family into their drama and it all becomes one big mess.
I never saw it coming. But I should have.
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My EX H was a quiet soul introvert some would say. Looking back I now see that he might have been considered a person with big dreams but didn't really know what his dream were. I would ask him all the time what his passion was. He just could not answer that. Never!
He took on likes of people around him. AKA I loved music, so did he. I had ideas so he followed them. He got involved with things his friends did and they became his hobby. Tennis, Nascar, golf, etc.
I realized that his friends called him - he never called them or called to go out to do anything. He would just spend time with them when they called. Even his best friend he did this with. I'm guessing he never missed anyone when we moved to a new state. Out of site out of mind.
He allowed me to do everything and wasn't emotionally there for me. When we struggled financially he never helped, never said anything I always had to find the answers. I remember talking to him about it excited to be over a hump financially and the excited wasn't there for him. He just never responded emotionally to anything.
Wow. This sounds just like my H! :o :o Our counselor said he was "Passionately Passionless"; said he worked really hard at not feeling anything!
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Dang. That is so familiar. It wasn't until I started to relax because the kids were older and I no longer did it all that I realized my h didn't have any real personality that belonged to him. He was a mixture of all of the people he had met over the years. I think he is now trying all kinds of different foods because someone or other has told him X is good, so he HAS to go out and try it. Now he's trying to replicate his father's accomplishments.
But in his case, the Foo issue is that his mother doesn't allow anyone to have their own opinion. With a smile on her face, she tells people that they shouldn't feel bad it could be so much worse (jnvalidating), X is the ONLY kind of *whatever* to buy, if you think the USA could improve on anything, you should move to another country, etc. You aren't allowed to think differently. How can that not screw you up?
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I have wondered this too.
It seems like there is a "type" of person that this happens to.
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It is my experience and perspective that most people; LBS and MLCer fit at minimum two types.
Quiet, appearing agreeable but rather passive aggressive, conflict avoidant.
Assertive and leaning toward arrogant, a fixer, somewhat controlling,and tends to take on the lion's share of responsibilities for life and relationship.
Either partner can become resentful.
At first this works, both individuals shore up the others deficiencies. As time goes on the other perceives behaviours that were once thought as beneficial as now intolerable.
Resentment will kill any relationship.
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Unconditionalove: I LOVE this topic that you have introduced and I have often pondered a similar question.I could have written your words . I will be following this with great interest .. and hope to discuss it with my therapist.
I remember when the therapist 1st said to me ( in private ) , "your husband is having an identity crisis ". I clearly remember thinking " identity crisis?? I AM his identity ". Just the most bizarre thought process , but , I have always known I could "pick his moods ". Whatever mood I was in, he followed. Whatever opinion I had , he had the same one. Whatever "sayings" I used , I could hear him incorporating them into his discussions. He often gave advise to people .. word for word what he heard on tv or read somewhere. I always knew that about him. He does not have a "personality of his own" and I have recently described him as "hollow". ( god forgive me). The identity tht he "lost" was not his , but pieces of people he "copied" his life. If you have no valid / good role model to teach you and love you ( especially emotionally).. then you have nothing. I know that the extremely traumatic loss of his mother at age 3 , "seered" him into that emotional level and he missed some important developemental stages .. his life was about " surviving " his childhood. My husband has no passion of his own, no deep hobbies or interests, no dreams... he will follow where I lead. I am hoping to see changes as he goes thru "individuation" process with his therapist. This has changed to a certain degree but I can still "bend me, shape me, anyway you want me"... and I hate that.It scares the life out of me . I want a partner not a clone. We have had many many discussions about this ... cautiously , as I sense such a childlike presence that I am very very reluctant to hurt. I see a child in his face ( truly I do) as he searches for answers of his own.I feel incredible compassion for himat those times.. like a mother to a hurt child. Sometimes I think I stay in this marriage as it would feel like child " abandonement" to leave him. Yikes .. that is so warped . !
I absolutely knew , he was not "normal". But his fantastic qualities were lengthy and there was 5 KIDS .. I was not going to leave a marriage and destroy so many people because I was not living a romantic "soap opera". He was emotionally unresponsive/ distant and I could never get what I needed ( I see in hindsight ) and I was frustrated , angry and often cold towards him. BUT, he was a great dad, an extremely hard worker, totally reliable, a fixer of everything that ever went wrong, very very good looking muscle man , friendly , affectionate .. a pleaser, a giver. Everyone loved him.
Quote : He allowed me to do everything and wasn't emotionally there for me. When we struggled financially he never helped, never said anything I always had to find the answers. I remember talking to him about it excited to be over a hump financially and the excited wasn't there for him. He just never responded emotionally to anything.
I could have written this 100 % . I remember at bomb drop , in monster mode .. he said " you have controlled everything including ME and if am f-ing done with it !"REALLY??? . HE controlled everything by his silence, his refusal to help, to leave all the decisions to me, to fail to participate as a partner , to offer no opinion and then blame when something went wrong. We are still muddling this out in therapy.. I will not return to a marriage where he was absent.
The bottom line is...is this a trait? Are we the LBS all the same person as in we ran all the business, we thought our MLC loved everything we did only to find out that his life was really kind of a lie and he just didn't know what kind of eggs he like? Is this illness only hitting the same kind of people? People who never really knew who they were ever and that puts them into crisis then the blame us for everything because we were controlling everything because we HAD TO!. BRILLIANT!. I feel every word of this ... I have said this almost word for word in therapy. YOU dare blame me for PULLING YOUR weight because YOU would not or could not??? Like I said ... still in therapy and this frequently ( always actually ) comes up.
I think you are on to something and I will be following along. I have more to say , as I do understand the reasons for "the way he is" far far better ... but I will stop for now. I thank you ..
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See if this fits...
http://www.heartspiritmind.com/relationships/relationships-with-emotionally-immature-people/
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But in his case, the Foo issue is that his mother doesn't allow anyone to have their own opinion. With a smile on her face, she tells people that they shouldn't feel bad it could be so much worse (jnvalidating), X is the ONLY kind of *whatever* to buy, if you think the USA could improve on anything, you should move to another country, etc. You aren't allowed to think differently. How can that not screw you up?
Yes and yes! This is my MIL to a "T"!!!!!
Is this illness only hitting the same kind of people? People who never really knew who they were ever and that puts them into crisis then the blame us for everything because we were controlling everything because we HAD TO!. BRILLIANT!. I feel every word of this
I relate to this as well. Its like an epiphany for me! Yes, yes!
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Is this illness only hitting the same kind of people? People who never really knew who they were ever and that puts them into crisis then the blame us for everything because we were controlling everything because we HAD TO!. BRILLIANT!. I feel every word of this
I relate to this as well. Its like an epiphany for me! Yes, yes!
Is this illness only hitting the same kind of people? People who never really knew who they were ever and that puts them into crisis then the blame us for everything because we were controlling everything because we HAD TO!. BRILLIANT!. I feel every word of this
I relate to this as well. Its like an epiphany for me! Yes, yes!
Yes, this is pretty much exactly my situation, too. And H does have major FOO issues. Unfortunately, he's stuck in the victim 'this is why I am the way I am' stage, with no interest in what to do about it.
H kept saying he didn't know who he was, was a people pleaser who only did what others wanted, was just an accessory in my life, needed to go work on himself, then the marriage. Heaped tons of blame & accusations of not respecting him, being controlling, unappreciative (though when asked couldn't give examples), cried the blues of how unhappy he'd been for years to his harem of female EAs from work & shut down relationships with any of our friends & family who tried to talk sense to him.
The moment he left he said it didn't take him long to figure himself out, he just needed to get away from me. ::). And there's no interest in working on the marriage. He walked & never looked back. It's still all about him.
One of the more memorable bits of projection was, after BDing me, weeks of blame, bouts of angry spew that included physical intimidation (totally shocking to me) moving out and throwing things at the walls while doing so, he told me he felt like a victim of emotional abuse. :o
In a weird way, it's good to remember these things. It wasn't the marriage, it's his crisis.
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It is my experience and perspective that most people; LBS and MLCer fit at minimum two types.
Quiet, appearing agreeable but rather passive aggressive, conflict avoidant.
Assertive and leaning toward arrogant, a fixer, somewhat controlling,and tends to take on the lion's share of responsibilities for life and relationship.
This sums up in my experience, unfortunately.
Are MLCers often the baby of the family? I started to think maybe my H grew up expecting everyone to read his mind since that was his experience with two older siblings.
Interesting questions and makes me wonder: How to reverse this dynamic, flip psychologically once MLC kicks off?
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One of the more memorable bits of projection was, after BDing me, weeks of blame, bouts of angry spew that included physical intimidation (totally shocking to me) moving out and throwing things at the walls while doing so, he told me he felt like a victim of emotional abuse. :o
I could have written everything you wrote Onward, but this happened exactly. I "emotionally abused" him by telling him when I was upset about things in my life that bothered me. Including when my dad was going through cancer treatments and when I got a radiation burn after a botched CT scan.
It made me think that beneath his easygoing veneer was a very fragile person. Very sad for us and especially for our children.
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It is my experience and perspective that most people; LBS and MLCer fit at minimum two types.
Quiet, appearing agreeable but rather passive aggressive, conflict avoidant.
Assertive and leaning toward arrogant, a fixer, somewhat controlling,and tends to take on the lion's share of responsibilities for life and relationship.
Either partner can become resentful.
At first this works, both individuals shore up the others deficiencies. As time goes on the other perceives behaviours that were once thought as beneficial as now intolerable.
Resentment will kill any relationship.
DING DING DING!!! We have a winner!!!!!!
Seriously, I don't know if certain personality types are more prone to MLC or not, but JD's post hit home in my sitch...
Recap: Guess you could say I went thru my own little MLC...not really, but I went to go see my old high school flame once behind my spouse's back. She found out. Five years later she is with OM. She of course later told me he was her "exit strategy". (AFAIK they are still together)
Anyway, our personality types:
The way UL describes her Ex describes me to a T. Terribly introverted. Dangerously conflict avoidant to the point of placing myself in uncomfortable situations and not having the courage to stand up for myself. <----I'm still stuck here, and it bothers me greatly.
Anyway, the STBX-Extraverted, life of the party, "Dominant" to the point of everyone knowing she wore the pants in the family, has an extremely difficult time saying "I'm sorry", waaay too proud, and has an unnatural need to "have the last word."
Want to add, that she *used* to control the finances, paid the bills, etc. Somewhere down the line, and I can't pinpoint exactly when, I took over and did all the finances. I'm guessing, but probably when I started making way more money. I also was "the fixer", as in I don't pay anyone to fix ANYTHING. I took care of all the vehicle & household maintenance.
Our financial roles also reversed sometime in our relationship. I used to spend, SPEND, SPEND. She used to save. She ALWAYS had money, even long after I was broke. Later our roles reversed...as I was getting older, I wanted to be able to *try* to maybe retire someday, even though I had saved nothing for retirement. She wanted to start "living NOW", and not wait.
One thing about my Ex though-behind closed doors I don't think she was nowhere near as confident and independent as she leads on to be. She also seems to be somewhat of a chameleon: Making part of (if not completely) her identity the same as the identity of the person she is involved with. I think she deep down has some deep seated abandonment issues, and really is afraid of being on her own. I think that is why she stayed with me until OM.
-T
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Yep sounds familiar my H used to enter as I call other peoples bubbles and then be all about them and what they did before he left I knew he was not quite right and would always ask what is it you want from life he could never answer me.
It's like he doesn't know who he is and keeps trying to be something else or someone else depending who he is with even the affair was taken from a friends bubble
He just floats from bubble to bubble
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Yes his lack of self-awareness is a HUGE problem for my H. He couldn't describe himself if his life depended on it. He has even stated before that he doesn't know who he is.
Great thread!
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My wife told both me and D35 that she didn't want to be a wife and a mother and a grandmother, she wanted to be W but she didn't know who W was. I thought when she said it that a mother and a grandmother is exactly who she is and what's wrong with that?
One of the things that gives me hope is that the day may come when she realizes that a mother and a grandmother is who she wants to be and then maybe she'll decide she wants the whole package back that she walked away from. I also believe in unicorns and fairy tales. I'm starting to lose my faith in happy endings. :(
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I get the not wanting to only be a mother (I'm not a grandmother yet). When you have kids that need a lot of help in school, you don't have time for anything for yourself. It's get the kids up, clean up the dishes from what H made after everyone was done with dinner the night before, take kids to school (for me a 1 hour round trip), do: some laundry, clean, mow, take cars for oil changes and repairs, repair items around the house, shop for groceries, sundries or clothing (S16 is now 6'4"-we went through a lot of clothes and shoes), paint, repair clothes, *whatever* and there was always something, pick up kids at least a 1 hour round trip depending on the year, help with homework, make dinner, clean up from dinner, pack lunches, help with more homework (which was never done before 10PM-a teacher's version of 10 minutes of homework is over an hour for a dyslexic child), sit and watch TV with H until midnight, because that was actually the only time he gave me (when I type that now, I cringe), pass out start again. (And no, there was no help from H. I figured if he was out making money, this was my job. What did I know?) The only thing I did for "myself" was be a Girl Scout leader (yeah, I know....) I wanted to be ME again: creative, adventurous, excited about every day instead of dreading the next one.
So being able to revert back to me as the kids got older was beyond amazing. Which may have been part of what contributed to MLC. I wasn't "mom" anymore. Since I worked part time, H no longer reaped the benefits of my "momness". I left everyone else's plates where they left them and stopped asking them to pick them up. The kids figured it out. H did not. No laundry? Have at it, or I'll get to it when I get to it. Car needs an oil change? You drive it, you get it changed. The kids each started making one meal a week. All three of us traded dish duty. H? HE didn't do dishes, he WORKED all day. (Guess what he does now voluntarily? Yep, dishes.)
But now that H wasn't "dad" anymore, he didn't know who he was/is. I've watched him try on personas like clothes, but they only last a few days. He doesn't even give himself time to see if he likes whatever he's trying before moving on to the next persona. It's pretty fascinating to watch, actually, if it weren't my H.
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Yeah, I could get the not wanting to be mom anymore except at BD our daughters were 34 and 31 and GD hadn't lived with us for 3 years. If she wanted to figure out who she was she had lots of opportunity because she had lots of free time and I pretty much let her do whatever she wanted but that was usually whatever I was doing. And I usually tried to do things that I knew she liked.