[Onward]

 

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. 

In a weird way, it's good to remember these things. It wasn't the marriage, it's his crisis.

[Velika]

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?

[Velika]

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. 

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.

[terrified_in_TN]

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

[POOWOO]

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

[sada]

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!

[MyBrainIsBroken]

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. 

[OffRoad]

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.

[MyBrainIsBroken]

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.