[Velika]

I was trying to post the message below, but basically feels similar to what Ready To Fix posted:

I don't agree that mirror-work gives negative connotations - maybe we're using it in the wrong context.

I think mirror-work is just that - looking at oneself in the mirror and deciding what "looks" good and what could be changed to "look" better.
It's looking inside oneself for the good and the bad.
Of course, we don't need to work on the good, because it's something we want to keep.
Perhaps we need to hone it, or perfect it, but basically not the nitty-gritty get down-dirty changes that we need to make for those issues that we don't like reflecting back at us.

When YOU look in the mirror... i hope you like what YOU see.

It's because in the English language it is usually not meant in a supportive and gentle way. "Self-reflection" is good advice once someone is not in an acutely traumatized state.

Most people are in an acutely traumatized state because they have often had their entire self and life destroyed by someone they loved and trusted, often with no empathy. That person is often literally blaming them, saying that their behavior is their fault.

To tell someone in this state to do "mirror work" is, in my opinion, deeply inappropriate and coopting the language and ambiguous messaging of abuse. People here come at all stages of recovery. I think there is no way to be too careful when it comes to general instructions and language.

There is much kinder language to use. I don't agree with the way you end your post. Some people on here are not dealing with abuse or mistreatment for the first time. They have often taken on other people's mistreatment as somehow reflective of them, not because they are weak but as a way to preserve a loving, trusting aspect of themselves. Only someone with a lot of sensitivity and awareness and genuine compassion can help them out of this.

Tough love is okay when there is a relationship of trust, goodwill, caring, and a true relationship where both people are known well to each other. It's not appropriate absent this.

[Couragedearheart]

Mirror work for me.......was this beautiful and precious gift. I initially was resentful of the idea that I had “work” to do. But the work was to recognize my own wrong beliefs......and in that was a lot of freedom. Freedom from blaming myself for someone else’s choices, freedom from having to effect or control the outcome, freedom to just focus on and heal me, freedom to emotionally detach, freedom to put me first, freedom to not own other peoples outcomes, or emotions or actions. I learned how to effectively communicate, how to have boundaries to protect me, to assert myself, to ask for what I wanted and needed. It increased my empathy and my capacity to see the hurt in others and not feel so alone. It helped me to be a better parent, better sister and better friend. It’s allowing me to transform my friendships in a way that lets me connect with people and feel heard and loved and understood. It helped me to find what I truly want and gave me language and skills and self worth enough to ask for it.....and to give it to myself.

I think if the purpose of the mirror work is to save your marriage then it’s a waste unless and until you restore the marriage.
If the purpose of the mirror work is to save yourself......then that time and effort can never be wasted.

Just my 2 cents

[Treasur]

Is my fractured marriage a fallout of MLC, or, was it a catalyst that helped launch MLC in my spouse?

This was a really uncomfortable question for me and I bridled at it a bit tbh.
So I decided to use the old rule of 3 lol to figure out why it felt so uncomfortable.

I think it is a question that is at the root of many of the things we LBS struggle with. I think it also is underpinned by a bunch of other things we may or may not individually believe about our m, our spouse, ourselves, MLC etc. Things that as I think Anon said most of us chewed on for a very long time, often fruitlessly. And the word 'catalyst' implies some responsibility if not even some fault perhaps.

Chicken and egg. Cause and effect. My perception vs someone else's perception.

And there is a tension in looking at an 'abnormal' situation through a rational 'normal' lens maybe, so a possibility of gaslighting myself about it and/or denying realities.
As well as a situation where I was gaslighted and emotionally abused by someone I trusted so the risk of a skewed sense of responsibility. Or a normal traumatic response that perhaps if i caused something I can change or stop it happening.
Complicated.

My most honest answer is that I don't entirely know.

My spouse fractured our m by withdrawing from it and then broke our m bc he was not happy with it.
I don't know what caused his unhappiness or why destroying our relationship was the answer bc he didn't say. So I don't know from his POV whether it was a cause or an effect, or if it was a catalyst to his crisis. Even assuming that it was an MLC type crisis is not a proven fact. Perhaps it was as simple as him preferring ow so needing to end our m in order to be with her, that I was in denial in seeing her as a symptom of a crisis and she is indeed his real and better matched second love. Sucks but Idk.
But I think rationally from his POV it was part of the context at least bc of the choices he made.
My h was evidently unhappy and evidently believed that ending our m would make him happier.
I don't even know if that belief has turned out to be true.

What I think I can know? I think a m can be fractured unilaterally. I think we shared the responsibility for our m until my h decided to withdraw, stop talking to me and have an affair. These actions broke our m and they were not my actions and I had no control over them. Chicken or egg? Idk. But even now I see nothing in our m or in my behaviour that created a fractured m until my h chose to break it. By the time I knew he was unhappy it was already irreparable. And nothing in our m, me or my behaviour in our m warranted the cruelty, deceit or abuse with which I was treated. That I do know.

So it is quite possible it seems to me that my h had/has one perspective and I have another.
And they are irreconcilable.

I do think our m, and our life, were under pressure from a tough set of life events that affected both of us, that's true. And I don't think our marriage was perfect bc neither of us were perfect. My h was always given to conflict avoidance, procrastination and had some unresolved FOO stuff, true too. I was not controlling or a super-fixer but over time bc I saw him as more fragile emotionally I think I did mind read and did not always put myself as an equal first, true too. I was naive and perhaps arrogant about his FOO damage or how much he valued me and our m, true too. And much as I respected a lot about him - qualities that completely disappeared post BD - a part of me did not respect what I saw as a kind of neediness in him, true too. And it was very hard to respect the post BD version bc to be frank he became a pretty lousy kind of human being. And self-evidently our beliefs about m, love, friendship, respect, integrity and family were no longer the same. But I did not imagine who my h was or how he behaved for many years. The unknown I suppose is which version is the more 'real' one and I don't know that either.

So was our m fractured before my h decided to withdraw from it and then destroy it?
From my POV, no it was not but it was under pressure from life events. From what I guess was his, probably yes. But I honestly can't know his POV bc he decided not to share it with me then or since. The Gottmann list of the Four Apocalyptic killer apps of a marriage - Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling? My h brought all four into our m; i perhaps added Defensiveness post BD to be fair. My best sense with hindsight is that my m fractured bc my h decided to fracture it. He did so bc he was unhappy. I don't know what caused his unhappiness bc he did not say. My interpretation of events is that he fractured in some way before our m did, but I could be wrong and he may see it quite differently.

So what is the true answer to the question? I don't know if the answer needs to include both people in the marriage. I do know that, hard as I have looked, I have never been able to see a bad marriage before it took a sudden left turn or any big lessons to learn from how I loved my h or treated him in our m that would cause me to do anything significantly different in a new relationship. My POV and that of others who knew us well was that it was a strong loving pretty healthy relationship until my h decided it wasn't. He changed and I did not.

The 'mirror work' idea can be a double-edged sword I think, causing us sometimes to inadvertently think that if we change x, our spouses attitude will change. To believe two dissonant things....that our spouse had an internal crisis we did not cause and that our behaviour as a spouse caused it. I don't believe that in my situation tbh. My h decided that our m was worthless and that I deserved to be treated the way he treated me bc that was how he saw it. I don't know why but I am quite sure that neither me or our m deserved that. If the roles had been reversed, I would have been grateful to be treated in the way I treated my then h for the first 18 months or so and I simply can't conceive of treating him as cruelly as he treated me. I wouldn't treat a stranger that way tbh bc i never lost my sense of human empathy or felt a need to destroy someone else to make myself happy. My h evidently did and I accept no responsibility for that at all and I do see it as a sign of a damaged person.

My 'mirror work' was less about my m tbh and more about navigating my way through grief, trauma and incomprehensible abuse. The changes I needed to make were about surviving that with my sanity and spirit intact rather than finding unaddressed pre-BD issues or unresolved FOO stuff of my own. The way my h behaved was undoubtedly part of a catalyst for my own crisis for sure....but, even with a rigorous eye, I honestly can't see anything in me or our relationship that was a catalyst to whatever his crisis was. But I accept that it was a context and I accept that my h was unhappy and I did not know. But it doesn't feel right to take responsibility for things I did not know when someone else did not talk....I would have had to be a champion mind reader for that lol. And I would have to see myself as some kind of super responsible ultimate fixer  And my experience was that whatever the cause was, nothing I said or did or did not do made any difference at all.

So, on balance, I think my m was not perfect and I think it fractured bc my h decided to fracture and then destroy it. I assume bc he was unhappy and I assume bc he believed that me/our m was the cause of his unhappiness. Was he right and/or thinking in a 'temporarily' skewed way bc he was in crisis? Idk. My unhappiness came largely as an effect of his choices and behaviour towards me. That was 'right' as my POV based on my experience and (albeit a long road) a temporary one too I suppose.

The question behind the question I guess is why it matters to me or not. What I can usefully do with any answer I can come up with. My m is over, it ended in a traumatic and incomprehensible way, my h is long gone, remarried (so I guess does not believe that m per se was the problem, just being married to me lol) and there is nothing left between us to do anything useful with. As Nah's book title says, He Never Said A Word.  ....so my answer to the question is also a function of where I stand (if you will pardon the pun!). All I can use the question for is to find a way to explain my story that I can make some kind of peace with. I think if I had a live in MLCer or was still under attack from one or still hoping for some kind of repair to our relationship, I might answer the question differently or my answer might matter in a different way.

Is my fractured marriage a fallout of MLC, or, was it a catalyst that helped launch MLC in my spouse?
I don't know
But I do know that my m was fractured and then destroyed bc my h chose to fracture it by withdrawing and then destroy it by having an affair and treating me with contempt and indifference as a human being.
And that it is over and irreparable and I may never know the two part truth of why.
Finding a way to accept that - with all it implied - was my mirror work and far from easy.
And accepting too that my h no longer brought anything good or healthy that I should want in my life regardless of the relationship I'd had with him before or my feelings about him. Also not easy but healthy, and why Standing made no sense to me by 2017 bc part of my 'mirror work' was that I deserved better and could not influence him to behave better so NC and turning away was my only sane choice.

What I DO know is that my m ended in a horrible WTF way bc my h chose to do it that way, that he is a vanished stranger now and his happiness is simply no longer my business. And that I am not yet happy in my current life, although I am not unhappy, and  I would like to feel happy and at ease again as I used to do before life blew up. And that the worst is done and all in the rear view mirror now.


I'd be quite interested, Acorn, given your perspective and your situation, how you would answer the question yourself now? What prompted you to pose the question?  Or indeed if your h has ever shared his answer with you as part of your shared repair work?

[barbiedoll]

I had the opportunity to ask my husband this question. It was difficult for me to do that as it is highly uncomfortable, emotionally risky and has been one of the unrelenting issues for me in attempting to reconnect . I can be highly reactive to feeling any sort of "blame".  It has calmed down over the years but is not gone and there is nothing that will trigger me into fight or flight faster than perceiving that I or my marriage was to blame for his choices and actions. I can "feel it in my body" anytime it comes to the surface. That alone is an indication that I still having healing work to do.

My husband came home from seeing a counsellor weeks after BD is 2014. I had been waiting for him . It was a beautiful hot summer evening , I had lit candles on the deck and was all pampered with a silk nightie and anticipating something "different" ...maybe my old husband would show up. He was so arrogant , so "sure of himself" , so cruel and unreachable.  We chatted and he looked at me with such contempt and said " Just so you know, I have been trying to leave you for many years . Finally have had enough and I am done with all this sh$t".  If I had a way to describe the utter shock..it was like I was hit by lightening and he was the bolt-thrower. I will never forget the physical pins and needles all over my body, the world just folding in on me  and inability to even utter a word. I actually remember touching the table to see if I could feel it. Was I awake?. It was a life changing sentence ...I cannot express the damage that string of words created. I do believe it was the moment of PTSD rooting in my heart. I had NO idea . He went on the "blame" me for having a "child centered marriage " and that I was never a good wife or partner, that I controlled his life, that he was my "meal ticket" and that I could NEVER love him the way he needed to be loved. He went on to tell me he was a "lone wolf" and the time to" learn to live alone " was long overdue and he was looking at apartments etc. Sex with me was about "duty-sex" ..not desire sex . It escalated and he shoved the table into me . When I went to leave ….he grabbed me and pushed me against the side of the deck and held me there. He told me he never loved me ...ever , and I needed to face the fact that I am an impossible "never happy" b!tc# that no man would want . He was shaking with rage. I had spit all over my glasses . I wondered if the neighbour would call the police. In a 30 year marriage, he had never ever touched me in anger , NEVER touched any of his daughters and never displayed any kind of anger ...period. in that short exchange he did more damage than I will ever be able to express ...my history, my trust, my instincts , my marriage , all of it was destroyed. He was a stay at home monster MLC'er for 6 months . He blamed , raged and threatened until I threw him out . He then blamed me for that .." you threw me out when I was most vulnerable". He is a big guy over 6 foot , 220 lbs . I did not need any army to throw him out ...he ran like a rabbit in under 10 minutes . He wanted to leave but wanted to blame me ...so he did. All of this, months of abuse and not 1 clue he was actually having an affair. Blame cut a deep bleeding wound in me.

To be honest, I had always been sensitive to what must be "my fault", so it hit a place that was already sensitive to hurt. I had taken on a role that many mothers do. Any of my daughters failed at something, were inappropriate, having problems...well, it must be because I am a shi$$y mother. And there is 5 of them in this "child-centered marriage", so the self-imposed burden was heavy at times. I have struggled with this many times. Society seems to deem women responsible for family dynamics, relationships and success of marriages...while men are providers, financial responsibilities etc. So I also blamed myself for what appeared to be a failed marriage ...for the 2nd time. I already had a pre-existing issue with feeling blamed .

Is my fractured marriage a fallout of MLC, or, was it a catalyst that helped launch MLC in my spouse?

.

We talked at length about this and as I said ..risky to bring this up. It was likely one of the best conversations I have had with him in a very long time. Having said that, I need to acknowledge something that happens to me ( and him I think) that make conversations risky . Courage. I have a highly toned extremely sensitive "spidey-sense " as many anxious-pursuers have . I am susceptible to react to hidden-undercurrents that I am not in control of and often to do know what I am reacting to at the time ( I have learned what they are now...for the most part). I can react to a change in his posture ( if he moves in the chair in a way that looks like he is leaving) it hits some uncomfortable place of abandonment. He is leaving. Or, I can feel this as control..."you do not get to decide when conversations are over!". If he yawns..I can feel this as "hear we go again.. or, it was no big deal, everyone has affairs". If he even looks at the TV channel changer...there will be a reaction inside of me. If he takes too long to respond?  I feel that as avoidance or that he is lying. All these subtle undercurrents can alter conversations drastically ...and not in a good way. I must keep my voice almost monotone ..otherwise he reacts to feeling "attacked" and shuts down . I can not put anything down "roughly" ...like close the computer and he sees it as "slamming"...and reacts to what he perceives as anger. Its a the residue of PTSD, hidden places that still hurt ...it is horribly difficult to get thru some conversations.

Regardless...it takes courage to talk sometimes. We do not want to "poke the PTSD", that we BOTH have.  He does not believe "for a second" that our marriage was a catalyst or the reason for his MLC. Not for one second...and he if very adamant. He says he has learned a lot in therapy as far as what happened to him internally, emotionally and mentally ...and none of it was about our marriage...or me. If he had have been a single man ..this still would have happened. If he had an absolutely perfect marriage , this still would have happened. He says "he has been taught" in therapy all about the repercussions of his FOO issues and had they played out in his crisis at the age of 55. These issues were always there...long before he ever met me. He was destined to "crash and burn" and is not sure what ( if anything) could have prevented that . He believed "at the time" that everything I said to him had " 2 meanings". He spun every single word I said in to a "negative" inside his head and that I was trying to "trick and manipulate " him into doing everything my way. It was about control ...when he was out of control. It was about false perceptions, chronic negatives from me, his boss, his co-workers ..even his daughters. It was about suppressed rage from decades of abuse as a child floating to the top of his life to be dealt with and no amount of work, money, avoidance ...would make them lay dormant any longer. It was his time to reconcile his pain. He believes we had a good marriage...some troubles along the way but nothing that ever ever would have catapulted him into a deep identity crisis ..the map for that had been brewing all his life. He believes he should have been hospitalized as mentally he was in "critical condition" and had no idea what was happening to him. In short... he does not believe ( and will never be convinced) that the marriage had much to do at all with his mental and emotional health at the time. And...he is very very sorry . It was about him, not about me or about our marriage.

I also know to keep conversations short. I need to show appreciation when he sticks with hard conversations and get on with the day. Conversations about the OW and what she meant are very difficult and painful , but they seldom happen . There is not much left to say about her and her part in the disaster.  Conversations are difficult and I do believe that there always will be reminders of what happened . Always.

[xyzcf]

He does not believe "for a second" that our marriage was a catalyst or the reason for his MLC. Not for one second...and he if very adamant. He says he has learned a lot in therapy as far as what happened to him internally, emotionally and mentally ...and none of it was about our marriage...or me. If he had have been a single man ..this still would have happened. If he had an absolutely perfect marriage , this still would have happened. He says "he has been taught" in therapy all about the repercussions of his FOO issues and had they played out in his crisis at the age of 55. These issues were always there...long before he ever met me. He was destined to "crash and burn" and is not sure what ( if anything) could have prevented that . He believed "at the time" that everything I said to him had " 2 meanings". He spun every single word I said in to a "negative" inside his head and that I was trying to "trick and manipulate " him into doing everything my way. It was about control ...when he was out of control. It was about false perceptions, chronic negatives from me, his boss, his co-workers ..even his daughters. It was about suppressed rage from decades of abuse as a child floating to the top of his life to be dealt with and no amount of work, money, avoidance ...would make them lay dormant any longer. It was his time to reconcile his pain. He believes we had a good marriage...some troubles along the way but nothing that ever ever would have catapulted him into a deep identity crisis ..the map for that had been brewing all his life. He believes he should have been hospitalized as mentally he was in "critical condition" and had no idea what was happening to him. In short... he does not believe ( and will never be convinced) that the marriage had much to do at all with his mental and emotional health at the time. And...he is very very sorry . It was about him, not about me or about our marriage.

Thank you barbiedoll for having the courage to bring this up with him and for sharing this with us.

For days I have been reading and thinking about this thread and to be honest, I don't like it. Even the suggestion that the LBSer is at fault for their crisis turns my stomach. Every marriage has some "problems" but I would say that the majority of marriages pre BD did not have such severe problems to warrant the end of decades of a good marriage and family life. That we did not cause them to have an affair or develop the various addictions which they have.

10 years after BD, we were together as a family for a few days over Christmas. He is still in crisis, he is still running.

On the premise of this thread, is it something I have done in the last 10 years that continues to contribute to his crisis? I have had limited contact with him, we have not even lived in the same country, 9 years after BD he divorced me, totally out of the blue.

Sure, we can look back on our marriages, we all do it but I stand by the "theory" that MLC is not about the spouse and not about the marriage and the implication that somehow we are also at fault may be causing some LBSers to rewrite the history of their story, that somehow they are to blame for this.

Everything barbie's husband says resonates especially this:

These issues were always there...long before he ever met me.

[Treasur]

Thank you, Barbie, for having the courage to have that conversation and share it here. I hope that this thread served a purpose for you (and your h) in fostering that conversation.

And xyzcf, your logic about their ongoing crisis and behaviour long after we are absent from their lives is a useful reminder of reality too.

For those of us with a vanisher, we never get to have these conversations usually or indeed to see much of their behaviour afterwards. Every situation is a sample of one of course and older timers learn to be cautious about their own assumptions or denial. So I honestly don't know if my xh would feel or say the same now or years later. But he has followed some other bits of the crazy script and has FOO ahoy so I suppose it must be possible that what you describe is as true in my situation as it was in yours, Barbie. Or in others reported here from further down the line. Accepting that possibility does help those of us who never got to have that conversation perhaps even if it does not change our situation. It would be an awful extra burden to believe that I caused this horror in any way or felt responsible for the abuse I received; whatever happened to my h and marriage just never felt like something in my control or influence really. Nothing I did made any difference to his thoughts, feelings or actions tbh; I do know that and that was perhaps one of the most shocking things about it.

[OffRoad]

Why is it, does anyone think, that when asked if our marriage could be a catalyst for MLC, A)some people think someone is trying to blame the LBS for the marriage issues ("nothing I could have done" ) or B) That it was a "cause" rather than just being something that increases the reaction (ie, the mlcer feels "stuck" or trapped, 100%on the mlcer )

Is it a wording thing? Is it maybe a personality thing?

ETA: I ask because having chewed on this for a time previously, there was zero trigger, but I see it was very triggering for others. A catalyst is not a cause. It's a contributing factor, and can contribute in ways that are both helpful and/or harmful. I'd like to understand why the question seems to be bothersome .

[Disillusioned]

I've been wondering the same thing...

[Treasur]

Why is it, does anyone think, that when asked if our marriage could be a catalyst for MLC, A)some people think someone is trying to blame the LBS for the marriage issues ("nothing I could have done" ) or B) That it was a "cause" rather than just being something that increases the reaction (ie, the mlcer feels "stuck" or trapped, 100%on the mlcer )

Is it a wording thing? Is it maybe a personality thing?

ETA: I ask because having chewed on this for a time previously, there was zero trigger, but I see it was very triggering for others. A catalyst is not a cause. It's a contributing factor, and can contribute in ways that are both helpful and/or harmful. I'd like to understand why the question seems to be bothersome .

I suppose I interpreted catalyst as something that sets off a chain of events...so was the fractured marriage (that I didn't fracture imho) unbeknownst to me something that set off my h's crisis....and as the 'crisis' wasn't very nice from my POV it is hard to see it as helpful lol. Idk it just felt like a tails I lose, heads I lose question maybe? The trigger for me about it was that I simply can't know so it was a bit of a gaslighting risk. Having said that, it is quite possible that the m was a contextual factor for my xh and indeed that he saw/sees it as a catalyst....I just don't feel like owning responsibility for things I didn't know and things he never said. Which with a vanisher is maybe a trigger too if that makes sense?

Maybe it is the place where my residual anger lies? It just does not make sense to me to see my m as I experienced it as a catalyst for receiving death threats or being ghosted. My m was pretty normal: my h's behaviour was not. So it makes more sense to me to accept that the WTF stuff came from his head not my m if that makes sense...while accepting that he evidently saw it differently and presumably felt I deserved to die bc our m was so awful and/or that would make him happy.  ....the abuse is a trigger for me and feeling challenged to take responsibility for even partly creating  the situation that created that abuse just feels wrong. Jmo.

[OffRoad]

Thank you, Treasur. I can see that point of view. I often wonder if the marriage kept the mlc at bay for longer than if they had not been married.  That maybe the reason the BD was so abrupt was because we really are good people, and the marriage helped keep them sane, until nothing could help any longer and they just imploded. In that case, the marriage could be the catalyst for the mlcer's abrupt descent to Hell as opposed to a slow slide.